Book Review: J. Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 2022).

In 2016, President Barack Obama guest-edited the November issue of Wired magazine, contributing an essay that described the virtues of the present age and America’s bright future. He declared, “Because the truth is, if you had to choose any time in the course of human history to be alive, you’d choose this one. Right here in America, right now.” ¹ J. Bradford DeLong, author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, would most likely share the former president’s opinion but would also argue that America in 2016 had the potential to be much better than it was. In Slouching Towards Utopia, DeLong attempts to explain the state of the contemporary world through the economic history of the last one-hundred fifty years.²

It’s an ambitious undertaking, requiring breathtaking research and in-depth knowledge over multiple fields. DeLong appears to have the right qualifications for the project. He’s a professor of economics at U.C. Berkeley and a former official in the Clinton Administration’s Treasury Department. In addition, DeLong is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and writes a Substack named Grasping Reality. He is the author of numerous journal articles and books, including The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money (2009) coauthored with Stephen S. Cohen.³ Finally, as an academic, DeLong covers a surprisingly broad range of topics, from economic history to finance to macroeconomics.⁴

Given the scope of his project, DeLong aptly describes the book as his “grand narrative.” Published in 2022, Slouching Towards Utopia offers high-level political and economic history from 1870 to 2010, a period referred to as “the long twentieth century.” The world’s economy was “the most important historical thread” because this 140-year time span saw the end of “near-universal dire material poverty.” Starting in 1870, “full globalization, the industrial research laboratory, and the modern corporation” emerged to stimulate economic growth at levels never seen in history. The author correlates this pronounced economic expansion with the growth of useful knowledge, which grew exponentially alongside material wealth. The result was the global north’s enrichment: average income per capita in 2010 was 8.8 times its level from 1870. However, DeLong is careful to point out that economic and scientific progress was irregular, uneven, and often punctuated by war, with outcomes highly contingent on key individuals and events. Nevertheless, DeLong speculates that if a person from the nineteenth century knew about the massive increase in societal enrichment that was going to take place, that person would imagine that “the world of 2010 would be a paradise, a utopia…[having] enough power to manipulate nature and organize humans that all but the most trivial of problems and obstacles hobbling humanity could be resolved.” Unsurprisingly, the author is quick to dismiss this notion, pointing to lower rates of economic growth after 2010 as well as the ineffectual responses of Western governments to challenges such as income inequality, internal division, and environmental degradation. DeLong writes, “We did not run to the trail’s end and reach utopia. We are still on the trail—maybe, for we can no longer see clearly to the end of the trail or even where the trail is going to lead.” Thus, “The history of the long twentieth century cannot be told as a triumphal gallop, or a march, or even a walk of progress along the road that brings us closer to utopia. It is, rather, a slouch. At best.”⁵

Ultimately, DeLong’s “grand narrative” fails to convince. This essay will address the many shortcomings of the book. In sum, Slouching Towards Utopia proves ineffective as a work of economic history, lacking analytical focus, advancing an ideological agenda that detracts from its scholarship, and generally failing to substantiate its thesis. This essay will first review the historical evidence and key arguments presented by DeLong. Following that, we will examine the weaknesses in his approach, analysis, and arguments.

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Before studying the evidence and arguments presented in Slouching Towards Utopia, it is important to consider DeLong’s use of the word “utopia.” While the word holds certain rhetorical value, the author does not use it carelessly. He acknowledges that utopian projects are often bloody affairs and quotes Immanuel Kant and Isiah Berlin, both of whom cautioned against systems designed for man’s perfection. In fact, it seems that “utopia” is used figuratively by DeLong to denote the general improvement of human conditions. He describes the remarkable levels of abundance, labor savings, and life extension in the Western world. Still, abundance does not make the world “recognizably utopian” as, in the author’s opinion, “economic history’s successes and failures are most often experienced in the margins.” This implies a strong inclination for welfare economics, and the primary policy concern of maximizing average marginal utility within a society.⁶ Again, DeLong would agree with President Obama’s view of America in 2016, but he would also argue America in 2016 had the potential to be much better than it was.

