Not exactly hot off the pixel-press, but if you’re a fan — or an anti-fan — of K-Thug, Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ NYMag cover article on “Paul Krugman’s Lonely Crusade” is a good read:
… For the first two years of the Obama administration, Krugman has been building, in his columns and on his blog, not just a critique of this presidency but something grander and more expansively detailed, something closer to an alternate architecture for what Obamaism might be. The project has remade Krugman’s public image, as if he had spent years becoming a chemically isolate form of himself—first a moderate, then an anti-Bush partisan, and now the leading exponent of a kind of liberal purism against which the compromises of the White House might be judged. Krugman’s counterfactual Obama would have provided far more stimulus money and would have nationalized Citigroup and Bank of America. He would have written off Republicans and worked only with Democrats to fashion a health-care reform bill that included a so-called public option. The president of Krugman’s dreams would have made his singular long-term goal the preservation of the welfare state and the middle-class society it was designed to create. […] __
A few years ago, Krugman, having decided that he was going to be writing about politics and so he should know more about it, did a very Krugman thing. He didn’t talk to people who worked in Washington. Instead, he started to read the political-science literature. Krugman had never understood the press coverage of politics, which seemed to emphasize its most irrelevant aspects. Why dwell on a presidential candidate’s psychology when the trends in unemployment would tell you who would win an election? But viewed through the prism of political science, politics began to seem much more familiar to him. There was a mathematics to it—you could assemble data, draw correlations, understand what was essential and what was noise. The underlying shape of politics came sweeping into view: If you arranged members of Congress from left to right based on how they voted on welfare-state issues—Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance—it turned out that this left-to-right axis could predict every other vote: On Iraq expenditures, on abortion, whatever. “When you realize the fundamental divide in U.S. politics is just this one-dimensional thing, and that is how you feel about the welfare state,” Krugman says, “that changes things.”
__
You could see something else in the data, too. From 1979 to 2004, the income of the richest one percent of Americans grew by 176 percent, that of the richest one fifth of the country by 69 percent, and that of everyone else by less than 25 percent. Working through the numbers, Krugman came to believe that “only a fraction” of the change was compelled by global forces, which had been the standard explanation. The rest, he concluded, was political.
Krugman’s detractors, foremost among them Larry Summers, are given plenty of space to explain his shortcomings. Of course, if you are like me, and consider Larry Summers the IQ-enhanced version of William Kristol, this is only going to reinforce a certain prejudice about judging an individual by the quality of his enemies…
jwb
“Larry Summers the IQ-enhanced version of William Kristol”—I’m so stealing that.
NobodySpecial
Proof, it is lacking.
Seth Finkelstein
Ouch – “the leading exponent of a kind of liberal purism”? As I read him, it’s more like basic economic sanity for a functioning and sustainable democratic state (versus an authoritarian oligarchy). The article goes on to be surprised that he’s writing from a factual basis, rather than political talking-points (this is apparently considered extreme behavior).
pika
Re: this
Though he says “welfare state” here, I believe he said elsewhere (last book, maybe) that this boiled down to “race” (i.e., “white” people ‘normal’ and ‘natural’)–which I have long believed is an accurate interpretation, even given the rightful skepticism everyone should have about totalizing explanations.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Thank you for the post, and this especially resonates with me.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
Krugman is an excellent economist who is generally in line with the issues I favor. This does not make him an expert on Washington politics. In particular, it does not make him an expert on what Obama actually intends or was capable of negotiating. It does not make him an expert in negotiating strategy in general. Most of his political opinions hinge on his convictions of what Obama could have and thus should have gotten.
Expert on one issue =/= expert on other issues.
Corner Stone
@Seth Finkelstein:
For many, even some here, that is the definition of a liberal purity troll.
Davis X. Machina
Tony Judt’s last book “Ill Fares the Land” — opening here — is an extended discussion of the same theme….
It’s not just a failure of Lakoffian ‘framing’. It’s more thoroughgoing than that.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial: IMO, I’m not sure anyone could deny LS is a very intelligent person.
He just chooses to use it in ways a lot of people (like me) do not agree with. IOW, his policies and outcomes are not my desired policies and outcomes.
Plus, he seems to lack a “tuning” button and can’t moderate his speech for appropriate audiences.
El Cid
Just in case it wasn’t clear from the article, Krugman’s noting of the increasing income concentration into the hands of the rich and especially super-rich 1997-2004 was something he noticed, and neither new information nor new analysis. It’s that a lot more people noticed it when he wrote about it.
Though many have been studying and pointing this out for over literally decades, it has really been a constant focus for Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez.
pika
@El Cid: And, many others, especially civilians, but also W.E.B. DuBois, pointing this out for over literally centuries.
El Cid
Personally I am not too concerned with Krugman’s political advice on immediate policy; I’d rather there would be a noted public figure pointing out better versus worse or harmful policy, and particularly the weak and/or fraudulent justifications of such. If there’s something political leadership *should* be doing and *should* be arguing, let others then argue what is and isn’t politically feasible. I’m tired of those letting the feasible rule the sensible.
El Cid
@pika: Well, yeah, obviously the understanding that stuff accumulates to the rich is a constant to the origins of civilization. It’s not like the citizens of Ur couldn’t notice the benefits accumulating to the priestly caste, for example.
I meant in studies of income and wealth distribution changes in the United States in recent decades on income and wealth data.
Tim Connor
@Corner Stone: Yep. This blog is full of folk who pile on to kick what they deem the DFH crowd, only to find out that these so called scraggly extremists were the ones with the correct facts.
