I think that Paul Krugman gets one thing wrong here. Corey Robin's piece is not a piece aimed at strengthening the left, but rather one aimed at weakening American liberalism. It is not at all clear to me that when "Corey Robin says 'socialism'... he really means social democracy: Denmark, not Venezuela". In fact, it is very clear to me that he doesn't: "If tax credits and insurance exchanges are the best liberals have to offer to men and women struggling to make stagnating wages pay for bills that skyrocket and debt that never dissipates, maybe socialism is worth a try.... Even if liberals come to support single-payer health care, free college, more unions and higher wages, the divide... will remain. For liberals, these are policies to alleviate economic misery. For socialists, these are... liberating men and women from the tyranny of the market and autocracy.... Making things free makes people free." Robin's piece is, at its core and in its intent, an ideological police action against social democrats, as people who see competitive markets as having a large proper role in the institutional mix of a modern complex society moving toward utopia. Robin's piece is not a Popular Front piece aimed at building a broad majority coalition to try to make things better. It is, rather, a factionalist piece aimed at delegitimizing the concerns and insights of the center-left: Paul Krugman: Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom: "Two articles... by Corey Robin and... Neil Irwin... that... as a pair... get at a lot of what’s wrong with the neoliberal ideology...
...low taxes and minimal regulation... [and] that free markets translate into personal freedom.... The daily experience of tens of millions of Americans–especially but not only those who don’t make a lot of money–is one of constant dependence on the good will of employers and other more powerful economic players. It’s true that, as Brad DeLong says, many of Robin’s examples would actually apply in any complex economic system: I’ve wasted time dealing with both Verizon and the Social Security Administration, and in both cases my socioeconomic status surely made it a lot easier than it would have been for a minimum-wage worker. (I have, on the other hand, had consistently good experiences at the much-maligned DMV.) But the idea that free markets remove power relations from the equation is just naïve. And it’s even more naïve now than it was a few decades ago, because, as Irwin points out, large economic players are dominating more and more of the economy....
But what can be done about it? Corey Robin says “socialism”–but as far as I can tell he really means social democracy: Denmark, not Venezuela.... Unions... offer an important counterweight against corporate monopsony power.... Social safety net programs can do more than limit misery: they can be liberating. I’ve known many people who stuck with jobs they disliked for fear of losing health coverage; Obamacare, flawed as it is, has noticeably reduced that kind of “lock in”.... There are no perfect answers to the inevitable sacrifice of some freedom that comes with living in a complex society; utopia is not on the menu. But the advocates of unrestricted corporate power and minimal worker protection have been getting away for far too long with pretending that they’re the defenders of freedom–which is not, in fact, just another word for nothing left to lose.
#shouldread