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This brings us to a discussion of the evidence and arguments presented in Slouching Towards Utopia. This is a synthesized, secondary source based academic work containing no original research. DeLong’s source material is comprised of secondary academic sources, news articles, materials published by think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, and government agency reports. In terms of organization, DeLong follows a rough chronological timeline of “the long twentieth century” but often shifts from a narrative format to a topical approach, dedicating entire chapters to specific topics such as communist Russia, economic development in the global south, and civil rights movements. Thus, the throughline of DeLong’s “grand narrative” is often hard to follow. This raises the question of whether the editing process needed to be more exacting. 

In a related issue, the actual economic and political-economic history presented is generally effective and insightful but is often diluted by the sheer amount of standard history (political, diplomatic, military, etc.) included in the book. While Slouching Towards Utopia wants to link major historical events to economics, DeLong’s excessive exposition on traditional history detracts from the focus of his thesis.

DeLong’s focus is on three forces that fundamentally shaped the global economy: technology, political systems, and the organization of labor and capital. Despite this aim, the book devotes most of its attention to political history, particularly in the United States. Slouching Towards Utopia begins in the mid-nineteenth century as the Second Industrial Revolution accelerated global economic growth after decades of technological innovations in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, communication, and energy (particularly the widespread use of fossil fuels).⁷ Invention, development, production, commercialization, and global trade were accelerated by two organizational advances: one, the industrial research laboratory which focused on R&D; two, the corporate organization that raised capital and employed professional managers. The United States was the focal point for the Second Industrial Revolution, putting it in a leadership position in the Western world and making it a destination for both foreign capital and labor (immigration).⁸ At the same time, Europeans extended their global empires leading to the domination of many countries in the “global south.”⁹ Prosperity brought about a larger middle class and the “global north”¹⁰ expanded democratic rights and the voting franchise but, regardless, countries like the United States, Great Britain, and France were still largely ruled by an elite class. Elite leadership was more-or-less accepted by the middle and working classes thanks to economic prosperity. At this point, DeLong portrays two competing political-philosophic approaches that were in conflict at this time. They are emblemized by two leading twentieth century intellectuals: Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi. DeLong’s use of Hayek and Polanyi is representational, with one standing for unfettered free market capitalism and the other standing for democratic socialism. Prior to World War I, Hayekian free-market philosophy was at its height among the ruling elite class. This status quo was challenged by populist movements that wanted to assert their “Polanyian rights” to share in societal wealth. This essay will revisit DeLong’s reductivist approach to economic thought and political philosophy in the next section.¹¹

Having covered the period between 1870 to 1914, Slouching Towards Utopia turns to the chaotic years of World War I, the interwar years, a communist state taking hold in Russia, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and World War II. These chapters are almost entirely standard history, offering “bottled histories” of each topic, with occasional allusions to economic matters. The end of World War I brought the end of the aristocratic “Old Order” in Europe, the dismantlement of Europe’s land empires, and the introduction of the United States as the potential global hegemon to replace Great Britain.¹² The post-war period saw economic recovery and high growth, particularly in the United States as its robust middle class drove purchases of consumer goods, cars, and houses. Unfortunately, European security remained an open question as the League of Nations proved toothless without American participation. Furthermore, the lack of financial coordination among governments and their central banks caused imbalances that would contribute to the Great Depression.¹³ Among the ramifications of the Great Depression were reversals of liberal democratic governance in Europe and the ascendency of new authoritarian regimes. DeLong argues the interwar period saw challenges to the “pseudo-classical semi-liberalism” adopted by Europeans, which allowed for the expansion of rights and democratic participation but was otherwise plutocratic and favored the elite class of Old Europe. Liberal reforms did not take place rapidly enough to satisfy the political demands of the masses in the global north, so fascism and socialism arose as alternatives.¹⁴ In the twenties and thirties, large numbers of disaffected Italians and Germans were open to the hyper-nationalist message of fascism and Nazism when it was coupled with a command-and-control state policy over the economy. Thus, the stage was set in Europe for a conflict between three conflicting ideological systems, a situation that was exasperated by the Great Depression.¹⁵