Krugman and Delong are by no means perfect. But they are transparent in their attempt to use identifiable facts, manipulated by visible process, to come to conclusions that could actually solve problems.
That is quite different from the “EMO” thing. Republicans appear to only have an EMO thing. But progressives are often tempted. It’s a consequence of the cultural disintegration that is 2011 America.
mr. whipple
Using the term ‘welfare state’ is political tone-deafness and a loser right off the bat.
There is no ‘left’ in America comperable to the right.
Penn
Can we convince him to run for office?
FlipYrWhig
If contemporary American politics is all the reflection–or expression–of how people in Congress feel about social welfare, why is Krugman still saying that the stimulus should have been larger and there should have been a public option in the health care bill? Didn’t he just explain exactly why they didn’t happen? Is his complaint “Here’s what would have been better policy, circumstances be damned,” or is it “Even given the circumstances, here’s what would have been better policy”?
My sense when it comes to Krugman is that he still has confidence that being correct on policy is the way to win elections. I’ve become much more cynical than that, especially when it comes to the “moderate Democrats” who appear to think they’re better served blocking good policy in order to polish their “moderate” credentials than helping to make good policy themselves.
Mark S.
High Broderism alert on page 6!
Data? Objectivity? Bah!
The truth is always somewhere between the far right position and a moderate, slightly right-of-center position. That’s as close to objectivity as we can get as a right of center nation. Thus spake Broderustra.
Tom Levenson
@Davis X. Machina: Second this on Judt. I picked it up (remaindered, alas — good for me, but not so good for getting the message out) a little while ago, and am reading it now.
Depressing, but not without some sense of possibility.
FlipYrWhig
@Tim Connor:
At least 95% of the people who post here agree on at least 95% of political issues. Virtually all the brouhahas are about strategy and tactics for how to get there.
Bill Murray
@mr. whipple: but I believe it is a term of the art in economics and it is not clear in what venue he used the term
momsense
While I agree with Krugman on policy analysis, I disagree with him tactically. I will just give one example of this–there are many more.
On healthcare reform Baucus chaired the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus and Snowe work very closely together. Even though she is not the ranking member, she is hugely influential on that committee. They often work together because if they can agree, it will likely get voted out of their committee.
I can also tell you, because I heard from her directly, that she was working to keep a version of the public option (a very complicated version with triggers that would be determined based on minimum coverage provided by plans, income in the region or state, and costs of plans). Baucus was pushing back. Snowe was to the left of Baucus on health care reform so the idea that the President should have just worked with Democrats was silly. Both Baucus and Bayh had very close ties with the health insurance industry and received significant contributions from that industry.
And again, on the stimulus package, it was securing Collins vote that pushed out funds for school construction, pandemic preparedness, etc out of the bill. But it wouldn’t have passed the Senate without her vote. If you compare the legislation that passed the House with what we managed to squeak through the Senate you understand the difficulty of governing right now. It really doesn’t matter what Obama would do/want, or what the merits of the policy are–it is simply what is possible to get through the Senate.
So all the disappointed progressives should toughen up and realize that we better work together because the Senate is in play for the Republicans in 2012. The only thing that stopped repeal of healthcare reform, the Paul Ryan budget, and much more from passing through both houses in 2011 was our slim majority in the Senate.
Davis X. Machina
@Tom Levenson: Also worth a read — and it’s a doorstop — is One Hundred Years of Socia1ism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century by Donald Sassoon (1998). Fifteen years ago the handwriting was on the wall. The last two hundred pages or so covers the self-immolation of the British Labour Party, the SPD, the French Socia1ists, etc, right across the Continent.
Any notion that the demise of the liberal/socia1-democratic consensus — and no matter how tenuous it was, it was a real thing — is recent, an American thing, or a racist thing, dies therein.
Sly
Krugman is a technocrat. Which is both unsurprising, considering how he makes his living, and not intended as an insult. Tachnocrats are useful to the extent that they provide meaningful policy analysis and proposals, and those offered by Krugman are (without any exception I know of) highly accurate and meaningful.
But equally unsurprising, because politics is about the reconciliation of competing interests, technocrats have always been disappointed with the outcome of the policy creation process. Always. And the disappointment of technocrats does not stem from ideological purity, but from their general failure to transition from a meritocratic way of doing things (peer review, collaborative consensus, objective judgement) to the praetorian cluster-fuck that is the United States Congress.
In other words, Krugman’s problem (indeed, everyone’s problem) is that a number of interests have political power disproportionate to the correctness of their arguments with respect to the health and welfare of the nation. And it’s not his fault. It is what it is. He doesn’t recognize this dynamic because he isn’t tested on it on a daily basis. Political operatives, however, are, and they’re the people, at the end of the day, that have to get 218 votes in the House and overcome a cloture vote.
Sly
@Tim Connor:
No. We pile on people who think that political action has anything to do with the possession of correct facts.
mr. whipple
@Bill Murray:
It may be a term of art, but it’s shitty politics from a guy who claims he understands politics.
Nic
@Davis X. Machina:
Thanks for the link, excellent article.
MoneyGal
Love Krugman. He has the logic and facts on his side. Now, the others have politics and money – I guess that is why Summers is empowered with impoverishing America to enrich the wealthy.
Sad how America is a caricature of itself now. We hear the words in lofty Obamaesque pacing, then watch as it is all torn down by Obamaesque behaviour. (EG – claim you are for single-payer healthcare, agree in private to not advocate single-payer. Lobby in public for “public option” then privately advocate “health co-opts”. Then defund health co-opts. = Obamaesque.
amk
@Sly: Well said. That’s why technocrats seldom head HR departments. They can’t stand the people politics even in their own organization. Krugman should stick to what he knows best, the economics and leave the politics to those who know it best.
