I mean, is that a great phrase? It’s great to us in retrospect, because we agree with the things it did and stood for. ![]() Now let’s talk about the phrase, the New Deal. I think middle-out actually is more evocative and says more. Michael: To me, they popularized it to a certain extent and I don’t think it’s that great a phrase. So supply-side economics became all the rage on the right and caught on in the country in the Reagan years.įelicia: Did they really say supply-side or did they really say shrink government, drown it in a bathtub, cut your taxes? I don’t think my dad ever said supply side. Michael: I’m thinking now about the slogans that have been used and have been effective over the course of history, slogans for political programs and slogans for new economic thinking. And middle out, it still doesn’t get me there. So I am looking for something that describes a future economy that is much more tangible and much more tactile. And I think we’re building toward things like better public education, better housing for more people, a green economy, solar and wind and transmission and public transportation. It doesn’t have a very concrete North Star. It doesn’t really describe what we are building toward. But here is why I think middle-out is necessary but insufficient. No marketing director would ever run around and say post-neoliberal and put it on some banner. So I totally agree that post-neoliberal, even though many of us talk in that way, that’s not how you would really try to sell anything. And let me just say that this idea of post-neoliberal economics or even supply-side progressivism or industrial strategy, which are all terms that people like Brian Deese use, people like Janet Yellen use, those were never intended as slogans to talk to people who aren’t already in the middle of it. Look, I totally understand what you’re saying. ![]() So I think we ought to just adopt it by acclamation. It describes in two or three words what the policy is. ![]() And I think the middle out comes as close as anything that I’ve ever heard. So we need a phrase for what we’re trying to do that makes an assertion. Well, post anything is not a slogan, that’s not describing something active and that’s not making an assertion. We keep talking about how we’re in the post-neoliberal era. I understand the search for a better phrase, but it’s been a few years now, Felicia, and I just haven’t heard one. Michael: Obviously, I like the phrase, as I used it for my most recent book, which was called The Middle Out, The Rise of Progressive Economics in Return to Shared Prosperity, which came out last year. ![]() I think one way to think about bottom-up and middle-out is in contrast to trickle down. And we talked about this on our very first episode with Brian Deese, who was then the director of the President’s National Economic Council.īrian Deese : The president does say it over and over again, and it’s his way of articulating economic philosophy. It’s a term that people hear Joe Biden use all the time that describes an economic policy focused on strengthening the middle class, that growth comes from strengthening and giving security and solidarity to the middle class. It’s just a phrase and the phrase is the middle-out.
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