Paul Krugman of the New York Times made a claim today that should have left many both outraged and confused. Through twists of logic that only a recent Nobel Prize winner could muster, Mr. Krugman tries to make us believe that advocates of small government are racist.
How does Krugman attempt to do this? First, he points to the G.O.P., as though Republicans are the vanguard of small government. He claims that, “Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash.”
Then he explains that a small government policy was the way for Republicans to feed this racist agenda. Reacting to a 1981 statement by Lee Atwater on the G.O.P.’s southern strategy Krugman says, “In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.”
Krugman is right about some things. The G.O.P. has used race to win elections. As for Lee Atwater, the man was the Karl Rove of the previous generation, a Machiavellian who placed winning above all else.
But the Republican Party and Lee Atwater have as much to do with small government as Twinkies have to do with a balanced diet.
Mr. Krugman is a smarter than this. Surely he doesn’t think that the G.O.P. and the long tradition of thinkers who believe in limited government power are one in the same. No, Mr. Krugman knows better and is hoping that smearing the philosophy of limited government with accusations of racism will save him the work of presenting real, honest arguments against a very powerful set of ideas.
Those powerful ideas were developed by philosophers and economists like Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman—giants of the academy.
Hayek and Friedman especially must be known to Krugman. Both were recipients of the same prize as Mr. Krugman, the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Both were also more reasoned in their opinions than Mr. Krugman.
Rather than dismissing ideas he disagrees with as racist, Mr. Krugman ought to get back to his academic roots and engage in a little constructive dialogue. Perhaps that would prevent him from producing the the kind of thoughtless drivel he’s been allowed to publish in the New York Times.
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Krugman has to reject the Laffer curve to support his belief that big Government is a benifit to anybody. Is he rejecting that if Government collects too much people die? Of course he has heard of China's great leap forward and the associated fifty millioin dead from too much “progressive” Government.
Of course Mr. Kugman is just selling soap for people who give him money for doing so and doesn't believe a word he is saying.Krugman's argument isn't made to appeal to the rational thinker. It is made to support the biases of those who agree with him, so they can turn to rational thinkers and say “a nobel prize winner said it do you think you are smarter than a nobel prize winner where is your nobel prize”.
Krugman's article is RIGHT ON, bro! The Republican party has turned itself into the party of small minded, illiberal, know-nothing authoritarians. They did so willingly and with malice aforethought.
The libertarian philosophes are now waking up to find themselves in bed with these dregs, and object that they are being unfairly characterized because of who they chose to sleep with! You made that bed, you laid down in it, and you have been caught In flagrante delicto. And you have picked up a little “souvenir” from the encounter. Penicillin and a strong purgative are in order.
Krugman's article is RIGHT ON, bro! The Republican party has turned itself into the party of small minded, illiberal, know-nothing authoritarians. They did so willingly and with malice aforethought.
The libertarian philosophes are now waking up to find themselves in bed with these dregs, and object that they are being unfairly characterized because of who they chose to sleep with! You made that bed, you laid down in it, and you have been caught In flagrante delicto. And you have picked up a little “souvenir” from the encounter. Penicillin and a strong purgative are in order.
What an idiotic statement. Krugman's a moron.
“Malice aforethought?” Either you've been watching too much Law and Order or you failed first semester crim. law. Only an irrational, sentimentalist windbag would agree that “small government = racist.” This is traditional liberal idiocy at its most classic. Disagree with something? Obviously its racist! Mere posturing to an ignorant electorate. . .
Go read a book. Not Harry Potter.
Groups like CEI and the Cato Institute, the most libertarian of any national think tanks, have been opposed to countless Bush administration policies. Look at Cato's two best selling books right now. One is a critique of the growing power of the presidency that attacks the Bush Administration again and again and the other attack specifically the failed foreign policy of this administration.
Libertarians opposed the auto bailouts, the bank bailouts, the Medicare prescription drug program, the war in Iraq, the war on drugs, our broken immigrations policy, trade protectionism, the PATRIOT act, warantless wiretapping, and a whole slew of other policies.
Just because Republicans STEAL libertarian talking points on taxes and regulation do not make us alike. Libertarians are consistent. Republicans try to give lip service to libertarian causes to get libertarian votes. Thankfully, many have woken up and seen this scheme for what it is.
The non-sequiturs employed by Paul Krugman are a favorite tool of the dishonest. An example of the slippery slope logical fallacy. I have seen enough examples of Paul Krugman's articles trying to justify the evils of the state at the expense of liberty and everything good to know that he is usually up to something, and weight his credibility accordingly - his credibility is that of a known liar.
And I would say to that, “Yes, I am smarter than that Nobel prize winner in this field of knowledge. Just because someone won a Nobel prize in one area does not make him a genius or expert in all areas. He is treading outside his areas of expertise and inside one of mine. Any information must stand on its own validity, not on who says it. And I know more than he does on this subject.”
