>>Mr. Nader did not begin as an extremist. On the
contrary: in the 1960's, when he made his reputation,
the striking thing about Mr. Nader was his relative
moderation. Fashionable radicals were preaching
revolution; he was demanding safer cars. And because
his radicalism was practical and realistic, it left a
lasting legacy: our tradition of consumer activism, a
tradition that rightly honors Mr. Nader as its
founding father, makes this country a better place.
One might even give Mr. Nader some credit for our
current prosperity: if Japan had shared our healthy
distrust of claims that what is good for General
Motors is good for America, its current economic
morass might have been avoided. <<
This last sentence isn't even consistent with his own published views! According to Krugman, Japan's "current economic morass" (which I *still* can't see) is the result of liquidity conditions brought about by excess private saving due to the demographic structure of Japan. And there's no way on earth that Nader or anyone else could have done anything very much about that.
This is why I dislike K's journalism; in many ways he's more dangerous than the likes of The Economist, because they just mindlessly push the neoliberal agenda all the time, while K often writes thoughtful stuff then slips in a bit of neolib stupidity when he's not concentrating. It certainly means he is a better object of derision than other neoliberals, as there is some hope that it might have some effect on him.
dd
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