There is a way to measure economic and political performance other than "I have not yet annihilated the planet" -- I mean, that's a pretty low bar. In Italy, GDP per capita is below what it was since the Euro was introduced[1] in 2000. In the U.S., In 2014 the middle class was poorer than it was in 1989[2]. Real median household income has been flat for since 1965, increasing by only $4000 in chained 2016 dollars over that 50 year period[3], whereas the costs of necessities such as housing, college tuition, and healthcare have gone up much faster than income, creating a lot of anxiety.
When things get better for a majority of the people (rather than just for the top), the population is happy with their leadership. When there is a record of failure, then cries of "well, we didn't kill off all life on earth" and "we are experts" are not well received as reasons to keep the current regime in power.
Comparing those two years is a little misleading, but I do agree with the concept we haven't done that well as a society in growing wealth for average people. You have to look at longer term trends than comparing one year with the post-stagnation a few years after the worst crash in 80 years. Indeed the chart in that story comparing 1989 through 2013 shows that in most of those years it was better than 1989. I'd like to see the moving 3 or 4 year average comparing the 1980s to the last few years.
I think it's more like having a terrible experience when flying than a plane crash. If planes would somewhat function but 10 people would be kicked of the plane an beaten to death for each flight one would argue that people would quickly lose their trust in the airlines.
"Crashing the plane" is not the best metaphor. In the case of politics and economics, we have, broadly speaking, two tribes of experts who disagree, at a fundamental level, on many things. Furthermore, they have both been repeatedly blindsided by events - their expertise seems to consist mostly of being able to explain, in great detail and certainty, but always after the event, why the opposing tribe's fundamental beliefs inevitably caused the problem.
Both sides have used some amount of science, logic and fair observations over many of their years of observation, but recently one side has stopped doing that. today we really don't have "just disagreeing tribes". We have science and logic vs opinion.
To be fair, we don't really know what works in terms of governance and what doesn't.
We do know what science currently says, but that doesn't mean it will forever indicate the same conclusion (to wit: nutrition). It does not provide much insight into a complex world like politics and civics, which are better thought of as an open system with unclear interactions between inputs.
(Also: "science" is not some unified view that has the on-high pope with decrees.)
I think what I meant was, as there's only "one plane" we can't really make economic experiences in a lab and see which one is best. Ergo political economy expertise may be [ed: is] absolute bullshit.
How do you define "crashing the plane" here ? There's only one plane and it's still going. History hasn't ended.