Krugman didn't say that small government is intrinsically racist. He didn't mention small government at all. This is Cord's take on what he said. What he did say is that the Republican party chose to pursue a “southern strategy” that required it to become the “party of racial backlash.” This was a deliberate, willful strategy. It is a common observation, made by many, including many Republicans.
What he did say that might (or might not) be construed as a criticism of “small government” is that Republicans blamed government as being “the problem” and that if you believe government is “the problem” you will not be an effective governor. Thus we have seen regulatory agencies that exhibit extreme dereliction of duty leading to much of the financial mess that we are now encountering. If the regulators think that regulation can do nothing but harm, what do they do? Fall asleep at the wheel, drive off a cliff.
Libertarians seem to take offense at Kugman's observations about the Republican party. Why? Because they chose to ally themselves with the Republicans. They thought they could benefit from the Republican parties success, even if that success was built on the racial politics of the Southern strategy. Don't blame Krugman for telling it like it is; blame yourself.
Krugman is simply pointing out what is, and has been for some time, the conventional wisdom: The Republican party gained majority status by becoming the party of white racial backlash, and would never have been able to pursue whatever policy or philosophy of governance it might have without its “southern strategy”. If you have no interest or common cause with Republicans, what disturbs you about this?
You may know more about Krugman than I do, but when I read his article I didn't see anything in it about small or large government. He seemed to be advocating effective government, and seems to think that effective government is actually possible. This is not exactly a radical or extreme notion. It isn't anything that any great number of people would disagree with.
No where in his article does he in any way maintain that the Republican's defective notions of governance are at all intrinsically related to their deliberate exploitation of racial backlash. He didn't mention small government at all, let alone say that “small government is racist.” He did say that Republicans are ineffective governors, but even then he did not maintain that ineffective governors must be racist. It just so happens, however, that in this particular instance the two went hand in hand.
The disturbing thing about this has nothing to do with Republicans, but with Krugman's asinine equation of small-government thought with racism. Among a buffet of great tasting reasons, this is disturbing because it demonstrates modern American liberalism's inappropriate use of the race card — time and again — to achieve political ends. American liberals require big government to stay in power and seem to have found that crying “racism!” wins votes. Therefore, anything a liberal disagrees with (like small government) has the potential to be “racist” no matter how ridiculous the equation. That's what's disturbing.
Like the boy who cried “wolf!” some real issue of racism will come to light and no one will respond if this kind of garbage keeps up.
I would like you to point out to me, preferably in the article cited above, where Krugman equates “small-government thought” with racism. He asserted that Republicans pursued a “southern strategy” which relied on exploiting “racial backlash” but nowhere did he state that there was any necessary connection between such a strategy and “small-government thought”.
It is the common wisdom that the Republicans did indeed pursue a “southern strategy” based on “racial backlash”. This critique is not original to Krugman, nor is it a particularly liberal notion. Many Republicans, both those who have supported and deplored this strategy, hold that it is the reason for the Republicans frequent elevation to majority status during and after Nixon's presidency.
So where does Krugman equate small government with racism? Please point that out to me.
Looking at the crime stats , the desoiling of neighbourhoods , the intactable poverty wrought by family dysfunction - perhaps the “racial backlash” is understandable when minorities cannot take responsiblity for there own predictment , demand bigger government as a remedy while contributing nothing , while blaming the 'past' and 'present' racism of those who do. Smaller government is racist because minorities want bigger government … they want a free lunch.
Or, as Kugman puts it in his article, “In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People”.
Thanks, David, for validating his point. Now, get lost.
Here is Murray “the founder of Libertarianism” Rothbard’s letter of strategic support for the presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard21.html
Seems like he was in on the Republican’s “southern strategy” from the start!
This is coming from a man that claims that Franklin Roosevelt practiced “goo-goo” [good government] free of corruption. He writes that F.D.R. “simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. Mr. Obama needs to do the same thing.”
Hmmm…let’s see Mr. Krugman…are you familiar with Executive Orders 9066 and 9102 in which persons of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry were forcefully interned in American camps? Are you aware that the Roosevelt administration even demanded that Latin American governments hand over their citizens of Japanese descent?
Hmmm….it looks like big government, whether Roosevelt’s liberalism or Bush’s neoconservatism isn’t so good after all. But, of course, when people have a vested interest in some workers paradise they will easily gloss over a fellow liberal’s gross abrogation of human rights.
-Kowalski, Denver, CO
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/opinion/26krugman.html
Which is why it is odd that Libertarians might be uspset about Krugman’s observation.
Since Libertarian ideology (as I understand it) is generally individualistic, one would suppose it to be incompatable with racism. But Freedom works in misterious ways, and there is plenty of evidence on Libertarian sites that racists, as minority outsiders, are attracted to Libertarian ideology. In fact, my understanding is that this was actually encouraged (as “paleo conservatism) by none other than Murray Rothbard.
And Murray Rothbard, as everyone who reads Lew Rockwell’s site knows, is “the founder of libertarianism”.