William Pearse

However, despite pillaging the planet and endangering our existence, we still find time for solidarity and charity, betraying a nature seemingly as generous as it is destructive. Recent events draw attention to this paradox, coronavirus triggering swells of heart-warming community spirit as well as the hoarding of toilet paper. Which leads to the question: given such a paradox, what, if anything, does it mean to be human? 

Das klingt einfach, aber die Frage ist in der Tat vielschichtig. Man muss zunächst begreifen, was mit dem jeweiligen Begriff genau gemeint ist. Und in der gegenwärtigen, polarisierten politischen Situation, in der beide Begriffe mit manchmal vorsätzlicher, rücksichtsloser Leichtfertigkeit umhergeworfen werden, kann das schwierig sein. Bedauerlich in den Augen der einen; Die Roadmap zur Utopie der anderen. Viele sind verständlicherweise verwirrt. Wie sollte man sich fühlen, wenn man ein kapitalistisches Schwein genannt wird?

In the words of Economist, Dambisa Moyo, the answer is zero: African people ‘are worse off; much worse off… aid has helped make the poor poorer, and growth slower’. A strong condemnation this may be, but Moyo's assessment is no outlier. Development expert, William Easterly, has drawn similar conclusions – his study ‘Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth’ revealing an inverse correlation between aid and per capita growth.

Our support, we promise, is, and will forever be, unfaltering - we recognise how tough things currently are. University life is in flux, campuses are mostly shut, and there’s little idea when, if ever, things will return to their pre-COVID ways - that is for those whose memories extend that far. Life is characterised by zoom calls, lagging voices and frozen faces, of cursing your internet connection and being proud that you’re yet to trash your misbehaving laptop. Stuck at home, though, it’s also the perfect time (we think at least) to get started with some microeconomics.

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq three years later was supposed to mark the decline of its influence, a decline that was widely believed would be terminal. After a decade of war, people were weary and with inequality spiralling, problems at home were considered of greater concern than escapades abroad. It felt like a spent force.

Economists, so the story goes, had successfully grasped the essence of human behaviour: rational, and, therefore, highly predictable. With this discovery, an age-old question whose answer for millennia had eluded humanity was finally laid to rest. Where philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists had failed, economists had struck gold. They had cracked it. As a result, imperfect theories - as economic theories inherently are - started to be treated as laws of nature, like facts, and confidence among economists erred towards hubris.

Whether America will see a wealth tax in the foreseeable future is moot - certainly, vested interests will leave no stone unturned in its attempt to thwart it. Nevertheless, it’s now part of the conversation, and its growing popularity among the public suggests it’s here to stay. But why now?

Education is complicit

It's the bane of most economists' lives, and it's never been so important. Jobs, tenure, not to mention reputation, all heavily rely on getting published – often regularly. Unsurprisingly, given its significance, there's much to consider when approaching journals. Where your work is published can have a huge effect on how it's perceived, how many people it reaches, and what kind of profile engages with it. Alarm bells need not ring, though, this article will walk you through the process, and ensure your work finds its rightful home.

Although over a decade later neoliberalism is yet to be replaced, its grip on power has considerably loosened, the pandemic – and all its attendant injustice – forcing the most recent reckoning with its shortcomings. It’s a process we can see in real time, with new political formations emerging on both the right and left. Indeed, alternatives that in previous years would have been dismissed as too radical, utopian or even regressive, are now earnestly discussed as people seek an exit from the current political model. 

Increasingly sidelined, the one-time arbiter of sensible, down-to-earth politics, has seen its stock plummet and the centre-ground left barren, sparsely populated by members of a fading political establishment. As Mehdi Hasan has observed, ‘labels like 'centrist' and 'moderate,' which common sense tells us should reflect the views of a majority… have come to be applied to those who represent minority interests and opinions”. But why? How exactly has this come to pass? And where, if anywhere, does the future of the centre lie?

These aren’t easy questions, the rancorous nature of current American politics evidence of their polarising nature. Nevertheless, as social expectations are raised, they require constant reappraisal, for certain injustices necessitate government intervention. Research has shown that gender equality, especially, is reliant on an active, intervening state to provide things the market has historically failed to offer and that are vital to progress - namely parental leave and childcare.

However simple sounding this choice may be, the question is, in fact, a tricky one. What’s even meant by each term? In the current polarised political climate, where both are bandied about and often weaponised, definitions have blurred. Deplorable in the eyes of some, the roadmap to utopia to others. Many are understandably confused. What should one make of being branded a champagne-sipping socialist? Or a capitalist pig? To make sense of it all, we have delineated each term as concisely as possible.

You got the degree. At great emotional and crippling financial cost, you got it. Three years of hard(ish) graft, done. Never to be repeated, either; your liver feels permanently weakened. You then finished the internship. Long, unpaid and comprising of little, it was probably worth it: everyone seemed insistent you did it, and you did. It served one important purpose at least. Brought up-to-date, with the font size adjusted to 24, your CV finally ran to a full side of A4. Emboldened, you began the job hunt.

We understand how difficult it’s been in these last months, the fear, frustration, and now, more recently, the boredom. Many have picked up new hobbies to pass the time, some have started learning a new language, and others, even, have experimented with exercise... As admirable as these endeavours are, a trick is still being missed. For what better way could there be to emerge from all of this madness than with a better grasp of... macroeconomics. Yes, there is none. You’re in luck, too.

But what of people's lives? With records being broken, and figures heralded as ‘the best ever’, you'd be forgiven for presuming people’s lives were improving in parallel, that the numbers translated into more than just useful soundbites. For most this is yet to happen. In explanation, economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has denied that the nation’s economic health has experienced a marked improvement, claiming ‘neither GDP nor the Dow is a good measure of economic performance, for neither tells us what’s happening to ordinary citizens’ living standards’.

Many operate at the highest levels of governance, where economists comprise an integral cog within the policy-making machine. From this lofty position, their male experience, along with that of their political counterparts, permeates the legislative process, and consequently, male interests - intentionally or otherwise - are formally prioritised and coded into the law. For despite claims to the contrary, no economic decision can be gender neutral; the diverging roles men and women play in the economy make it impossible.

Its defining feature lies in the assumption that production, rather than demand, is the primary factor in creating and sustaining economic growth. To that end, its proponents advocate the lowering of taxes and removal of regulation. Less taxation, they claim, means more profits for businesses. Then, freed of red-tape and compelled by self interest, those businesses can reinvest their increased earnings to generate a larger supply of goods and jobs. It’s thus that the economy grows - tax cuts pay for themselves.

Perhaps a worse indictment, however, is that for many they never had much effect. They never came close to capturing their actual reality: the shortage of food, the fragmentation of community, the political alienation. While coping with these concerns, that the 1% had further increased their collective wealth by X trillion dollars was only ever background noise, a little salt on the wound. Statistics of this kind may sell newspapers, but they don’t capture experience.