Everything but the Economy, stupid

Faith in times of despair

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It was a catchy phrase

Back in 1992, when the embers of the Cold War were warm and the internet was science fiction, the Democratic strategist Jim Carville coined the term “the economy, stupid”—often quoted as “it's the economy, stupid." The rest is history. Bill Clinton won the US presidential election and ended homophobia with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He fought and ended, from 5,000 meters above, the Yugoslavian conflict (the war that ended all wars in Europe). He brokered conversations that began in Oslo and continued in Camp David, and delivered peace between Israel and Palestine. In between sax solos, he wiped out the American crime epidemic and put prison populations in check with the “three strikes" policy. And, most importantly, the president revolutionized traditional American family values, before polyamory was even a thing.

It was the ’90s, the decade that proclaimed a characteristic Hollywood-style happy ending to history. But it started in troubled waters: the end of the USSR came with a recession that was felt in homes across the nation during the first years of the decade. It was the hangover after the party. In this context, to set sights on the economy during the presidential campaign was the obvious approach—and a successful one. An approach that is quoted and followed today, more than 30 years later, stupid.

The forces of nature vs the nature of force

The publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in the late 18th century marks the beginning of modern economics. By borrowing the natural sciences’ empirical method, and using it to study how societies produce, distribute, and consume products and services, economics exited the realm of dark magic. The economy, just like the natural world, was subject to relations of cause and effect. By understanding those relations, men—and only men—had predictive capabilities and could manipulate the economy and correct its imbalances. Much in the same way we harnessed the forces of nature to generate the energy we need to run hospitals, airports, and platforms where we can post pictures of the poached eggs we had for brunch.

This line of thinking works as long as you accept a fundamental assumption: the way our economy works is naturally ordained. The economy, in other words, is one of the many forces of nature. The ultimate interpretation of laissez-faire ideology brings you there. Do nothing; the economy will take its due course and force us towards a better civilization. Doubting capitalism is like doubting gravity.

But capitalism isn't like the forces of gravity that are beyond our control. Capitalism is only 500 years old. Before capitalism, we had feudalism. Before that, the Roman Empire had slavery as its organizing principle. And this is just in the so called western world. There are infinite shapes a society can take. As many as anyone wants to imagine. And in everyone's version, the rules—not laws—are different. It's no wonder capitalism took off after the reformation. If we can all interpret the bible in our own way, our duty is to build a society that is a reflection of that interpretation. Capitalism isn't a force of nature, it's an act of faith.

Pray for the best

If you think I sound like a typical atheist ranting against religion and in favor of reason, you're missing the point. The tenets of science are just as arbitrary as the tenets of faith. One is a view of existence based on reason, the other on revelation. Consequently, the framework of faith and the framework of reason have irreconcilable differences. As a result, the tools of the natural sciences are useless for the interpretation of a society's economy because the economy lives in the realm of faith. Or sometimes, when we are lucky, in the philosophical territory. When less fortunate, in the land of ideology.

And here we are, in the year 32 EE, economic era. The economists—or evangelists, call them what you will—preaching their material faith, tell us all about the decrease in extreme poverty, the growing global middle class, the reduction in child mortality, the digital revolution and the internet, the increase in global GDP and trade, and the decline in global violence. It sounds as if the second coming isn't a literal physical being; it's a new world order. One that we now see in its full glory.

But not all is well in paradise. The cracks are starting to show. Extreme poverty was replaced with increased relative inequality. A larger middle class, fueling growth through consumption, is driving us toward levels of environmental degradation with unknown consequences. To those living in the middle of conflicts, in a world with enough destructive power to obliterate the planet, the decline of global violence is of little comfort.

The blind leading the blind

Who are our leaders in this uncertain era? There are all kinds of prophets that come and go. However, there is one that is particularly fitting for this time of religious economic belief: Argentina's president, Javier Gerardo Milei. An obscure former college economics professor, TV personality, and self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist.

To overly simplify matters, you could say Argentina’s economy wasn't doing well. In that case, it seemed fitting, in the economic era, to have an economist/believer leading the country. Who other than a priest would know which rituals would gain the favor of the economic gods and take the Argentine people out of their misery? Even if the southern nation has to sacrifice an entire generation, if it puts an end to their troubles, it would be worth it. And what does Dr. Milei—as he calls himself—prescribe? Nothing. Who are we to intervene in the work of God? If suffer we must, suffer we will. The economy works in mysterious ways.

However, the economy doesn't work in mysterious ways. We know exactly how it works because we are the economy. It's made up of the actions taken by you, me, my neighbor, the one percent, and the 99 percent. Nothing regarding the economy is ordered by nature. Seeing the economy as an external force wraps our society in a veil of inevitability, which can only favor the already favored.

That’s why it’s everything but the economy. We need prophets that preach to new gods—gods that reward us when we cooperate instead of compete, that understand that happiness through consumption is morally questionable. Not because it’s environmentally unsustainable, but because it’s ethically, emotionally, and intellectually unfulfilling.

As the schism of the church, which began almost a thousand years ago, brought to the surface the moral attitudes that fed the emergence of capitalism, today we need a new schism that will question the foundations of this economic era. Just as past philosophers proclaimed the death of God, the proclamation of the death of the economy is forthcoming. It will be within this new moral framework that we can retire the economy to the realm of myth. Something ancient peoples from the past believed in, to the dismay of future societies.