The Conscience of a Liberal
For me, reading Paul Krugman’s The Conscience of a Liberal was a reaffirmation of my liberal beliefs: equality of rights, equality of opportunity and a compression of wealth. The books is filled with over 270 pages of facts and ideas, so it would be foolhardy for me to even try to encompass them is a review. Instead, I’ll pull out some quotes from the concluding chapter. However, please take this conversation wherever you would like it to go.
One of the seeming paradoxes of America in the early twenty-first century is that those of us who call ourselves liberal are, in an important sense, conservative, while that’s that call themselves conservative are for the most part deeply radical. Liberals want to restore the middle-class society I grew up in; those who call themselves conservative want to take us back to the Gilded Age, undoing a century of history. Liberals defend longstanding institutions like Social Security and Medicare; those who call themselves conservative want to privatize or undermine those institutions. Liberals want to honor our democratic principles and the rule of law; those who call themselves conservative want the president to have dictatorial powers and have applauded the Bush administration as it imprisons people without charges and subjects them to torture.
He continues:
I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.
On The Progressive Agenda, Krugman writes:
A progressive agenda, then would require major changes in public policy, but it would be anything but radical. Its goal would be to complete the work of the New Deal, including expansion of social insurance to cover avoidable risks that have become more important in recent decades. And as an economic matter, achieving that agenda woul be eminently doable. It would amount to giving U.S. citizens no more than the level of protection from financial risk and personal misfortune that citizens of othe radvanced countries already have.
Krugman writes On Being Partisan:
The progressive agenda is clear and achievable, but it will face fierce opposition. The central fact of modern American political life is the control of the Republican Party by movement conservatives, whose vision of what America should be is completely antithetical to that of the progressive movement. Because of that control, the notion, beloved of political pundits, that we can make progress through bipartisan consensus is simple foolish. On health care reform, which is the first domestic priority for progressives, there’s no way to achieve a bipartisan compromise between Repulbicans who want to strangle Medicare and Democrats who want guaranteed health insurance for all.
Well let’s the discussion begin.
Here are some videos of Paul Krugman talking about the economy and his book.
On Charlie Rose:
At Powells:
At the Worlds Affair Council:
I love Krugman. I found Krugman before I found the blogosphere and it kept me sane during the dark days of the run up to the Iraq War. I often wondered (and I know I’m not alone in this) if America had lost its freakin’ mind. His book The Great Unraveling really helped me. First, it explained what the Bush admin was doing (they’re radicals, not interested in governing, pushing an ideology). One thing that really irritates me is that Krugman doesn’t get enough credit for being right, but that is how our media still is – people who were wrong about everything are still given platforms to lie and spread more misinformation.
Conscience of a Liberal is a really great book. It’s especially timely with the new “Great Recession” that we’re going into.
Some things I learned:
– The rise of conservatism was mainly about racism
– We don’t have universal healthcare because of racism
– Bush was actually correct about bipartisanship. According to Krugman, “bipartisan” means one party surrenders to the other. This was how it worked in the 50s and 60s
Did you know that Krugman’s Nobel acceptance speech is this morning? It should be posted on his blog this morning sometime.
To add quotes do the folllowing:
< blockquote > type the quote here and as long as you would like. < / blockquote >
< i > italics < / i > are just as easy.
Drop the extra spaces, I added and you’ll be fine.
Learn something new every day.
the Republican Party by movement conservatives, whose vision of what America should be is completely antithetical to that of the progressive movement. Because of that control, the notion…that we can make progress through bipartisan consensus is simple foolish.
If the conservatives that comment here are any measure – they serem to resigned to thier minority status. Otherwise why would they continue to wheel out the debunked tripe that they do day in and day out?
Being outsiders with a simmering grudge against the world (gays, mexicans, Democrats, Arabs etc.) seems to be where they feel they fit into the poltical ecology.
UI the racism “thing” is huge and people wondered why I called out Hube. 😉
The subtle (covert) and overt racism of the Radical Right is horrible. I am also amazed by the number of apologists inside and outside the Republican Party for the racists.
This past election showed the strength of the Republican Party is in the Deep South. Also, when Sara Palin says that Obama was “not one of us”, she is saying I’m white, you’re white, and he’s black.
Agreed.
All the “Fannie & Freddie”, “regular folks” and “elitists” talk is all code (and not very subtle code) for rampant racism in the GOP.
It is how they get people like Sharon to vote, time and again, against her own economic interests.
I will assume Mr. Krugman has donated the proceeds of this book and his Nobel Prize money also?
What is compression of wealth and how does that serve anyone. Small but important point, wealth creation is essential to fund social security, medicare and medicaid etc. If we all made the same amount of money (say $40,000) these programs would be insolvent.
If everyone made the same amount these programs would be unnecessary. These programs are in place to address the worst consequences of capitalism.
I actually have no problem with people accumulating great wealth. Just pay the progressive tax and shut your mouth. That’s what I do. (I don’t have ‘great’ wealth, but I have enough to complian if I chose to.)
Why should Krugman donate his book proceeds? Is he not supposed to earn a living because he liberal? He pays taxes, I assume.
I did read that he does plan to donate the entire prize of 10 million Swedish Kronors (1.000.000 €), but just because I read it doesn’t make it so.
DG, he’s a liberal, of course, he pays taxes. Only Republicans don’t pay taxes. 😉
And, Mike’s argument, I mean really, is this all they got? Jeez.
How did Protack not win the Election against Bill Lee?
Republicans are against liberals making money, I guess. Being well-off and advocating for the poor does not make you a hypocrite. Saying you’re a regular gal while getting $150,000 in clothes and $165,000 on make-up and styling does make you a hypocrite.
Most researchers use their Nobel money to fund their research, but I don’t know Krugman’s plans. If Krugman is rich and he’s arguing that people like him should pay higher taxes, doesn’t that mean that he means what he says?
No one is really arguing against wealth creation — a major point missed by every repub running to make their taxes are evil point — but there are quite a few of us who wonder how all of this government that Americans have largely supported gets paid for. Republicans apparently just want to rid us of Social Security and Medicaid — not the taxes for these, just the programs — while the rest of us will oblige them by continuing to pay these funds for uses that Republicans want. Like boondoggle weapons systems.
I don’t mind less taxes, mind you. Republicans won’t do that — they’ll just spend it on their priorities, like they have for the past 8 years. And how has that been working out?
Mike Protack makes the comment ” Small but important point, wealth creation is essential to fund social security, medicare and medicaid etc. If we all made the same amount of money (say $40,000) these programs would be insolvent.”
Obviously that may be true, but I’m writing Biden, Carper and Castle to introduce legislation that lifts the cap on the wealthy’s social security deduction. The last time I checked they stopped paying after they passed the $90,000 mark in earnings. I say no cap for those lucky enough to reach the 90k mark. The extra money isn’t going to solve all the SSN problems but it would definitely help.