Jazz Superluminar
@Davis X. Machina
thanks for the book recommendation, I haven’t read that but it sounds very interesting. As to the point you’re making, I agree, mostly. The centre-left hasn’t been doing very well accross Europe over the last few years, and the reasons are similar to what you have seen in the US. I would quibble about the racial point though, as I think this not only plays a large and unique role in American politics due to history, but in the EU, concerns about immigration have had a large part in decimating leftist parties and splitting their constituencies.
cat48
@MoneyGal:
Single payer was off the table before he ran for president. It was not in the Dem Party Platform. Neither was the public option. There were various ideas from a group of campaign workers. Single payer was OFF the table BEFORE anyone voted. He was clear about this when asked. Yet the FABLE of single payer lives when he specifically said BEFORE anyone voted More than once, it would be too disruptive to try & implement due to the various plans available in the US. Keep plucking that chicken though. He was a State Senator when he said that would be the ideal on the infamous video.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Enhanced?
Bruce S
This country’s politics – and political journalism – are utterly bizarre. A mild-mannered economics professor who has been essentially centrist over his career – i.e. a big supporter of stuff like NAFTA that drives people who subscribe to The Nation nuts (with good reason) and mainstream academic theory, but who has over the past decade re-evaluated some of his positions based on empirical evidence of policy weaknesses and market failures – is considered the tribune of “The Left” in American life, while the Right in it’s “mainstream” and “serious” iteration is chock full of Randian and religous fundamentalist ideologues.
It’s actually sort of true – given the irrelevance of the left beyond the borders of “progressive” liberalism – but it’s a wild imbalance and, as we see on a daily basis, puts the politics of apparent “compromise” and “centrism” so far to the Right, we’re literally screwed before the policy debates even start. Krugman is a modestly liberal – although authentically liberal, in his current persona – pragmatist. Hardly what would be considered a “man of the left” in historical political or intellectual terms. That’s fine with me. I’m in pretty much the same place as Krugman in a political context, but it’s an indicator of how skewed to the right this country is, ideologically and culturally.
You can be as crazy as you wannabe and drum up a “base” on the Right that gets taken seriously, while the “left” is circumscribed by the kind of reality-based pragmatism and moderation that is actually the hallmark of traditional wonkish liberalism, not a “left” that might be proposing real “change” and testing the waters beyond “liberal common sense.”
Liberal “common sense” is actually a form of rational, socially responsible conservatism – i.e. concern with continuity; moderation and careful pragmatism anchoring any social change; cross-class political coalitions supplanting class warfare; fiscal responsibility and preservation of social stability and cohesion – in our present context. That’s about all the policy agenda of contemporary liberalism boils down to. It’s clearly not pursuit of any Ideology or “class politics”, so much as the values of community, responsibility and broadening opportunity that makes the system “work” more effectively without deep ruptures. The “mainstream” political Right in the US is the hotbed of crank radicalism – hardly conservative.
Jewish Steel
Ah, this must be where my facts are failing me.
Bruce S
MoneyGal: “Obamaesque behaviour. (EG – claim you are for single-payer healthcare, agree in private to not advocate single-payer”
That’s just nonsense. If you like Krugman’s being fact-based, you might try emulating him. Obama never advocated for single-payer (edit – as a Senator or presidential candidate, as opposed to speculative comments on “best case” as a state Senator. ) In fact, the health care platform he ran on included the suggestion of some sort of affordable public option, but it didn’t contain even a universal mandate. It was less ambitious than what he helped get passed…
Triassic Sands
Larry Summers…
…one of the worst people around. Harvard should have been ashamed of itself for naming him president. The president should be ashamed of himself for allowing Summers anywhere near the White House. And the American people, especially Democrats, should be disappointed (at least) and disgusted with Obama for giving Summers a say in economic policy.
If you’re looking for someone to fashion an oligarchy, Summers would be a good place to start. Given the choice of saving a million poor people or one millionaire, Summers wouldn’t hesitate to build a life raft out of the dead bodies of the poor.
Despicable is too kind a word.
It’s a shame they couldn’t get an interview with Summers for Inside Job. The producer and director both seemed surprised by some of the people who did agree, especially given the result — extreme discomfort and even anger. And they seemed to agree that the reason some of the real villains said yes was because they are not accustomed to being challenged by journalists. Normally, they assume their prominent speaking platform and are permitted to blather on indefinitely without ever having anyone in the media ask a tough question, i.e., one not designed to elicit further explication of the speaker’s standard talking points. What decent person didn’t enjoy watching Glenn Hubbard squirm and seethe when he realized his questioner wasn’t there to make him, Hubbard, look good?
In the Inside Job commentary, the producer, Audrey Marrs, and director, Charles Ferguson, briefly discuss Summers. Apparently, Ferguson has known Summers for at least twenty years and they don’t like each other. What a shock! That’s too bad, because Ferguson might have really embarrassed Summers if he’d had the advantage of surprise. But Summers knew he’d be asked straightforward questions that, if answered honestly, would have revealed Summers for the villain he is.
Fred
Yawn…of course what the author fails to mention is that a lot of these K-Thug positions have been WRONG. Epic FAIL!
Not just nationalize Citigroup. Nationalize all the big banks which constitute over 90% of all US banking activity. Not only that, he said if we do not do that we would fall into a depression and the banks would all end up failing anyways.
