November 29, 2007
Krugman Explains Right-Wingers
As usual, Paul Krugman has it exactly right. Krugman was in Durham Tuesday night speaking to an overflow crowd at the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy. His speech followed fairly closely the themes in his superb new book The Conscience of a Liberal. During the Q and A session following his talk, Krugman answered a question on immigration that essentially paraphrased his book. Thus:
"The political success of movement conservatism depends on appealing to whites who resent blacks. But it's difficult to be anti-black without also being anti-immigrant. And because the rapidly growing number of immigrants makes them an increasingly potent political force, the race issue, which has been a powerful asset for movement conservatives in the past, may gradually be turning into a liability."
Exactly. The more the right-wingers demagogue and demonize "illegals," the more likely we are to see a permanent Democratic majority.
Thanks, Civitas!
Which segues nicely into another favorite Krugman quote of mine:
It's amazing how much of the whole phenomenon of Republican ascendancy can be summed up in just five words: Southern whites started voting Republican."
Yes…the Southern Strategy is alive and well, and the immigration "crisis" is it's latest iteration. If you want to see a near perfect example of fear-mongering on this issue, watch this.
For more on how race plays a role in American politics, Krugman quotes the findings of three Harvard economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote:
"Racial discord plays a critical role in determining beliefs about the poor. Since minorities are highly over-represented amongst the poorest Americans, any income-based redistribution measures will redistribute particularly to minorities. The opponents of redistribution have regularly used race based rhetoric to fight left-wing policies. Across countries, racial fragmentation is a powerful predictor of redistribution. Within the US, race is the single most important predictor of support for welfare. America's troubled race relations are clearly a major reason for the absence of an American welfare state."
Now, I'm not saying everyone who opposes income-based redistribution measures is a racist, or anti-immigrant…I'm just saying…
…these guys are really, really, really, concerned about private property rights.
…and the adverse effects on minorities, immigrants, and income equality are not too high a price to pay for their economic freedoms.
…that's all I'm saying.
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24 Comments Add yours »
Redistribution destroys freedom and liberty. Just take a look at all of the failed redistributionist societies of the 20th century. It has nothing to do with racism and it is shameful for the left to try to demonize people for cherishing freedom and liberty. Is it really so bad to actually want the “Land of the Free” to survive beyond this century?
Sorry Pirate, I’ve been reading FDR’s biography and got carried away. Long live states’ rights!
I don’t see how infringing the liberties of minority groups helps promote the Land of the Free.
FYI: Hawke was Jesse Helms’ campaign manager when he ran against Gantt. Then like today, Hawke promoted voter suppression as a method of securing political power.
Jack Hawke: CEO of Civitas
pirate: doesn’t the gas tax (if it goes to build and maintain roads, say) count as redistribution? you seem to approve of that.
Jerimee…thanks for the timely reminder about Helms playing the race card.
Here is the link to the famous Jesse Helms “Hands” ad against Harvey Gantt. Take 30 seconds and watch it to remind yourself what people who “cherish freedom and liberty” will do to win elections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk
Wow. More self-parody.
So are Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Deroy Murdock, Thomas Stith (close friend of Jack Hawke whom you’re curiously smearing here), and many, many other liberty-loving, economically literate black people also racist or whatever you’re insinuating here?
(And while you’re at it with the FDR books Steve, try Amity Shlaes latest book on the FDR years. Hell, you might learn something. In fact, I’ll read the whole Naomi Klein book if you read the Schlaes — deal?)
http://redclaycitizen.typepad.com/redclay/2007/11/xenophobia-chil.html
The whole damned corporate sponsored rightest propaganda machine, which includes all you cited and Shlaes, only operate to spread revisionist propaganda based on the desires of their masters –including Civitas, Locke and all the phoney academics spawned and bought by this bunch. Kevin Phillips said: “We have had class warfare and the wealthy won” (from “Wealth in America”).
I doubt, is it “redclaycitizen”, can do more than barely read and surely is not able to reason well if he keeps company with Sowell and Williams, two of the most ridiculous propagandists from the right — both are plain looney. From what I read, including the Civitas rags and sites, Sith’s recent ventures into electoral politics was met with rejection. As for smearing Hawke, how can anyone do a better job than of showing him up his proclivities than he has? A pox on all of them.
Pirate said:
“Redistribution destroys freedom and liberty…Is it really so bad to actually want the ‘Land of the Free’ to survive beyond this century?”
