https://vimeo.com/420402952

If Biden wins and doesn’t take on the deep structural changes that are needed, he will prepare the waters for the next Trump or worse. Rob Johnson on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay

Transcript

Paul Jay: Hi, I'm Paul Jay, and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. As the COVID health crisis deepens and the economic crisis intensifies, it's becoming very clear how important it is to have more a centrally planned and publicly owned health care system. If you compare the results in different countries around the world, those with government health care insurance and even more, those with publicly owned hospitals, have been able to respond to the crisis in a much more effective way than in the American more anarchistic system made up of mostly private hospitals or non-profits that operate like for-profits. 

 

Central planning and public ownership. This crisis is showing how important it is, but is it only in the healthcare sector that it's needed? Yet, American mainstream politics is as far from accepting the concept of more public ownership as one could imagine. 

But this crisis has changed a lot of perceptions. Now joining us to talk about all of this is Rob Johnson. He's the president of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, INET as it's called, and host of a new podcast produced by INET, Economics and Beyond. Previously, Johnson was a managing director at the Soros fund management, where he managed a global currency bond and equity portfolio specializing in emerging markets, and particularly in Asia.

Johnson served as chief economist of the US Senate banking committee between 1987 and 89. Thanks for joining us, Rob.  

Rob Johnson: It's my pleasure. 

Paul Jay: So, if you go back to the 1930s and the Rooseveltian New Deal, he was imposing a fair amount of central planning, within the capitalist framework. He even talked about public ownership. When he said that he was talking specifically about electrical utility companies and stated that if the private sector couldn't deliver electricity in an affordable way, in such a critical sector of the economy, then it should be turned into a publicly owned utility. He was taking that concept a lot further than any leading American political figure has talked about since. Now we're in this moment where there is chaos reigning throughout, not just the American healthcare system, but just about everything else, including finance. What is there to learn from Roosevelt about what kind of reforms might be needed now, and perhaps  going beyond anything Roosevelt did or proposed?

Rob Johnson: Well, Paul, I think the story of Roosevelt is a fascinating one. A number of things come to mind. First, Roosevelt did not enter office, viewed as a progressive, radical visionary. He kind of looked like an aristocrat or a, how would I say, a part of the ruling class, and he rose to the occasion.

And I guess why I'm bringing this up is because the new deal and the structures and the taking on of power and the four freedoms and all these things. Where this man who had suffered – I’ll come into the health a little bit later - had suffered from polio and there was an empathetic strand within him as a person, and he got to a place where he could see, under his leadership, we weren't going to get to a healthy place unless he made some profound changes in, what you might call, what you would abide. Not to bring the big Lebowski into it, but he did not abide the control of the utilities. He did not abide the ruling class cabal and the New Deal inspired many people who were not part of the elite.