Hating Good Government by Paul Krugman
Hating Good Government
by Paul Krugman at the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/paul-krugman-hating-good-government.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&_r=0
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And the list goes on. On issues that range from monetary policy to the control of infectious disease, a big chunk of Americas body politic holds views that are completely at odds with, and completely unmovable by, actual experience. And no matter the issue, its the same chunk. If youve gotten involved in any of these debates, you know that these people arent happy warriors; theyre red-faced angry, with special rage directed at know-it-alls who snootily point out that the facts dont support their position.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
The question, as I said at the beginning, is why. Why the dogmatism? Why the rage? And why do these issues go together, with the set of people insisting that climate change is a hoax pretty much the same as the set of people insisting that any attempt at providing universal health insurance must lead to disaster and tyranny?
Well, it strikes me that the immovable position in each of these cases is bound up with rejecting any role for government that serves the public interest. If you dont want the government to impose controls or fees on polluters, you want to deny that there is any reason to limit emissions. If you dont want the combination of regulation, mandates and subsidies that is needed to extend coverage to the uninsured, you want to deny that expanding coverage is even possible. And claims about the magical powers of tax cuts are often little more than a mask for the real agenda of crippling government by starving it of revenue.
And why this hatred of government in the public interest? Well, the political scientist Corey Robin argues that most self-proclaimed conservatives are actually reactionaries. That is, theyre defenders of traditional hierarchy the kind of hierarchy that is threatened by any expansion of government, even (or perhaps especially) when that expansion makes the lives of ordinary citizens better and more secure. Im partial to that story, partly because it helps explain why climate science and health economics inspire so much rage.
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