I can find nothing in his statement to quarrel with. The sad consequences of the redistribution of wealth to the top 1% over the past 30 years is all too apparent!
It is time for us to call in the economic justice system. Arrest the “invisible hand” from using its diversions to pick our pockets and require that it pay RESTITUTION.
Max…all I’m saying is that I would be ashamed to be part of a movement that relied on racism, bigotry, and fear to win elections…and you should be, too.
Do you think it is a coincidence that your so-called message of “economic freedom and liberty” resonates mostly with white Southerners? Are all the other whites too elite to appreciate your message?
And yes, 5-10% of African-Americans do vote Republican, and an inordinate number of those find themselves on the stage at the Republican National Convention every four years posing for pictures. So, no, I’m not surprised you are able to cite examples of African-American individuals who agree with you. A better question, though, is why 90-95% of African-Americans find your views hostile to them. Are they not “economically literate” enough (your words) to understand your message? One of us is a condescending elitist…and it ain’t me.
Finally, do you agree that the Jesse Helms “Hands” ad was racist? If so, do you have the guts to walk down the hall and tell your boss, Mr. Jack Hawke (NC Republican Chairman 1987-1995), that you think the ad was immoral and unethical and he should be ashamed for allowing it to run? Or do you go back to your cubicle and drink more Kool-Aid? Let me know how it goes.
PS. I’ll be happy to swap the Shlaes and Klein books with you. We’ll arrange it off-line.
Pop Quiz: What is more racist:
1) Believing that all people are created equal and should be at liberty to pursue their dreams and keep the fruits of their labor; or
2) Believing that minorities are incapable of achieving success unless “White America” gives them a helping hand?
3) Believing that people are poor by choice, because “people are created equal” and if they don’t want to be poor any longer they should work a little harder..
sturner, what does the “third answer” have to do with racism? This post is about racism and ideology, is it not? There are more poor white people in America than there are poor minorities. The second answer is clearly the most racist position to take and it is the position of the American Left.
A) I don’t see what’s so bad about giving folks a helping hand. Seems to me that Jesus said something to that effect.
B) A good Republican operative will attempt to reframe any conversation about class into one about race. Republican victories are built on dividing the working class majority into racial minorities (i.e. working class whites against working class blacks against working class browns).
Pirate…read the third quote again. Race and poverty are closely linked, and the post references both.
Also, it is a fact that the states with the highest percentage of African-American residents have the most resistance to welfare spending.
Do you suppose that is a coincidence?
Jerimee, I thought the left was for seperation of church and state… Are you suggesting that welfare policy is an extention of the Judeo-Christian religion? The Chinese have a secularist saying “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetimeâ€
sturner, I do not think this is a coincidence at all. The American Left has been creating a dependent underclass in America for the past 100 years because you guys think minorities are incapable of achieving success unless “White America†gives them a helping hand. The sad thing is that the left has created this dependent underclass for the sole purpose of manipulating them at the polls.
Or, since the 1960’s the Democratic Party has been the party of civil rights…while the Republican Party has been pleased to exploit “white backlash” in the South to win elections.
I’m all for teaching a man to fish, as well as loving my neighbor.
What concerns me is Republican party activists that will fight to deny women a decision about their own reproductive health, while at the same time cutting adoption, WIC, and children’s health care programs.
Jesus has been a Republican hood ornament too long. I encourage folks to embrace the vision of Jesus, and act accordingly.
“The American Left has been creating a dependent underclass in America for the past 100 years because you guys think minorities are incapable of achieving success unless “White America†gives them a helping hand.”
100 years ago voting was restricted across much of the US by race and, let us not forget, income. this was done both officially by government institutions and unofficially by ‘citizens’ acting on their own initiative. by the latter, i mean lynching. African-Americans were regularly tortured to death in public by white mobs–this was technically illegal, but more or less commonly accepted practice. LEGAL means for excluding certain classes of citizens from their right to vote (poll taxes and grandfather clauses, for instance) ended fewer than 50 years ago. this is not so long ago.
Let’s not forget that every southern state was controlled by the Democrat Party back 100 years ago. The only way to unify the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats was through the notion of a passive racism that views minorities as inherently inferior to the white race. This is a racism that allowed Northern Democrats to secure the future of their political party by establishing a permanent underclass in America and for White Southern Democrats to continue their role as the upper class in a divided South.