DeLong’s chapter on the Great Depression is almost entirely focused on the United States. There were multiple causes of the Great Depression–a topic still subject to debate among academics and policy makers. DeLong cites contributing factors such as central banks remaining on the gold standard, the breakdown in business lending, and the flight away from capital investment to safe financial assets (cash and bonds). More importantly, however, DeLong reprises the well-known Keynesian analysis of the situation: the catastrophic collapse of demand required the Federal Reserve to increase the money supply, and the U.S. government needed to create fiscal stimulus through massive spending in order to increase employment (similar to the policies pursued by the Scandinavian countries and Japan). In DeLong’s opinion, the Hoover Administration was ensorcelled by free market fundamentalism, so was willing to wait out the retraction and let markets recover in their own time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in contrast, led a new administration that was both pragmatic and open to experimentation. In short, the New Deal saw “Polanyian rights” triumph over Hayekian market fundamentalism. While the effectiveness of the New Deal is questionable, defense spending during World War II eventually stimulated U.S. economic growth—war being a less-than-ideal means of recovery.¹⁶

The strongest chapters of Slouching Towards Utopia examine the postwar global economy (Chapters 11, 12, and 14). The Cold War solidified United States leadership through security guarantees and economic alliances, laying the groundwork for the liberal international order. The Bretton Woods Conference initiated the design for a renewed global economy, creating crucial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). The Marshall Plan allowed Western Europe to rebuild their economies, and significant steps were taken toward economic union with the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (forerunner of the European Union). Perhaps more importantly, former Axis powers Germany and Japan had reconstituted, inclusive liberal democracies. Finally, the Cold War elevated U.S. defense spending which helped to provide ample domestic employment.¹⁷

In the United States, the postwar period solidified the New Deal’s approach to economic policy. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations did not attempt a “return to normalcy” like the Harding Administration had declared following World War I. To the contrary, programs like the GI Bill and the 1946 Employment Act expanded social welfare, while government spending grew to 18 percent of GDP. In DeLong’s opinion, the postwar economy was the highpoint of the long twentieth century, what he calls the “thirty glorious years of social democracy.” The G-7 countries experienced average annual GDP growth of 3 percent and global trade spread economic development to dozens of countries. Moreover, DeLong describes the United States, Western Europe, and other countries in the global north maintaining economic policy positions that melded the philosophies of Hayek, Polanyi, and Keynes: government programs were primarily focused on maintaining full employment, government agencies were active in both regulating and managing the economy, and governments offered generous social welfare programs. It was “something like a shotgun marriage” according to DeLong, where “Hayek and Polanyi awkwardly kept house under social democracy for decades—as long as the country was blessed with Keynes’s full employment.”¹⁸

There were both positive and negative consequences of the thirty glorious years. On the positive side, the “Asian Tiger” countries developed into more robust economies thanks to their highly focused industrial policies and the openness to free trade in the West. Developed, open economies like the United States and Western Europe were willing to absorb exports and run trade deficits. Development in the global south offered opportunities for industrial enterprises to move production to the “periphery” of the world economy in order to realize operating efficiencies in lower cost markets. Meanwhile, on the other hand, other global south countries struggled in the wake of decolonization and the Cold War. In some cases Western and Soviet intervention brought about warfare and strife (Vietnam, Angola). In other cases, countries fell victim to their own elite class running corrupt central governments or maintaining illiberal economic policies and programs that crippled the domestic economy (Argentina).¹⁹

This leads to the focus of the final chapters of Slouching Towards Utopia: neoliberalism. DeLong characterizes “neoliberalism” (a term he never defines) as right-wing and reactionary, the political consequence of issues such as (1) runaway inflation in the late sixties and throughout the seventies, (2) unproductive state-owned enterprises in Europe, (3) lower rates of productivity and real income growth in the West after 1973. Neoliberalism is cast as the villain in this book, and the author admits he is not fully objective in the remaining chapters.²⁰ Therefore, given DeLong’s admission, the remaining chapters can be quickly summarized. 