All those predictions turned out to be utterly false. But the K-Bots just ignore those inconvenient facts.
different church-lady
@Sly:
Actually, I think we tend to pile on anyone who thinks they’re the sole possessors of correct facts. Especially when they’re using the term “fact” as a synonym for “opinion” or “hunch” or “entrenched myth” or “platitude”.
Bruce S
Fred: (Krugman’s postition) Not just nationalize Citigroup. Nationalize all the big banks which constitute over 90% of all US banking activity.
Not true. Find a Krugman quote that advocates nationalization of 90% of the banking industry (which he suggested for the under-capitalized Citi and BofA as a short term measure, much like the FDIC’s provisional takeovers.)
Fred
@Bruce S: You don’t know how to use Google?
He proposed nationalizing the top 10 banks which consititute over 90% of the US banking activity. These were the same banks that participated in the bailout.
If you actually understood what you were talking about rather than blindly following other K-Bots you would understand that, just like the bailout, you cannot just nationalize 1 or 2 banks. You pretty much have to nationalize them all in order for it to work. Just like they had to have them all participate in the bailout. Because they are too interconnected.
And since you don’t know how to use google.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4Tl65kFU96s
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/obama-on-nationalization/
This one is quite funny because clearly K-Thug hasn’t even though it through exactly how it would be done. Eventually says he would probably go the Swedish route. ie..nationalize everything.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/anti-nationalization-arguments/
Davis X. Machina
@Fred: I expect a hydrologist to tell me under what climactic conditions my levee will fail, and a civil engineer to tell me how to build my levee so that it’s less likely to fail, and the two of them together to pick a place for my levee.
I don’t necessarily expect a hydrologist, or a civil engineer to forecast the weather. They have opinions on it, wishes for it, like everyone else, like umpires, and brides.
And the National Guard — not a hydrologist, or an engineer — to tell me what to do if it does fail.
Robert Waldmann
As a total Kthug fan I must note that, first of all, he started it. Krugman attacked Summers for selling out to Clinton in “Peddling Prosperity.” I read that book. Krugman clearly explained that he was part of the left wing of the Demcratic party. Things have gotten much worse since, but inequality had been increasing dramatically for 13 years when Clinton was elected.
There really is no movement. Krugman has been an unusually severe critic of the President for the past three administrations without pause. He is less focused on free trade (which he still supports) but he always consider free trader the left-more position (as do I — we care about the poor and third world workers are poorer than first world workers).
Really no change. I mean Bush is different from Clinton, who is different from Obama, but Krugman’s approach hasn’t changed at all. It’s just that frankly summarizing the evidence is so bizarre that other journalists and commentators can’t understand what is going on.
Oh and Summers is really a reasonable slightly left of center moderate. He isn’t like Kristol at all (not to mention IQ enhanced isn’t one tenth of it — he’s smart).
Elizabelle
Looks like a good read.
Thanks, Annie Laurie.
(PS: did you see this one from the NY Times today? They’re rescuing young raptors and eggs from the trees in a Louisiana swamp,, since floods are upon them and gators are swimming by what’s become a bird buffet line.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22voices.html?ref=us
Bruce S
Krugman proposed nationalizing BofA and Citi – that’s what comes up on google. If you’re so google saavy and are horrified at my taking your lack of a citation to task after actually reading a couple of Krugman columns that discussed nationaliztion, you might consider giving me and my stupid ass a link to prove you’re not pulling shit out of your butt. If you can cite something – which is what I suggested – do it. I’ll admit error. I’m headed off to church, but I promise I’ll check back and apologize when I’m proved wrong. Since you use the K-bot line, my guess is that you’re a troll with attitude, rather than an intelligent contributor to reasoned, fact-based discussion.
If I’m wrong there’s this thing called google, which you have yet to prove you can use.
boss bitch
Here we go again with the victimization garbage. Most of what we argue about on this blog is politics which you DFSH are piss poor at doing. Anyone can come up with a good policy. That’s the easy part. When you DFSH are asked how to get this pass a conservative Senate, all we hear is the usual useless and vague advice – “bully pulpit” or “grow a pair.”
Fred
@Davis X. Machina: Using your metaphor…..do you expect a journalist to tell you how to fix the entire US financial system?
Do you expect a journalist to tell you how a president should handle the politics of fixing the entire US financial system?
btw, this is not so much about whether nationalizing would work.
If Obama unilaterally declared the US a dictatorship that would certainly solve our political problems. It’s obvously not gonna happen. Just like nationalizing would have fixed our financial mess but was not ever gonna happen.
MBunge
While I’m sure Krugman would run things a bit differently if he were god-emperor, the fundamental reality is that our current economic system and how it functions is very Krugmanesque. To his credit, when confronted with the logical, and perhaps inevitable, negative consequences of such a system, Krugman wants to do something to ameliorate those problems. But since he doesn’t seem to understand why they’ve occured, he doesn’t offer much in the way of practical solutions.
Mike
Cat Lady
@boss bitch:
Even though Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson tag-teamed to be the preening HCRA obstructionist asshole-of-the-day, MoneyGal just KNOWS that in Obama’s heart of hearts he hates the public option and loves insurance companies and wants to have their babies because shut up that’s why.
Oh, and MoneyGal:
This.
Ruckus
@amk:
Krugman should stick to what he knows best, the economics and leave the politics to those who know it best.
I believe that a decade or so ago(OK the last 30+yrs) we left politics to those who knew it best. And what we got out of that? bush/cheney, rove et al. Not our shinning moment. Those who know politics best frequently have only their best interests at heart. It’s time to bring in outside help.
dollared
@mr. whipple: @MBunge:
WTF does that mean?
dollared
@Robert Waldmann: I would disagree. Summers’ vision of economy and society is extremely similar as Kristol’s. They both support the global elites at the expense of the ordinary people of the United States, and they both support the financialization of the economy.