Back then, in the South, the Democrat Party WAS the government. African-Americans who tried to enter the political arena had no choice but to try to become involved with the Democrat Party because there simply was no alternative. African-Americans, because of the influence they imparted, eventually changed the face of the Democrat Party in the South. Unfortunately, this change coincided with the rise of Leftism in America during the 1960s that poisoned the hearts and minds of all too many.
Today, there is a blurring between the rise of African-American political power and the rise of Leftist propaganda in American political life. Leftists and African-Americans both view their political power as bound to each other’s fate. Anyone who opposes socialism or communism are automatically cast as racist. This is wrong and intellectually puerile.
No one had, or has, a monopoly on racism. nor on exploiting the poor, whatever their color. the question is whether, today, one party or the other is more interested in alleviating poverty, more interested in inquiring into why americans with certain skin colors are disproportionately likely to be poor. perhaps neither party is really all that interested in the question.
I think it’s pretty hard to assert real similarity between the reconstruction era republicans and democrats and the present-day parties.
Still, go back and look at the party politics of reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s more carefully. There were republican reconstruction governments in plenty of southern states. The process whereby northern republicans decided to give up on radical reconstruction and leave politically active black southerners to their fate at the hands of a bitter, defeated white population is tragic, but also pretty well documented. the democrats certainly became, over the 1870s, the dominant political party again in the south, and certainly enforced the existence of a black–but also white–share-cropping underclass.
the civil rights movement happened in spite of, not as a result of, southern elected officials of either party.
i guess the main point here isn’t all this historical debating, though it is important.
the main point is that state intervention in the economy does not equal socialism or communism, neither of which is the same thing as the soviet union. if you want to be philosophical about it, i’d say that the free market is an abstraction that could never exist in a world that always already has inequalities of material and position to overcome–this is the weight of history. given that the world isn’t fair, how do we reduce human suffering within it? sometimes we do it by allowing private enterprise to do its thing, and sometimes we don’t. but there’s a real decision there to make, always depending on circumstance.
Eric, thank you for acknowledging that “No one had, or has, a monopoly on racism. nor on exploiting the poor, whatever their color.” Krugman wants to accuse Republicans of being racists for not agreeing with him ideologically. This is intellectually dishonest and contributes nothing to the debate over poverty in America.
I do however disagree that “the question is whether, today, one party or the other is more interested in alleviating poverty…” The Democrat Party has been pouring money into anti-poverty programs for decades and yet we have the same problems today that we had prior to the “War on Poverty”. If the Democrats really want to alleviate poverty, you would think that after almost 50 years they would be willing to consider trying a new approach.
Personally, I don’t think the Democrat Party wants to truly alleviate poverty because it is a major source of political power for the left. I don’t believe that your average, everyday Democrat thinks this way. I do, however, believe that there is an unspoken understanding in the inner circles of the party that the welfare state provides a permanent source of political power. Alleviating poverty is not the goal, the goal is to sustaining it and to maintain the institutions that feed into it.
The real question should be “How do we deal with this issue?” There are a wide range of ideological perspectives on this question. Accusing those who disagree with you of being racist is nothing but an attempt to silence opposing views.
Krugman does not have it right, and has made egregious errors one would not expect from a respected economist. While it’s true of course that a reliably democratic block of voters (southern whites) have switched parties, Krugman does not explain why whites in every part of the country have more often than not voted Republican in presidential elections.
Chief among Krugman’s problems is his (strange) reliance upon a political scientist (Bartels) who represents a minority opinion pertaining to the voting habits of “working-class” whites. Among other errors, Bartels confuses the working-class with the (mostly non-working or under-employed) poor, and then proceeds to build an argument from this shaky foundation. As the poorest members of society continue to vote Democratic, Bartels rejects the argument that working-class voters throughout the nation have abandoned the democratic party, and Krugman has improbably signed on.
But as any number of research studies have shown, in almost every part of the country whites (except the very poor) have trended Republican for many years — with the exception of Clinton’s re-election victory. One could argue that wealthy whites have started voting more Republican, except they haven’t (their voting patterns seem to be pretty consistently Republican over the years) and there are not enough of them to explain why Republicans keep winning.
The established and majority opinion of political scientists is that an increasing number of non-union working-class whites have trended Republican since the 60’s. For whatever reason Krugman wants to propose a mono-causal explanation (southern whites are racist) that is simplistic, unscientific, and politically damaging to the Democratic Party.
moz, you really nailed this one.