Introduction

...Some of this policy analysis has been valuable, but the entire endeavor suffers from being overly centered on the United States...

...Nations that attempted to grow their way out of the recessions of 1974 to 1975 and 1979 to 1980 found themselves plagued by inflation, capital flight, growing trade deficits, and irresistible pressures to devalue their currency...

...Mead argues that social democrats and liberals must work to construct new international institutions and create a new world economic order that promotes rising wages and economic growth throughout the world...

...The globalization of economic activity was largely responsible for the crisis in social democratic, Keynesian policy in the 1970s and 1980s...

...The best-known example of the political crisis that continues to plague socialists in Europe and liberals in the United States was that of French President Mitterrand, who was forced to scrap much of his bold economic program and accept high unemployment and growing wage inequality...

...If one asks why the U.S...

...Because Mead's analysis focuses on different aspects of the global economy than Faux's, his proposed solutions have a different focus...

...Walter Russell Mead contrasts the global economic framework of the Golden Age, what he calls the Bretton Woods era, with the unstable, stagnationbiased disorder of the current order...

...budget deficits did not spur economic growth in the United States, as one might have expected, because imported goods accounted for much of the increase in consumption...

...Even the nations that have run the largest trade surpluses with the United States—Japan and West Germany—experienced significantly slower growth in the years from 1973 to 1989 than they did in the Golden Age of Capitalism, from 1948 to 1973...

...This perspective has led many policy analysts to propose increased labor-business-government cooperation in industrial policy making, increasing social investment to enhance productivity and social austerity to boost national competitiveness...

...The solutions that Faux proposes require that labor become increasingly international in outlook and action...

...See Robert Kuttner's article "Slouching Toward Pluralism," Dissent, Spring 1989...

...As capital has become increasingly mobile, Faux argues, labor has lost much of its bargaining power and political leverage...

...The United States has been able to sustain large budget and trade deficits without starving domestic business investment, as one might have expected, because foreign capital has flooded into the United States to take advantage of high American interest rates...

...High levels of capacity utilization have not driven up prices, as one might have expected, because cheap imports are available from all corners of the globe...

...Jeff Faux's piece in the current issue looks at the question from the viewpoint of capital and labor...

...And what sort of economic program could left movements throughout the world pursue to reverse this trend...

...In reality, economic growth has slowed in almost every part of the world...

...SUMMER • 1990 • 375...

...And in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, slow global economic growth has meant social disaster...

...Dissent has commissioned a series of articles to help readers understand the complex political challenge posed by the growing globalization of production and finance...

...economy is declining, one tends to emphasize such factors as declining productivity rates, insufficient private savings and investment, failed governmental policies, and insufficient social investment in such areas as education and infrastructure...

...How can we account for the slowdown of global economic growth...