DeLong believes that neoliberal policies promoting free trade, private enterprise, lower marginal rates of taxes, low inflation, and deregulation resulted in lower educational achievement, under-investment in public infrastructure, lower rates of savings, environmental damage, high public debt, and income inequality (both within domestic economies and across the world), and—as a result—fractious politics and internal disunion. As one would expect, DeLong cites the work of Thomas Piketty, who characterized the present age as a new Gilded Age where wealth is inherited and not produced. DeLong admits the “neoliberal era” had years of rapid GDP growth, improvements to quality of life and cost of living measures, and also acknowledges income inequality is measured by segments and not individuals (i.e., the “top x%” is always changing its people). Still, the “neoliberal turn” was only going to bring about disaster in the form of the Great Recession.²¹

Of course, it took nearly thirty years for the disaster to arrive. 

In the meantime, throughout the “neoliberal era” there was a “Great Moderation” of less dramatic swings in the business cycle, with only two brief recessions. The Chinese government moved to pro-market reforms and international trade, joining the global economy. The Cold War ended. Information technology led to a Third Industrial Revolution. Shipping containers revolutionized global trade, leading to a far more integrated “hyper-globalized” world. This enabled more enrichment of the “global south” as new countries were able to participate in liberal international institutions. However, DeLong points out that not every country in the global south benefited, and many people felt harmed by the loss of manufacturing jobs in the global north. In other words, as every economist should know, economic decisions involve tradeoffs. DeLong discusses American de-industrialization (never mentioning automation and the fact that the U.S. industrial sector is over 10% of GDP), making the insightful observation that creative destruction was always an aspect of American capitalism, and factories have always closed and relocated. Furthermore, DeLong makes an interesting observation that in the nineties and aughts, offshoring did not impact working class incomes because manufacturing jobs were traded for jobs in distribution and construction.²²

In his final chapter, DeLong blames neoliberalism for the 2008 Financial Crisis, Great Recession, and the “anemic” recovery. There is little reason to discuss this chapter in any detail. DeLong attributes the Financial Crisis to neoliberal deregulation. Suffice it to say that the causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis are complicated and highly debatable, but U.S. government laws and policies favoring expanded home ownership played a significant role. As for the recovery, DeLong harkens back to the New Deal and regrets that the Obama Administration was overly conservative in scaling its recovery programs.

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This final section of this essay discusses major shortcomings and criticisms of Slouching Towards Utopia. 

Overall, Slouching Towards Utopia is a mediocre work of economic history, lacking analytical focus, advancing an ideological agenda that detracts from its scholarship, and generally failing to substantiate its thesis. Clearly, the book was written to appeal to a wide, non-academic audience. Unfortunately, the author appears distracted by contemporary elite class debates, writing a book that caters to a center-left, bien-pensant. Consequently, DeLong’s work is overly burdened with ideological chest pounding. Certainly the book fails as an academic work, but I really don’t see its mass audience appeal either. After reading the final chapters and conclusion, one might feel as though they have just finished an extensive—and boring—guest editorial from The Guardian. This is disappointing. One expects truth-seeking, balanced scholarship from a scholar of DeLong’s stature.

Too Much Focus on the U.S.

DeLong devotes most of the chapters to examining the United States. He shifts his analytical focus throughout the book but, in the end, this is an American-centric analysis. Granted, the U.S. is roughly 25% of global GDP. However, DeLong makes the elaborate claim that this is a “grand narrative” of economic history, his thesis supposedly explaining why the history of the “long twentieth century” is an economic story. There are sudden (and brief) shifts to other countries and, occasionally, discussions about aggregated trends across countries (e.g., the G7, the global north, etc.). And yet the final chapters on (or, really, against) neoliberalism are almost exclusively about the U.S. economy and its politics. It’s almost as if DeLong’s claim is the economic history of the “long twentieth century” is an American story. Perhaps that would have been a better book. 

Overly Broad Frame of Analysis

Another issue lies in DeLong’s analytical framework for the “long twentieth century.” I think Eric Hobsbawm’s “short twentieth century” is more defensible because both World War II and the Cold War were direct consequences of World War I. While DeLong claims to focus on economic history, the period between 1914 and 1989 was largely shaped by ideological conflict, overshadowing economic development.

In fact, DeLong tends to overlook the significance of the end of the Cold War (probably because neoliberals justifiably took credit for it). The subsequent wave of globalization following the end of the Cold War was even more enriching than the post-war period. Of course, this is an inconvenient fact that supports the neoliberal turn and goes against DeLong’s ideological fixation with the post-war American economy as a historical highpoint. Methodologically, I think it is clear the end of the Cold War was the key turning point between 1945 and 2022.

