Centrists Have No Right to Lecture Anyone on Growth

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dean-baker/53420/centrists-have-no-right-to-lecture-anyone-on-growth

Centrists Have No Right to Lecture Anyone on Growth
by Dean Baker | December 31, 2013 - 10:35am

Last week former New York Times editor Bill Keller had a column that distinguished the "left-left" and the center-left. His left-left included people like Senator Elizabeth Warren and incoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, while his center-left included President Obama, most of the Democratic Party leadership and the D.C.-based policy group Third Way.

Keller's left-left might more appropriately be called center-left (these are not radicals pushing for the overthrow of capitalism) and his center-left should probably just be called "centrists." However, what's more important than the labeling is the main line of distinction Keller tries to draw.

Keller tells us that his left-left is just concerned about distribution whereas as his center-left recognizes the need to focus on growing the size of the pie so that there is more for everyone to share. Keller's left-left is certainly concerned about distribution, but his center-left seems more concerned about promoting upward redistribution than pushing policies that actually will lead to growth.

Keller may not remember, but his center-left were in the driver's seat putting in place the policies that gave us the stock bubble in the 1990s and the housing bubble in the last decade. The collapse of the second bubble gave us the downturn from which the country is still suffering. It has cost us millions of jobs and already more than $5 trillion in lost output, more than $15,000 for every person in the country. This economic collapse is the opposite of growth.

[antigop]

1. great piece. K&R. Thanks. nt