And they both pretend that we live in a meritocratic society, whereas only a social democracy with strong public schools, publicly funded health care, and free universities can produce a meritocracy – otherwise, the children of the elites simply have too many advantages.
So one is a blatant warmonger and racist, and the other supports exactly the conditions that lead to the perpetuation of warmongering and racism. Distinction without a difference.
Rihilism
@Robert Waldmann:
Given his rough tenure at Harvard and his role in telling Brooksley Born to STFU (to name just a couple of instances), I’m having a real problem envisioning Summers as either reasonable or slightly left of center moderate, though I suppose it depends on how you define those phrases…
dollared
@Robert Waldmann: And splitting for clarity of discussion:
The left of center position? Jesus fucking Christ, what complete fucking arrogance. Did you stop and ask the high school educated American workers – 80 million of them – before you gave away their jobs, family security, livelihoods, dignity, leisure and pride to “benefit” the millions of women working in sweatshops, thousands of men dying in Chinese coal mines and toxic dumps, and other assorted “contributors” to our new, more fair global economy?
Why don’t you do your part, and give up your job? I can find an English-speaking Indian to do your job, no sweat. Really. In a week. Then after two years of unemployment, you can work as a shift manager at Taco Bell. Then look at your future.
xian
@Bruce S: this is tremendously astute and explains a lot.
dollared
@Bruce S: This. We are controlled right now by maniacs that are undermining the national security of the country by undermining it’s social cohesion and national wealth. Krugman is merely one person who remembers how we actually survived the 20th century, and that doesn’t make him even left of center.
dollared
@Corner Stone:Yup – one of the things that infuriates me about this blog is the number of people who use “art of the possible” to abandon common sense and the desire to work for the common good. “Go convince Blanche Lincoln?” No, goddamnit, that really is Obama’s job. I can’t help if he won’t do it. But I’m not going to pretend he got the best possible outcome when he didn’t try.
eemom
@El Cid:
This is a good point, but I would add one caveat. If we leave to the very few Krugmans of the world to point out the sensible and let others debate the feasible, then it ought not to be the Krugmans who condemn the compromises that the feasible will inevitably require to be made.
As a practical matter, however, I recognize that you can’t draw the lines so precisely — and imo Krugman has overall been fairly measured and reasonable in his criticisms of what Obama has compromised. For example, I’ve never gotten the impression that he BLAMED Obama for the stimulus having been inadequate — he’s just lamented, repeatedly and rightfully, that the stimulus was inadequate.
That is what distinguishes the Krugmans of the world from the whiny assholes of the PROFESSIONAL LEFT. Yes, the PROFESSIONAL LEFT, is exactly what they are. “Dirty fucking hippies,” they are NOT.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Oh Jesus Christ. He didn’t try, which you can tell because he didn’t succeed, because if he had only tried he would have succeeded, and you’d give him credit for trying if he did, but he didn’t (for which see above) so this must be what he wants. That about right?
Yutsano
@dollared:
Why, because he didn’t hand deliver to you on White House stationery a detailed explanation of what all he did to get legislation passed? For fuck’s sake are you a special little wallflower. Do you know every fucking contact Obama makes in his day? Do you know everything he has to fucking deal with? Just because he didn’t sit down and personally tell YOU doesn’t mean he didn’t work his ass off for it. Jeebus H Bieber on a bicycle.
Rihilism
While I haven’t read everything by Krugman, I tend to like him. From what I gather (please excuse my somewhat limited knowledge of Krugman’s work), his main critique of Obama is that Obama is a centrist rather than an overt liberal. Or, at the very least, Obama does not frame things in a manner that a great number of liberals (including myself) would prefer. I find that to be a reasonable and welcome critique and a far cry from the “Obama is a baby-killing demon spawn” that some seem to prefer…
Corner Stone
@boss bitch:
bitch, no, that is just the way you hear any criticism of the compromised policy debate.
One reason people throw their hands up in frustration and say, “how do you expect that to be possible?” is because there is no one out there making the case that it’s not only possible, but reasonable to discuss.
Tell me, why is the national discourse centered on the deficit? When we all know no politician gives a good god damn about the deficit.
dollared
No. Look, I still support him, but I still see him as trying so hard to be “above the fray” as to remove him as an advocate of liberal policy. Look how incompetent he is at limiting the power of the banksters. It’s one thing to have to fight a battle with powerful people. It’s another to simply avoid any nomination battles, and leave your key positions unstaffed and powerless. The conflict avoidance is simply endemic.
We are in total war, and our general is a mediator.
Ruckus
@dollared:
Global economy as idealized over the last 2-3 decades seems like such a good idea on the surface. And maybe it surly would be if outsourcing all those jobs had raised the tide everywhere. But of course that wasn’t it’s goal. The goal was to lower the tide here, and flatten out the cost side of labor. Yes the tide was raised in some places, just not in the US. And what are we left with? High unemployment? Cost of doing business. Lower labor costs? Higher Profits. The MBA wet dream.
liberal
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus):
Whatev. The fact is that on one such issue, Matthew Yglesias is surely correct—the right approach to the debt ceiling debate is for Obama to come out and say he’s not going to negotiate. (Ie, he’ll sign a bill to increase the debt ceiling only if it has nothing else attached.)