Moreover, there’s also the practical issue of diluting analytical focus by attempting to cover too broad a period. While DeLong’s chapters on the Gilded Age were interesting, I think they could have been covered in a single chapter that would set the stage for a more focused analysis of the economic history of the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Too Much Standard History

Slouching Towards Utopia is more of a political (and standard) history than an economic history. For example, the chapters on World War II and “Inclusion” do not offer any economic history. In fact, this material was reminiscent of the content found in high school textbooks. There are just too many pages devoted to side notes and distractions. For example, there’s a drawn-out discussion of German strategy and tactics in World War II, including four pages devoted to the collapse of the French army in 1940. Another example are the three pages spent discussing the Boar War (1899-1902) in the chapter on World War I.

DeLong’s chapter on fascism and Nazism offers nothing new. He meanders into a fruitless discussion about whether Nazism and fascism were really the same political system, or whether communism could be grouped with fascism/Nazism. None of this served the book’s hypothesis and, frankly, there are far better political histories of Europe than what DeLong manages to offer.

Missed Opportunities

There are several lacunae that undermined the overall coherence and analytical depth of this book. For example, in Chapter 2 DeLong discusses European immigration to the U.S. but only considers the causes of demand (i.e., rapid U.S. industrialization requiring more unskilled labor). He failed to discuss why so many Europeans and Asians were willing to immigrate to the US, missing the opportunity to discuss the backwards economies of autocratic governments in Italy, Austro-Hungary, the Russian Empire, and China. Another example was the lack of any discussion about the workings of the Eastern Bloc’s economies during the Cold War–which would ultimately fail in the 1980s. There was an opportunity to draw a contrast between the vying systems of East and West and, at least, explain why Russia’s economy collapsed in the late 1980s.

Historiographic Errors

DeLong’s historiographic efforts frequently fall short. If he wanted to write so much standard history he should have done more due diligence on his subjects.

For example, in discussing the Gilded Age, he perpetuates the academic myth that nineteenth century elites subscribed to the philosophy of “social Darwinism”²³ In fact, social Darwinism was a term coined by Richard Hofstadter in the 1940s, used as shorthand to represent elite beliefs in revisionist accounts of the Gilded Age. No one in the nineteenth century ever proclaimed, “According to social Darwinist theory…”

DeLong ignores the complex strategic situation in Europe and the diplomatic situation that resulted in declarations of war. Instead, DeLong reduces the outbreak of war to aristocratic hubris and emotion.²⁴ This is an overly simplistic explanation for the causes of World War I.

In discussing American politics in the 1920s, DeLong replicates the ubiquitous myth that America turned “isolationist” in the 1920s.²⁵ In fact, despite not ratifying the Treaty of Versailles nor joining the League of Nations, the U.S. was highly engaged in world trade and international diplomacy. In the 1920s, the U.S. led arms control treaties (Washington Naval Conference and the Kellogg-Briand Pact) and served as the key negotiator and financier for German war reparations to the Allies under the Treaty of Versailles. Moreover, the term “isolationist” was first used in the late 1930s during debates about U.S. intervention in Europe. It was a term used as a cudgel against anti-war and “America First” advocates.

Furthermore, DeLong’s economic history, i.e., the reason we’re reading the book in the first place, was poorly done in a few critical places. He failed to discuss the Hoover Administration’s economic policies during the Great Depression, many of which were continued by President Roosevelt: the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the home loan program, and federally funded infrastructure projects. It seems as if DeLong could not resist strengthening his narrative by linking Hoover to Hayekian market fundamentalism, which allowed him to draw a Manichean contrast between Hoover and Roosevelt. Furthermore, DeLong spends a number of pages criticizing Schumpeter and Hayek for urging non-intervention during the Depression. However, later in that same chapter, DeLong admits the New Deal’s policies failed to bring the U.S. out of the Depression. Clearly, he should have considered the arguments of Schumpeter and Hayek rather than just dismissing them.

