ROBERT REICH: A Dangerous Schism Has Opened Up In The Democratic Party

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-has-to-explain-why-fairness-is-essential-to-growth-and-why-some-democrats-have-to-stop-believing-otherwise-2012-5

The Cory Booker imbroglio has ignited a silly but potentially pernicious debate in the Democratic Party between so-called “pro-growth centrists” who want the President to focus on how well he’s done getting the economy back on its feet after the Bush administration almost knocked it out, and “pro-fairness populists” who want him to focus on the nation’s widening inequality and Wall Street’s (and Romney’s) continuing role in generating profits for a few at the expense of almost everyone else.
According to the National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar, for example:

'Conversations with liberal activists and labor officials reveal an unmistakable hostility toward the pro-business, free-trade, free-market philosophy that was in vogue during the second half of the Clinton administration….. Moderate Democratic groups and officials, meanwhile, privately fret about the party’s leftward drift and the Obama campaign’s embrace of an aggressively populist message… [T]hey wish the administration’s focus was on growth over fairness.'

This is pure bunk – or should be.

Fairness isn’t inconsistent with growth; it’s essential to it. The only way the economy can grow and create more jobs is if prosperity is more widely shared.

The key reason why the recovery is so anemic is so much income and wealth are now concentrated at the top is America’s the vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power necessary to boost the economy.


Read more: http://robertreich.org/post/23640146977#ixzz1vnInbL3G

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. Reich should know. He worked for a DLC President and though he touts

Clinton's record now, he has forgotten that he was once on the outs with his former boss over this very thing that he's writing about.

Kicked and bookmarked!!!

[elleng]

8. I'm sure Bob Reich has forgotten nothing of his relationship with Bill Clinton, as President etc.

http://www.editorsguild.com/v2/magazine/Newsletter/JulAug97/reichbook.html

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. I didn't mean that literally. I think Reich has been unfair to Obama at times

consideringtimes considering what he has faced with this brand of Republicans.

[elleng]

11. Thanks.

Reich may have been 'unfair' to PrezO occasionally, as have so many others, considering the incredibly ? horrendous way he, and we the people, have been treated by repugs during this administration.

[bemildred]

2. Mr. Reich is correct:

Fairness isn’t inconsistent with growth; it’s essential to it. The only way the economy can grow and create more jobs is if prosperity is more widely shared.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.

[intheflow]

4. K&R n/t

[SoutherDem]

5. It seems Robert Reich has figured it out

I would love to see him back in a position where he had influence in the decisions he makes.

Sadly, economics is one of those fields of study were there are multiple opinions and when he speaks the right goes ballistics and a few liberals for some of his actions during the Clinton Administration.

Still, I heard him speaking of "Demand Side Economics" when most were either talking "Supply Side" or were dumbfounded.

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. The schism is between Democrats and the republicans that switched registration.

The factions are lined up along what used to be the party lines, now all the lines are in one party while the other is standing in the road screaming at the voices in its head.

[kenny blankenship]

7. When you say something like this "fairness is essential to growth"

you have sided with the forces "unmistakably hostile to business" in this country. That is the view reflected in the words and in the eyes of every corporate media shill with a column or a TV show in the western world. If you were a bit taller, Bob, you'd be able to look them in the face and see that staring back at you. They're NOT pro-growth. They're ANTI-fairness. Rich fucks do not "work" at their intellectual labors to produce greater material value or utility for themselves or the society they despise, as their material needs have long since all been met and provided for. The economic theory which holds that they get up in the morning and work for the same reasons as the majority is dis-informational propaganda. They scheme and compete for STATUS. Tall v. short. Rich v. poor. Mirror, mirror, Who is the tallest of them all? Who is most famous? Who is the richest? Who is the fairest of them all? Or more appropriately since we're talking about economic behavior: Who is the least fair? Who CONTROLS the most? They are thus hostile to anything that smacks of economic "fairness" out of principle, and spit on anything that references "fairness" as a criterion or goal. Fairness is what they wake up every morning to destroy.

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. +1. Its all about that guy who inherited numerous properties and lives off rent income

from the working people who live in them, while he sits on the couch all day and moans about how everybody wants to tax the "job creators" like him, even though he never worked a day in his life. People like this are more numerous than many think, and for them the title "job creator" is like a superior race they consider themselves a member of, something they are entitled to by birthright without actually doing anything.

Its like this because most people don't really look at their own shadows, the dark part of their subconscious driving them ruthlessly toward self-interest. People have these shadows to hide uncomfortable facts about themselves from themselves. The uncomfortable fact here is that these people are terrified to ever compete on a level playing field, because they know deep inside that though they make 10 times more than working folks from the rent, they know they don't earn it. They depend on working folks for the survival of the economy, more than anything they depend on the government to enforce the property rights and lack of inheritance tax that lets them collect money without ever offering a product or service to society.

So once you look at it, you see the bluff. Put an island full of these guys and bankers, and they will starve, running around trying to craft clever contracts which include hidden coconut gathering fees for their peers to sign, and nobody will ever deliver, nobody will ever produce.

[Bill USA]

10. important post. recommended.

[applegrove]

12. The GOP has been fomenting this division in the Democratic Party. I mean I am no more centrist that

Obama and I get slammed for being a third wayer here at the DU all the time. In fact as a Canadian I am to the left of many here on some issues.

[yurbud]

14. he's being too polite when he makes it sound like debate over ideas

it is a conflict between bought politicians and the constituents they betray for a big pay day, be it a campaign donation, insider tip, a job as a CEO, lobbyist, or do-nothing board member when they leave office.