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: To the degree that there really is any such thing as the Overton Window, I see it functioning in the way you describe Krugman’s role: articulate a good policy, irrespective of its chances of actually happening, such that the good policy is in the air and whatever policy actually comes to pass — if any, and no matter how much later — ends up being as close as possible to the good one. Politicians need to worry about how policies are marketed and packaged during election season. Advocates don’t. Switching back and forth between advocate, pundit, and political strategist is just a prescription for utter confusion. A LOT of people in the blogosphere get bollixed up that way.
liberal
@dollared:
What makes you think Obama’s incompetent re FIRE?
Obama wants to give FIRE 98% of what it wants. The Rethuglicans, 120%.
It’s rather that he’s not all that interested in limiting finance’s rent-collection opportunities.
liberal
@dollared:
Excellent post.
srv
@Ruckus:
Suck it up biotches.
Clinton didn’t care, Bush didn’t care, and if Obama had given a ratfuck he would have tied extending tax cuts to domestic investment. The masses are just votes won in a marketing campaign, Wall Street’s money decides who wins and Citizens’ United put the nail in that coffin.
liberal
@boss bitch:
Yawn. On the debt ceiling, the Prez holds most the cards, so on that issue it really is merely a matter of growing a pair.
Of course perhaps Obama will ultimately do something close to what Yglesias recommends (not signing any debt ceiling legislation that attaches strings).
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
That’s a good point. IMHO the reason why reasonable ideas aren’t treated _as_ reasonable in the current political discourse is because there’s a bottleneck in the system: basically, if Ben Nelson decides he doesn’t want something, that thing can’t happen. _Someone_ should be out there making the case for reasonable ideas, but presidents can’t always be those people, because of the way wins and losses get tallied: offering an idea that fails is treated as not only a loss but a tangible weakening. The blogosphere kind of likes the romance of a futile crusade, but a president can’t afford to do that, I think.
The deformation of the political conversation in this country isn’t due to the fact that Obama doesn’t push hard enough for liberal policy, but rather that liberals who are not politicians don’t–can’t–do enough to “prepare the battlefield.” I think you can do that without also saying that Obama is a milquetoast sellout — but there are so many structural and institutional impediments to getting that word out and shaping public opinion in advance of policy… which is why it’s difficult, and why it’s been difficult for roughly 50 years or so.
And I don’t have a prescription for how to fix that, and whoever does fix it will be a hero to millions.
FlipYrWhig
@srv:
Sounds good. Get Ben Nelson to believe it.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
He might be very intelligent in the sense of having a high IQ, but given how wrong he was about the consequences of financial deregulation, I don’t see why that should count for much.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig:
If that was all there was to it, then none of the Rethug craziness would be dubbed reasonable, because Obama could veto it.
Corner Stone
@liberal: You didn’t include my next sentence:
LS knew what would happen with financial deregulation. In process, if not in actual scope. That was the outcome he wanted, or at least benefited from the most.
srv
@FlipYrWhig:
You can’t get what you never ask or campaign for.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, that is exactly what I was getting at.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: This. At least a hero to me. (and boy o boy, that’s reallllly important….)
FlipYrWhig
@srv: Well, if Ben Nelson has decided that his ticket to getting reelected is to make pompous shows of “fiscal responsibility,” even if something else would help his constituents more, even if you could show him that with absolute rock-solid certainty, and hence he refuses to budge, there really isn’t anything you can do about that. You can’t fix stupid. You can threaten him with dire repercussions.. and he will relish them, saying, “If you take me out, you’ll get a Republican in my place, and then you won’t get 40% of what you want, you’ll get bupkes. And if you fail to take me out, you’ll get a vindicated me swinging my dick around even more wildly. Pick your poison. I’ll be fine.”
James E. Powell
@Davis X. Machina:
I think we should consider reading Ill Fares the Land for the BJ book group.
Linnaeus
Folks who aren’t too averse to reading Daily Kos might want to check out this diary by my friend Robert Cruickshank, as I think it touches on a lot of the themes we’re talking about in this thread.
Bruce S
Still waiting for a link from Fred that actually backs up his assertions about Krugman wanting to nationalize 90% of the US banking system and believed that a nationalized banking system was optimal. Stuff where Krugman refers to the prospect of nationalizing a couple of the banks that were likely to fail without government support and rather quickly “re-privatize” them, without rewarding shareholders using government funds to keep them afloat under existing management – he mentioned Citbank and BofA – doesn’t sustain the argument. I’ve looked at all of the links cited – which don’t do the job as well as other Krugman columns and commentary that are more specific about the proposed targets of provisional nationalization. Guess nothing will be forthcoming. As I said, it would be nice to use “the google” to document these sweeping assertions. Oh well…
Davis X. Machina
Cruickshank is right that ‘today’s Democratic Party has two wings to it’ but on-line, at least, he’s wrong about what they are.
Perhaps he’s right about the actually-existing parliamentary Democratic Party being split between a progressive, anti-corporate wing, and a neoliberal, pro-corporate wing. Outside Congress, and state gov’t, not so much.
There is a substantial moiety of the left/liberal/progressive side of things — more visible on the Internet than in meatspace, I suspect — that doesn’t actually believe in politics. A bloc that believes that power corrupts, and that participation in the political process from any position, except from without, is inherently corrupting.
This leads to a politician’s perceived virtue being inversely proportional to his or her actual utility, and vice versa, and then the only way to win, is to lose.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: One block in the Democratic Party does not actually want their agenda advanced?
Are they anarchists or nihilists?
OzoneR
@Tim Connor:
You don’t win by being right in politics. You win by having the most votes. Winning and having facts are mutually exclusive. That’s all we’re trying to say to you DFH.