Easily the worst part of this book is the attempted character assassination of Leo Strauss, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. DeLong, truly a man of the left, sought out exceptional and unrepresentative quotations from the 1930s to associate those men with Nazism and fascism, thereby trying to undermine their intellectual contributions. At the same time, DeLong ignored the countless examples of American liberals (including many in FDR’s administration) who wanted to imitate the worst statist impulses of Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler in order to achieve “societal progress.”²⁶

Simplistic Economic Theory

More fundamentally, Slouching Towards Utopia’s simplified treatment of economic theory is problematic. Frankly, it’s an insult to anyone with even a passing familiarity of economics. It was an inappropriate and thoughtless way to deal with economic theory—especially given dozens of pages devoted to non-sequiturs and side notes in this 540-page tome.

Specifically, reducing classical/neoclassical (or “free-market”) economics to one person (Hayek) and one overly used catchphrase (“Blessed be the market”) became quickly wearisome. Given this book was geared to non-academics, more respect to the subject of theory was needed–even if just a short, introductory section devoted to “big debates” in economics.

Another problem was DeLong’s use of Polanyi and Hayek as proxies for schools of economic thought. This is ahistorical and potentially misleading to general readers. The tension between the two thinkers was introduced in the chapter discussing the Gilded Age–as if J.P. Morgan was influenced by The Road to Serfdom. As a consequence, DeLong’s attempt at simplification turned into reductivism. Polanyi is the right-thinking modernist. Hayek, on the other hand, is portrayed as an anarcho-capitalist. DeLong’s simplistic framing dismisses the complexities of positive and negative rights, and the role of civil society’s institutions apart from the state. This is caricature and not analysis. There is really no limit to claims of “Polanyian rights” and, ultimately, the power politics of the state dictates the distribution of resources. On the other hand, DeLong never acknowledges that Hayek’s so-called “market fundamentalism” also assumed the existence of a functioning civil society. Hayek was not an anarchist. While markets allocate the vast majority of goods and services, there are also state and non-state institutions capable of meeting other needs.

An Awful Critique of Neoliberalism

The author’s critique of neoliberalism was poorly done. Even if we put aside DeLong’s transparent partisanship (and virtue signaling), his case against neoliberalism reminds one of the old yarn about the drunk who looks for his keys under the streetlamp because the light is good.

There is all manner of bias and logical error at play in Slouching‘s last chapters, especially the use of data which only confirms the author’s point of view. To critique neoliberalism, DeLong presents an assortment of contemporary center-left arguments: Piketty’s work on income inequality, the post-recession “anemic recovery” (2010-2016), Summers’s notion of “secular stagnation,” and Gordon’s claims of falling productivity growth and technological stagnation. DeLong weaves these into a narrative that attributes nearly every societal problem–deficits, low growth, income inequality, civil strife, drug abuse–to neoliberalism.

Notice that DeLong focuses almost entirely on U.S. economic growth as the key indicator of success, overlooking other crucial factors like improved global living standards, relative peace, and broader measures of human well-being. He ignores global GDP growth after end of the Cold War (which was far higher than postwar growth). He also disregards alternative explanations for societal problems, such as decadence, elite behavior, and technological disruption. It all amounts to an elaborate counterfactual argument. According to DeLong, things would be much better had the neoliberal turn never taken place. But the better question is how much worse would the world be without the neoliberal turn?

Conclusion

J. Bradford DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia reveals the perils of writing economic history with a partisan agenda. In short, there is no knowledge production in a book that takes a century of general history only to arrive at blame it all on neoliberalism as its conclusion.

Ever the slow learner, as a historian I’ve tried to follow Thomas Haskell’s insights regarding historical objectivity and James Kloppenberg’s advice that historians follow intellectual pragmatism. Intellectual honesty has to trump prior political commitments or else a historian risks writing “propaganda dressed up as history.” However, good historical analysis offers practical insight on what may be best for society—so long as that analysis is the product of an open and honest intellectual process. Scholars are expected to uphold professional standards, which, in my view, means exercising self-discipline in order to maintain objectivity despite personal ideological beliefs. After all, the primary reason to engage in economic history is to understand how ideas, institutions, individuals, material conditions, and contingency drove historical outcomes, which then informs contemporary, real-world debates on public policy, diplomacy, law, etc.  

