Prof. John Komlos

The Economic History of the Rise of Trumpism

Conventional wisdom holds that economic dislocations played a crucial role in persuading a sufficient number of voters, especially in the Rust Belt, to take the dramatic step to unseat the establishment by voting for someone President Obama once called a “carnival barker”. For John Komlos, Trump’s election is probably best considered as revolutionary, reminiscent of the political developments in wake of the crash of 1929, recalling the extent to which financial crises can lead to severe disruptions in the political arena in unanticipated ways. Trump’s election was probably the outcome unleashed by a long-run process of policies that neglected the plight of the uneducated beginning with Reagan’s trickle-down economics that failed to trickle. Moreover, the skills of many in the labour force were not well matched to gain from the powerful forces of hyper-globalisation.

Consequently, the current situation of the US is best conceptualised as a dual economy in which the unskilled are excluded from the promises of globalisation and are experiencing stagnating or even declining wages, increasing debt, downward social mobility and the concomitant hopelessness, while at the other end of the skill distribution the economy is doing quite well. The final blow to the unskilled came with the financial deregulation that culminated in the meltdown of 2008 and which exacerbated their situation. While Barack Obama’s bailout of the financial sector was successful, he neglected the difficulties of those Hillary Clinton flippantly referred to as “deplorables”. In turn, the deplorables revolted and supported a “carnival barker” whose empty promises to bring back jobs, resuscitate the coal-mining industry and “Make America Great Again” resonated with those whose hopes and dreams had been neglected by five previous administrations.

During his stay in Munich, John Komlos will work on and discuss the recent developments in the US economy that culminated in the election of Donald Trump in 2016. He will deliver three CES Lectures on “The Economic History of the Rise of Trumpism”.

John Komlos is Emeritus Professor of Economic History and of Economics at the LMU. He has a PhD in History and a second PhD in Economics, both from the University of Chicago. He is a Fellow of the CESifo Research Network.