Bruce S
“Krugman is merely one person who remembers how we actually survived the 20th century, and that doesn’t make him even left of center.”
Yes – that’s basically what Krugman represents. A modestly liberal pragmatism which rejects the nonsensical tenet of “markets” as an ideological fixture and “correct answer” to every policy issue on the table. I’ll give him “left of center”, but not a “man of the left.” Krugman is the antithesis of radicalism in any form. I wish there were a few more “radicals” in our political discourse who weren’t just exhibiting the politics of personal narcissism, but I don’t see much. The “left” exhausted itself as a political force – unfortunately. The left has had some cultural impact – via it’s “identity politics” – and that’s been a positive related to issues such as gay rights – but hasn’t built any political base or persuasive agenda beyond that. Bernie Sanders is about it…along with maybe Kucinich…and I don’t even consider Bernie a “socialist” so much as a consistent social democrat in the European sense. Even “Euro-style” social democrats aren’t opponents of capitalism, but it’s best hope to continue as a viable system that doesn’t destroy itself by excess.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Bruce S: Fred is nothing more than a worthless troll. Fuck him.
Breet
@Corner Stone:
No, they’re Republicans who haven’t switched parties yet=.
Anywhere between 8 and 14 percent of Democrats identify themselves as tea partiers. Hell, Gallup last year had a poll that said 7 percent of LIBERALS identified with the tea party
OzoneR
@Davis X. Machina: I think about when I’ve had debates with conservatives before, and they call me a pussy, an America-hater, tell me to “love it or leave it,” call me a traitor, etc.
and when I turn around and call them selfish bastards, I’m the one who gets told to “tone it down” that I was “rude and inappropriate”
Society does not allow liberals to fight back, that’s what makes progressives weak.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone: It’s always 1899 on the left. It’s always whether Alexandre Millerand should take the Commerce portfolio. It’s always Jaurès v. Guesde.
People who don’t even know the names are still split on the same lines.
El Cid
@eemom: If every publicly significant writer addressing policies and analyses constrained themselves to things they could immediately show how to implement into policies given the current political environment (whatever it is at the time), we would have the most vapid, timid, cowardly, uninteresting public debate imaginable.
That’s why I make sure to read sources and publications and websites which seem to me to be focusing mainly on the best arguments they (of varying tendencies) can muster, and I don’t give the slightest damn whether or not some blog or set of web commenters or published and broadcast pundits are frustrated by that because none of ‘it’ (whatever the folks I’m following are saying) is realistic or acceptable.
The term “left” has a much more scattered usage these days than a while ago, so THE PROFESSIONAL LEFT isn’t an extremely useful term to me. I’m not sure — given I don’t care much and don’t think about it that much — what term I’d apply to a Jane Hamsher, but THE PROFESSIONAL LEFT wouldn’t strike me as helpfully descriptive.
Maybe. There have been real debates about the roles of, say, paid organizers versus community volunteers among left / leftish efforts. Or if there were paid directors of some soshullist or communist etc organization and how being in that position changed the situation.
Most commonly that sort of notion (well paid and well connected liberal/left vs those less so) has been applied to the classic doofus arrogance of some NGO working in a 3rd world nation, ignorant of or ignoring the results or context of their actions on the ground. Which local peoples have either tried to or in fact have repeatedly informed them.
The argument is that it’s the connection of such NGO’s to elite funders and other powerful people and institutions which cause the leadership to be selected for such elite-bias or the leadership to sway themselves to such a perspective.
Or that professionalized and influential and wealthy groups like the Sierra Club are very easy to get to endorse a policy which may be tepidly more pro-environmental seeming while mainly it serves the interests of power and wealth, and local or less elite-integrated groups are and feel more betrayed.
I’m used to “professional left” to be used more in that environment.
Whatever the incentives for some blogger like the characterizations here of Hamsher (again, I mostly plead ignorance to their accuracy), I don’t think it’s from being bought off by some elite and wealthy leftist group.
Or what if any leftist power structure there would be for such blog types to be pressured to or lured into conforming with.
Nor do I think that it’s the position on some generalized sliding scale of left to right which most people are using to describe the wrongness or deceitfulness or harmfulness of some loud blogger who is undercutting this or that liberal politician or policy plan.
You can be of any ideological position and be an extremist (yes, there have indeed been centrist extremists, willing to use violence to suppress those seen as too left while not allied to the right) or an idiot or deceitful or over-excited and drastically overestimating your own influence or demanding the apparently impossible without recognizing the barriers, and such. Or even being purists to some plan. OK. Still seems a clunky use to me.
Maybe that’s part of the concept, that there are liberal-left activists / organizers who have sources of funding like website advertising or donations and then act and speak and write in some unrestricted and, as seen in examples given here, influentially harmful manner against more mainstream politicians and parties and policymakers of whatever political background.
But I’m happy to read stuff by anarcho-soshullists or ecological whateverists or those working on promoting and arguing for a democratic and participatory economy, and I wish those discussions were more noted even if those argued outcomes were never ever possible, or maybe only possible in a few hundred years.
It’s like people saying that the world’s currently dominant political (electoral representative upper-class dominated systems) and economic (regulated and subsidized capitalism structured for benefit of the most powerful) systems are here to stay since none of the other historical or proposed systems are better or seem possible.
Yeah, I’d never say such nonsense, because it’s pretty silly each time some people in some time period conclude that it’s all been worked out, things will be as they have been for the last X hundred years forever with only minor changes.
DPirate
0.
