Brad, Oskar, Noam

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Fri Mar 19 10:50:47 PST 1999



>>>>>> But what's the point? Chomsky wants to write so that his readers get the
>>>>>> message that plutocrats in Wall Street and bureaucrats in Washington
>>>>>> cheer the departure of Lafontaine.... He won't let the fact that much of
>>>>>> what he says in and between the lines is false (U.S. financiers *are*
>>>>>> displeased at the erosion of prospects for lower European interest
>>>>>> rates--Jeanne Kirkpatrick and her proteges do *not* run the U.S.
>>>>>> government--U.S. senior government officials *have* pushed Lafontaine's
>>>>>> line on monetary policy for six years) get in his way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Brad DeLong
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Rubin [and] Summers [and] Greenspan [do not] share [Lafontaine] goals.
>>>>> They are... worried that the U.S. is... absorbing the world's exports....
>>>>> But that is different from Lafontaine's plans for wholesale reflation
>>>>> of the European economy to bring down unemployment and fend off attacks
>>>>> on the regulatory and welfare state... Chomsky's point was to show the...
>>>>> monolithic opposition to those social democratic policies....
>>>>>
>>>>> Seth
>>>>>
>>>> But I don't think anyone reading Chomsky's article would realize that
>>>>Rubin
>>>> >>>> had been publicly calling for the same changes in European
>>>>monetary policy
>>>> that Lafontaine was...
>>>>
>>>> Brad DeLong
>>>>
>>>True. But Chomsky's point was to show the rather monolithic opposition
>>>to those social democratic policies among U.S. policymakers and pundits.
>>>Accidental and transitory agreement between the two sides for short-term
>>>tactical reasons are -- as others on this list would say -- on a lower
>>>level of abstraction.
>>>
>>????
>>
>>If there is agreement on important issues--even if tactical and
>>transitory--then opposition is not "monolithic"...
>>
>>Brad DeLong
>>
>
>Lafontaine wanted lower interest rates because he thought this would
>reduce unemployment without sacrificing what he would call "social
>solidarity." ...In a narrow and technocratic way, there
>might be agreement. But with regard to the underlying values, total,
>monolithical opposition.
>
>Seth
>

First, I want to take strong, strong exception to the claim that something going on in the real world isn't worth noting because it is "on a lower level of abstraction." That road leads to the claim that much of what is isn't really real because only the rational is real, and to Jean-Paul Sartre's declaration that people shouldn't talk about the GULAG because it would only confuse the workers.

It is bad politics, it is immoral politics, to say that our task is only to make sure that the right shadows are cast on the walls of the cave so that those in darkness will react appropriately. Instead, we should be aiming to raise the level of the debate: to help people walk outside into the light.

Second, I don't think that it raises the level of the debate for Noam Chomsky or Seth Akerman to claim that Bob Rubin is part of a "monolithic opposition" to Oskar Lafontaine. "Monolithic" = single-block-of-stone-without-cracks-fissures-or-joints, after all.

Oskar Lafontaine is a social democrat. Bob Rubin is a liberal democrat. Consider: the twentieth century political world has included or includes:

Kim Il Sungists

Pol Potists

Stalinists

Leninists

Trotskyists

Left-wing anarchists

State socialists believing in central planning

State socialists believing in limited worker

self-management

State socialists believing in market economies and

centralized control of politics by the CCP

(Deng faction)

Social democrats

Liberal democrats

Antisocial democrats

Liberal republicans

Social control republicans

Laissez-faire republicans

Libertarian republicans

Right-wing anarchists

Authoritarian oligarchs

Populist oligarchs

Military oligarchs

"Soft" fascists

"Hard" fascists

National socialists

and other factions as well...

Against this backdrop, the differences between liberal democrats and social democrats are really quite minor: differences between what means are appropriate to achieve common ends, and differences between what ends commonly-accepted means will lead to in two generations or so.

Seth Akerman writes of Lafontaine's desire for "wholesale reflation of the European economy to bring down unemployment and fend off attacks on the regulatory and welfare state."

And I recall a Clinton-administration National Economic Council meeting (at which I stood against the back wall with the other aides)--perhaps in June 1993?--and heard Bob Rubin state that aggressive pursuit of deficit reduction was our best chance to get a prolonged investment-led job-creating high-productivity-growth recovery, and that without such a prolonged economic expansion the chances of defending and expanding the New Deal and the Great Society were zero...

Brad DeLong



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