In the latest edition of “George Orwell’s book 1984 was meant to be a warning–not a guidebook” we have another example of “Newspeak” to address. The word “recession” is getting a “reimagination”, or a “reboot” if you will. No, economists haven’t held a conference or presented volumes of research showing that the definition of a “recession” used for decades was factually incorrect. We are “redefining” recession now because it’s politically advantageous to the party in power to have it mean something different.
Last week, both President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin vehemently denied that the US economy is in a recession. They did so because the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (which is non-partisan) found that the gross domestic product for the second quarter of the year fell by .9%. That combined with a 1.6% contraction of the GDP for the first quarter of 2022 means the economy has shrunk in scale for six consecutive months. And since 1948, that has been the definition of a “recession” in the US economy. But the White House now believes that definition is not “accurate”. They point to low unemployment rates and increased business investment as proof that the economy is not contracting.
Those comments spawned an effort to rewrite not only what “recession” means–but also the history of its use–that would make Orwell proud. The day of Yellin’s comments, Wikipedia (which has become the default go-to place for people of recent generations to look up something they don’t know the definition or history of) saw hundreds of revisions to the entry for “recession”. In a day-long battle, users were changing the definition section to mirror Yellin’s comments (and those of the President)–which was then changed back to the previous definition of consecutive quarters of negative growth–and then back to the White House definition–and back to negative growth.
Eventually, Wikipedia had to put a freeze on changes to the “recession” page as administrators were not able to keep up with approving all of the revisions. Interestingly enough, the freeze went into place with the definition section reading “There is no consensus definition of what constitutes a recession”, which drew howls of derision from those who do not support the party in power in Washington. (It has since gone back to the “economist definition”.)
Some time back, I mentioned an article in the Atlantic that pointed out that Americans no longer speak the “same language”. It is not that we have immigrants to this country that do not learn English–but rather that the common words we say do not have the same meaning to each of us. I’ve seen plenty of “activists” say that language is meant to be “fluid” and that words can “mean whatever we want them to mean”–except they can’t. Words convey information and ideas. And to work together as a society, there has to be a shared understanding of what the words we say mean. If your GPS told you to “turn left”–but your definition of “left” is what everyone else considers “straight”, you and I are never going to arrive at the same meeting spot. And unfortunately, that is where we are heading.
And to use Orwell’s Newspeak: That will be doubleplusungood.