Awfully dense for a PhD, or actually, no he isn’t – not for a PhD…
liberal
@Breet:
That doesn’t mean jack sh*t. If you frequently read poll results, over the years you’ll understand that roughly 10% or so of any given poll is batshit crazy. Not clear if the people really _are_ crazy, or too doped up on flu meds, or whatever, but it is what it is.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: Don’t you mean it’s always Charlie v football on the left?
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Exactly. On Balloon-Juice, the Obots view anyone who states “2 + 2 = 4” as a troll who can’t be taken seriously.
So when I point out that the cost of health care has to be reduced in America at some point or we’ll run out of money, I’m “trolling” and “a firebagger.” Whereas in reality, I’m merely looking at this graph and reaching the obvious sane conclusion.
American health care spending is so wildly out of line with any other industrialized nation, and it’s rising at such an astounding rate, that we’ve got about 10 or 15 years before it crushes our economy completely. We’re talking about something like a doubling of the percentage of GDP America spends on health care within the next 15 years or so if we keep on at the current rate. That’s unsustainable.
This isn’t a “liberal purity patrol,” it’s basic third grade arithmetic. Doubling America’s percentage of health care spending as a portion of GDP brings us to 32% of GDP. Our annual budget deficit is 1.2 trillion, roughly 8% of GDP. In 2010 we spent 793 billion on social security payments, which comes to 5.5% of GDP, and all together we spent 1.4 trillion dollars on the military, broadly defined as the NSA + NRO + CIA + Pentagon black projects + Department of Homeland Security + DOE + Blackwater (Xe, for mercenaries, who have taken over many of the duties of U.S. soldiers overseas) + the Pentagon official budget of 689 billion, which comes to another 10% of GDP. Wikipedia gives another 415 billion of federal spending as “mandatory,” meaning mandated by various laws — this includes things like the budget of the DEA, the IRS, and so on. That’s another 3%.
When you add that all together, what do you get?
57% of our GDP. But that’s not practical, because we don’t have 57% of our GDP to spend. Historically, U.S. tax revenue has ranged from 14.4% of GDP to 20% of GDP. There is no precedent for raising 57% of GDP by taxing people, by taxing corporations, and by various excise taxes and fees.
To give you an idea of how insane it would be to try to spend 57% of GDP on health care + government programs, America would have to roughly triple tax rates to get anywhere near those levels. We can’t triple tax rates. Tripling tax rates would mean slurping up 100% of the income of most of the bottom 80% of the population. That’s insane. That won’t work. Or we’d have to let private health insurance premiums skyrocket to many times their current levels.
So something has to give. Either we spend less money on health care in America, or we’re going to have to do something crazy, like raising marginal tax rates for incomes above $8500 to 90%…or people are going to have to pay exponentially more in health insurance premiums — premiums 4x or 5x or 6x their current amounts. Neither of these options is practical. They’re just not going to happen.
And when I say this, it makes me a “member of the liberal purity patrol” and “a firebagger” and ‘crazy’ and “demented.”
Corner Stone
@Breet: 73 percent of my balls identified with teabagging. Now what?
Dollared
@mclaren: Nicely presented and totally accurate. But I’m going to have to email The General and Eemom and ask them if I have their permission to agree with you.
Corner Stone
@Dollared: Well, for eemom’s approval you’ll need to be ready to grind into meal the bones of some Palestinian babies.
For President Stuck it’s enough if you pledge fealty to any authority he’s deemed fit to tell us all what to do next.
So, I’m guessing…no. You can’t agree.
Chris
@Seth Finkelstein:
I agree. It’s not like he doesn’t take the left to task when he feels that they’re not acting responsibly (his rebuke of the anti-globalist crowd comes to mind). He’s the spokesman for the moderately, but very moderately statist capitalism that prevailed in the America he grew up in.
In other circumstances, I can easily see him voting for an Eisenhower or a Rockefeller.
Chris
@Davis X. Machina:
Like Jazz said. One big reason the European center left has been doing so badly is exactly the same as for American liberals: they’ve lost votes because they appear to be “favoring minorities,” e.g. sticking up for everyone instead of giving the white man all their attention.
In Europe, it’s immigration, over here, it started with civil rights. But it’s the same underlying thing. Heck, as black people become more integrated while the American right doubles down on the immigrant-bashing and Muslim-bashing, the two things are becoming practically indistinguishable.
I’ll read the book if I can find it, and thanks for the reference anyway. But while I’ll agree that the demise of the center left isn’t an American thing, I’m not convinced that it’s not (in large part and perhaps primarily) a racist thing.
Chris
@Davis X. Machina:
Funny you should put it quite that way. I seem to be in both blocs.
Power does corrupt, pretty much inherently. That is, you can’t get squat done in Washington (or any capital) without compromising both your values and the good of the country somewhere along the line. You need to scratch a ton of people’s backs before they’ll scratch yours, and it’s hard to do that over the long run without bending or breaking the law at some point.
On the other hand, the people who really learn to master the game are the ones who get stuff done. I don’t know how much arm-twisting, bribing, blackmailing or God knows what FDR and LBJ had to do in their day. I do know that it got us the America we know and live in, and frankly it’s hard to get teared up at that.
Chris
@Bruce S:
Unfortunately, this.
So basically, the Democrats are back to being what they were between the Civil War and the Great Depression – a catch-all for people screwed over by the current system, and a platform to protect their interests, but not a party with an agenda or any ideas beyond that.
MBunge
@dollared: WTF does that mean?
I would think that’s fairly clear. The modern economy, both its structure and how it operates, relatively closely follows and more-or-less logically flows from an ideology very similar to if not exactly the same as Krugman’s.
Mike