The pre-eminent root cause of Trump's victory is American capitalism which created widespread discontent with the existing order on which he thrived as a rank outsider, promising root-and-branch change
Donald J Trump, pace most pundits, won the United States’ presidential election by successfully mobilising the support of multiple segments of white American society, each furious with the existing order for a specific core issue. These include anger over the progress toward equality made by African Americans symbolised by Barack Obama’s ascent to presidency, fear and suspicion of latinos, Muslims and Asians; opposition to immigration, particularly from Mexico; the apprehension that they were losing control over the destiny of their country to a distant “Washington”; anger over job losses following the shifting of American manufacturing units abroad, and growing automation at home. The last one, which alienated blue-collar workers from the Democratic Party, of which they had been solid supporters, and intensified the resentment of the other segments by adding an economic element to the fear/prejudice factor, played a critical role in Hillary Clinton’s defeat. The others were results of prejudice, racism and ignorance.
The closure/shifting of American manufacturing units reflect a crisis in American capitalism. That this should prompt those affected to support Trump appears absurd because the latter himself is a capitalist. The fact, however, is that the crisis in American capitalism has created the widespread discontent with the existing order on which he thrived as a rank outsider promising root-and-branch change. But why did people trust him despite his not spelling out any of the measures he proposed to take on the economic and other frontsIJ The reason is that the realities of modern life are complex. Understanding, for example, the causes of recession and measures to prevent it and steer a country of it, requires a knowledge of economics, which most ordinary citizens, in the US and elsewhere, do not have. Similarly, one need at best some knowledge to judge issues relating to foreign policy, national and global security, the environment and so on which, again, most people lack. Hence, they believe versions provided by sources or leaders they have confidence in.
Why, however, did people repose such confidence in Trump given his abrasive ways, attitude toward women, questions about his mental stability, business practices, contemptuous and racist remarks and abusive attitude toward his opponentsIJ Perhaps American males who voted for him did not think such things mattered. Equally, most of his voters could have been so alienated with the system that they overlooked all allegations and supported him because he posed a total challenge to it as an outsider, against Clinton who, they felt, would protect it given her long stint as an important insider.
The basic cause of this extreme alienation is that American capitalism has failed them miserably, the most striking example of this being the Great Recession that began in 2008. Joseph Stiglitz writes in Free Fall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy, “In the Great Recession that began in 2008, millions of people in America and all over the world lost their homes and jobs. Many more suffered the anxiety and fear of doing so, and almost anyone who put money away for retirement or a child’s education saw their investments dwindle to a fraction of their value.”
This understandably caused intense anger in America’s low and middle income population which was the hardest hit. The country’s politically conscious elements were also angry against the system that enabled all this to happen by relaxing, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the regulatory mechanism for the banks and other financial institutions. This permitted the proliferation of shady and risky lending practices which jolted the system.
The resentment caused by all this became more intense when people responsible for the Recession went scot free with a few receiving light punishments. Indeed, many of them received sharply increased bonuses allegedly out of the public money their firms received to keep them afloat. This, in turn, led to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that, after a significant surge, collapsed in the teeth of tough Government action, which increased people’s anger against the system.
Another manifestation was the swelling support that Senator Bernie Sanders’ bid for the Democratic presidential nomination received before failing, which many attributed to manipulation by the Democratic Party establishment dominated by Clinton. The resentment against her intensified among Sanders’ supporters. Even though he himself supported her, many of his supporters did not and some of them reportedly even voted for Trump.
At the root of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement as well as the surge behind Sanders’ candidature, was the 2008 Great Recession. Was this crisis systemicIJ It had been preceded by other crises, the most disastrous being the one that started in 1929. In his 1975 introduction to his The Great Crash 1929, Prof John Kenneth Galbraith called it “the greatest cycle of speculative boom and collapse in modern times-since, in fact, the South Sea Bubble.” He further says, “The crash blighted the fortunes of hundreds and thousands of Americans.”
Every system, this writer has always felt, has two dimensions — first, its goals and the means it deploys, and, second, its functional mechanism. Interdependent, both can be amended. The first is perhaps more important because it raises the question of ethics and proclaims that the deliberate manipulation of a system to serve the interests of the few at the cost of the many, as immoral. The psychological dimension is critically important. As Galbraith writes in The Great Crash 1929, “Far more important than the rate of interest and supply of credit, is mood. Speculation on a large-scale requires a pervasive sense of confidence and optimism and conviction that ordinary people were meant to be rich. People must also have faith in the good intentions and even in the benevolence of others, for it is by the agency of others that they will get rich.”
A mood dominated by a blend of avarice and optimism and the determination to get rich at any cost, can, as a bubble grows, lead to reckless measures of dubious morality that heralds a crash. Every capitalist system must have a sound mechanism in place to prevent this from happening. A reasonably good one was established after the Great Depression that ended in 1933. It was relaxed as the memory of the nightmare had dimmed. The relasxation in the 1990s led to the disaster that began in 2008. The systemic weakness of capitalism is its inability to establish a permanent and effective machinery to keep speculation under control. Unless this is remedied recurrence of crises can lead to extreme reactions and crises of democracy.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)