The 1990s started with optimism. The Cold War was over. The Soviet Union was gone. Free markets and democracy appeared to be on the march, placing pressure on countries to break down trade barriers and embrace technological change that promised to transform information sharing and the free flow of capital across the world. This optimism was accompanied by trepidation: what would the “new capitalism” have in store for workers as the power of organized labor withered on the vine of globalization?
At a news conference to kick off his campaign to push the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress in late 1993, President Clinton challenged Americans to embrace the changes sweeping the globe. Free trade, he claimed in words he would later regret, would create jobs and prosperity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Mr. Clinton would later champion China’s entry into the World Trade Organization at a time when policymakers and public intellectuals believed China would liberalize its politics by creating wealth for its people.
In this episode, labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein of the University of California, Santa Barbara discusses his timely new book, “A Fabulous Failure,” which charts the Clinton administration’s move away from the outdated policies of New Deal or Keynesian liberals toward a neoliberal worldview of free trade and Wall Street hegemony. Mr. Lichtenstein picked up the project after listed co-author Judith Stein died in 2017 and wrote the book himself.
Can the origins of today’s populist backlash against globalization be traced to the neoliberal policies of the Clinton administration? “I wanted to make absolutely clear that the late 1990s were a very favorable moment. They called it the Goldilocks economy. Not too hot, not too cold. But I do think that it was sort of built on sand,” Mr. Lichtenstein said.
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