Welcome friends!
I know I’ve been talking a lot about economic issues recently and I do want to get to some other issues, but I was just reading another article by Paul Krugman in which he marvels at the self destructive austerity measures that have been so popular with European policy elites recently, so I wanted to say a few words about that. I promise I’ll do something that isn’t about economics next time. Anyway, I say Mr. Krugman marveled at this phenomenon because his basic point was the enthusiasm with which these measures are being endorsed by European politicians doesn’t seem to be commensurate at all with the actual results of these policies, which have been pretty dismal. What? You thought economic conservatism was an exclusively American phenomenon? Don’t be silly. That’s just a line American conservatives use to tap into the eternal undercurrent of distrust of foreigners that exists here in the US. Well, I suppose social conservatives may be a little more prevalent here than in Europe, although there are plenty of those in Europe as well and some of them are more rabid than anything you might find in the US, but when it comes to economic conservatives the Europeans can clearly swing with the best of them.
Now I can certainly see Mr. Krugman’s point. However, I’m afraid he’s in for an awful lot of amazement in the years ahead because I think he’s gotten rather the wrong end of the stick on this one. He seems to be thinking about these austerity measures as policies intended to promote the growth of national economies, reduce unemployment, and that type of thing. Of course, these policies have proven to be rather horrible at addressing those types of issues. What they do more typically is throw even more people out of work and create even more widespread economic hardship, which then further reduces demand and economic activity, which produces more unemployment and economic hardship, and so on. Which is obviously not to suggest there isn’t some point to controlling national debt. Uncontrolled national debt can create a whole other can of worms but fortunately those problems have a much longer time horizon. No, it’s just to suggest the long range debt problem is rather different from the recession / depression problem and that, indeed, if one were to address the latter problem that by itself would do a lot to address the former problem (by increasing revenue and putting a brake on certain types of expenditures). So Mr. Krugman is understandably amazed at European economic conservatives’ wildly successful campaign to foist austerity measures aimed at controlling long term debt on struggling economies that are obviously badly in need of some type of stimulus spending. But what I feel Mr. Krugman does not really appreciate is that for economic conservatives these policies are not really a means to an end but are an end unto themselves (and when I say an end I really mean the end). That is to say, it seems pretty clear the interests of conservative politicians across the globe are aligned rather closely with those of wealthy elites who are themselves largely immune from the effects of downturns in national economies and who actually do quite well under austerity measures. The primary concern of these elites is to reduce their own taxes and to reduce any government activity that requires taxes. This is their goal in good times and this is their goal in bad times. I suppose what happens to national economies and working people may be of some abstract interest to a few of them but in general those types of issues just don’t seem to matter too much to these people, and I can’t help but suspect a few of them may even think a periodic dose of unemployment and economic hardship is a good way to keep working people in line. I suppose it certainly makes it easier to find domestic help. And, of course, one would hardly expect them to be concerned about the government programs slated to go by the wayside, that is, the austerity part. The point is that from the perspective of economic conservatives austerity measures work perfectly by definition, no matter the effect on national economies and unemployment rates. Indeed, I think it only makes sense to talk about these policies as “austerity measures” from the perspective of certain elements of society. If one takes the perspective of the economic elites who support these policies I think it would be rather more descriptive to call them something like live it up measures, or happy days are here again measures, or whatever might be the opposite of austerity.
Now in the US I’ve noticed many conservatives tend to view any discussion of this issue as a form of class conflict. That is, I guess we’re not really supposed to talk about the fact that different groups of people may have different incentives and goals. For many conservatives I think those types of discussions probably smack a bit too much of Marxism, which of course was always quite blunt about the possibility of these types of conflicts. (Or was it the inevitability? I can never remember.) However, I don’t think we need to restrict ourselves to a feigned Panglossian ignorance on the one hand and some type of violent Bolshevik zeal on the other. We could always just discuss the issue like sane, reasonable adults and come up with some ideas about whether the problem exists and, if so, how we should deal with it. But what’s even funnier to me is that conservatives don’t seem to be bothered at all by the actual conflict, that is, the fact that these austerity measures obviously make life very difficult for many people, especially young people and poor people, even while they clearly play to the long term interests and desires of other, wealthier, and more established people. No, what bothers them seems to be that one might talk about it. Now as a liberal my take on the whole issue is rather different. I’m all for talking things over, so if there’s any hint of this type of class conflict going on then that’s definitely something I think we want to bring out into the open and hash out. For me the possibility there might be actual class conflict trumps the class conflict implicit in discussing that possibility every time.
But this is really just a specific case of what I see as a rather broader difference between conservatives and liberals. In my opinion many conservatives are not really committed to the liberal ethos. Indeed, I’m not sure they entirely trust or respect democratic government and its associated reliance on freedom of speech and thought. No, I think many of them like their preferred definition of a market system on the one hand and the good word of established religion on the other. To most conservatives the value and ultimate correctness of these institutions are simply eternal truths, rather like the laws of physics. The only thing that happens when you bring people in to discuss things is that you introduce the possibility they might screw things up by failing to see the light. So even though conservatives pay a lot of lip service to ideas that certainly sound a lot like the liberal ethos, especially about freedom and liberty, I think one needs to keep in mind they’re really only thinking about those issues in a very restricted sense, specifically, as they apply to conservatives’ attempts to reduce the scope of democratic government to things that benefit themselves (for economic conservatives) and to maintain some type of platform to force other people to follow their religious mores (for social conservatives). I think you’ll find when the issues of freedom and liberty stray from those particular objectives most conservatives lose interest rather quickly.
To sum up: class conflict, yes or no? Hmm, well, some people do seem to have been doing rather well recently and some other people not, and there seems to be little reason to suppose what helps the one group achieve its goals will necessarily help the other group achieve its goals. (Oh, you’re hung up on the idea we’re just maximizing total social utility and we don’t need to talk about the economic welfare of particular people or groups of people? Well, we’re talking about interpersonal utility comparisons here so we’re a little beyond that, but you should check out some of my posts on utility and economic theory some day if you’re interested in that type of thing.) Now it seems to me the people who have been doing rather well recently are quite heavily involved in certain political movements, particularly the Republican Party and its extremist wing, the Tea Party. So do I think there’s been class conflict going on in the US? Yeah, I think conservatives have been engaging in a form of class conflict for a number of years now. Not in words mind you but in actions. And I don’t mean to imply they necessarily have class conflict as their objective. I think they’ve been pursuing their own interests and haven’t been excessively concerned about the impact on other people, which is after all just what their social philosophy recommends, and I think what has fallen out of that can fairly be called a form of class conflict. Do I like it? No, not at all. To my mind the cult of unlimited greed and egotism is, and always has been, corrosive to any society, and I’m afraid we’re no exception. So should we talk about what’s going on? Yes. Yes we should. That’s the liberal ethos, babe. So let’s get together over a nice glass of beer and talk it over, if that suggestion is not too rife with class conflict to bear consideration.
References
Death of a Fairy Tale. Paul Krugman. April 26, 2012. International Herald Tribune. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/opinion/krugman-death-of-a-fairy-tale.html?_r=1&comments.
