Political machinations about economics and environmental issues are similar.

Matthew Yglesias’ posts emphasizing the interconnectedness of the global economy and the need for coordination, like this one, are quite correct in pointing out that economies are not contained in little national boxes with policy levers nation-states can pull to goose aggregate demand, brake the rate of job loss, and so on at will. Indeed, having a sound sense of the extent of global economic interconectedness is tantamount to admitting rather hard limits on the ability of national monetary and fiscal interventions to fix things. . .

given globalization, effective stimulus is a lot like effective carbon-reduction policy: it requires overcoming incredibly difficult international coordination problems. One might argue that the global policy coordination problem is easier to solve if the U.S. is willing to be the first mover. But then one should also admit that the domestic efficacy of American stimulus is conditional on things beyond the control of American policymakers and that the odds of success are rather lower than most progressives have so far been willing to admit.

If I were a Democratic strategist, I would, like Matt, be broadcasting the importance of global coordination in order to prepare Americans for the possibility that domestic stimulus proves ultimately impotent in the face of a broader global decline. Democrats will then be able to say “At least we tried and it would have been worse if we hadn’t” in reply to Republicans keen to capitalize on the failure. If I were a Republican strategist, I would be pointing out how convenient it is for Democrats to have failed to mention the importance of perhaps unattainable global coordination when pushing through their plan.

This is way, way behind the cognition curve, but better than before. The dead weight still being dragged around is the idea that there are policy levers that could control economies or environments, even if there was a global government. There are two insurmountable problems: there is no global government, and it wouldn't matter if there was. Trying to control complex systems with various pokes and nudges is just silly.

Among many, many other reasons why this is so is that things are not neatly compartmentalized. You can't meaningfully discuss either the economy or the environment alone - they are inextricably bound to one another. Worse, we have only the dimmest grasp of how either complex system works internally. We don't know the internals and we can't account for the effects of external impacts.

Authoritarians are terrorized by these truths and so they stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly to evade any useful cognition. Things are out of control and uncontrollable no matter how hard they clamp down. Indeed, clamping down usually makes things worse, something like poking a hornet's nest with a stick.

We have an opportunity to learn some hard lessons. We won't learn how to behave well, but we may at least gain some understanding of bad behavior.