What hides in plain sight in the pages of Slouching Towards Utopia is DeLong’s near-religious faith in the state’s ability to “run the economy.” He believes economic growth is solely a matter of proper government policies applied by elite, center left leadership. Ironically, DeLong’s unquestioning faith in the state is something Hayek would have recognized and challenged. “Blessed be the state” is DeLong’s catchphrase. Sadly, state-centric faith coupled with shallow analysis leads to bad economic history and, far worse, potentially disastrous economic policy.

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1. Barack Obama, “Barack Obama: Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive,” Wired, October 12, 2016, https://www.wired.com/2016/10/barack-obama-now-greatest-time-alive/. ↩︎
2. J. Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 2022). ↩︎
3. J. Bradford DeLong, “Brad DeLong,” Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, accessed November 20, 2024, https://econ.berkeley.edu/profile/brad-delong. ↩︎
4. According to DeLong’s biography on the UC Berkeley website, his research covers: “Comparative technological and industrial revolutions; finance and corporate control; economic growth; the rise and fall of social democracy; the long-term shape of economic history; the political economy of monetary and fiscal policy; financial crises and 20th century macroeconomics; behavioral finance; history of economic thought; the rise of the west; causes of the Great Depression.” ↩︎
5. DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, 1-25. ↩︎
6. Ibid., 10-13. ↩︎
7. Ibid., 27-58. ↩︎
8. Ibid., 59-84. ↩︎
9. While military force was always a factor in “opening markets” (e.g., China and Egypt), much of the success of imperialism was attributable to the desire to access to international markets. On that subject, DeLong should have considered contemporary scholarship on empire that highlights the role of local elites in facilitating colonial relationships. Ibid., 115-140. ↩︎
10. DeLong never offers a precise definition of what the term “global north” means. Prior to World War II it seems to refer to the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe; after World War II it seems to also include Southern Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand; and in the post-Cold War era it seems to include Eastern Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps any other country engaged in the global economy (namely, India and China). In contrast, the “global south” is implied to be the rest of the countries on the planet, particularly former colonial possessions. Global south replaces the outdated term “Third World” which, I believe, comes out of Bandung Conference (1955) and the short-lived Non-Aligned Movement. I think this kind of terminology lost meaning with the end of the Cold War. In short, I do not think it is intellectually useful nor accurate to refer to huge portions of the world using the politicized terminology of identity groups. ↩︎
11. DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, 85-114. ↩︎
12. Ibid., 141-164. ↩︎
13. Ibid., 165-204. ↩︎
14. Regarding Soviet Russia, DeLong starts at the 1917 Revolution and offers a bottled political history up to the late 1930s. While socialism was popular in its democratic form, Lenin and the Russian communists implemented a totalitarian form of socialism that killed millions. Ibid., 235-258. ↩︎
15. Regarding fascism and Nazism, DeLong primarily focuses on how Mussolini and Hitler rose to power. Socialist parties in Europe had largely lost mass appeal given their failure to oppose World War I and, furthermore, class conflict was less compelling than nationalism for populist movements. Ibid., 259-282. ↩︎
16. While DeLong praises the Roosevelt Administration and its New Deal programs, he also questions the effectiveness of the First New Deal, and states that the Second New Deal did nothing to improve the economy (although the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act were good laws from a social justice viewpoint). Ibid., 205-234. ↩︎
17. Ibid., 311-338. ↩︎
18. Ibid., 395-426. ↩︎
19. Ibid., 339-372. ↩︎
20. “The time since the beginning of the neoliberal turn overlaps my career…I have been deeply and emotionally engaged throughout, as I have worked to advance policies for good and for ill, and as my engagement has alternately sharpened and blurred my judgment. From this point on this book becomes, in part, an argument I am having with my younger selves and with various voices in my head. The historian’s ideal is to see and understand, not advocate and judge. In dealing with post-1980, I try but I do not think I fully succeed.”  Ibid., 428. ↩︎
21. Ibid., 427-459. ↩︎
22. Ibid., 461-484. ↩︎
23. Ibid., 112. ↩︎
24. Ibid., 154-155. ↩︎
25. Ibid., 189-190. ↩︎
26. Ibid., 277-280. ↩︎