[s]omewhat awkwardly for the purposes of the polemical point I’m trying to make here, I’m open to postal privatization in the contemporary United States along the lines being implemented (PDF) in Europe.He is quick to point out that the mail no longer really matters so letting private enterprise get its hands on it isn't a big deal, because? Because he says so.
To sum up, he wants to deregulate industries about which he knows nothing, thinks that city planing ought to be managed by the market, and is convinced that we could have better health and educational delivery systems if only both would abide by the great god of maximizing profits by skimping on quality, because -- after all -- the endlessness of the pasta bowl makes up for the crappiness of its contents. He is, in other words, definitively against Conservative methods of governance and definitively in favor of some other undefined method of governance, which I dub Yglesiasism. This ism enacts Neoliberal, Reaganite solutions and methods of governance but isn't, some how or another, Conservativism.
He concludes that the foregoing "is all just to say that investment in infrastructure and public services is important and always has been." See? Unless it is spending and investment he doesn't like or public services like regulating business, creating zoning restrictions, providing non-skimped education, or developing licensing regimes he hasn't bothered to research, Yglesias is a full on liberal lion.
Maybe you should pay more attention to what I'm actually writing. I'm a neoliberal who believes in deregulation and privatization of service provision. But I'm not a conservative who believes in low taxes and "small government." I believe in high taxes and high levels of government spending to subsidize infrastructure and other public goods and redistribute income from the rich to the poor and the middle class.
ReplyDeleteIf it seems contradictory to you, perhaps I've been unclear but in this case I think you're simply refusing to pay attention.
Thanks for commenting Matt Yglesias, if this really is you. I would like to point out that I was criticizing you for being a Neoliberal who was clearly unaware of the consequences of Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is Reagan/Thatcher. (See Brady and Baker in Mexico) If you wear the mantle of one you wear the mantle of the other. It is not, in other words, that what you argue for is contradictory it is that it is incoherent.
ReplyDeleteYou must necessarily shrink the state if you end or decrease in size, scope, and effectiveness its regulatory regime and by ending its regulatory function you increase the dangers faces by workers and citizens from the wealthy and this, necessarily decreases the health, safety, and well being of workers as workers and average citizens as average citizens. Regulatory regimes ensure the public goods of personal health and safety.
I was also criticizing you for making wholly uniformed comments about extraordinarily complicated issues. Sort of like, to be blunt, your glib support for the Invasion. I haven't seen any intellectual growth and, quite frankly, it rankles that you are presented as a progressive when you are not.
I think its cute that you want to share the wealth, but I don't think that giving the vast majority of society some crumbs from the tables of the rich is anything like creating a just society. So, in short, I understand you, and I disagree with you.
It might be helpful if you explain how I am wrong instead of assuming I cannot understand a simplistic and incoherent ideologically driven world view.
You must necessarily shrink the state if you end or decrease in size, scope, and effectiveness its regulatory regime and by ending its regulatory function you increase the dangers faces by workers and citizens from the wealthy and this, necessarily decreases the health, safety, and well being of workers as workers and average citizens as average citizens.
ReplyDeleteHow about instead of shrining the state, we do this:
1) Decrease the scope of the regulatory regime.
2) Reinvest the funds thereby saved into improving the effectiveness of the remaining elements of the regime.
3) Increase taxation of rich people.
4) Give more money to non-rich people.
Maybe you should write some blog posts about all the folks in congress toiling away as we speak to cut taxes on millionaires and then turnaround and claim we need to slash Social Security in order to close the deficit?
Matt Ygelsias, if that really is you, thanks for the comment and the advice.
ReplyDeleteIn the same spirit, why don't you consider that every Neoliberal, Reaganite, glibertarian screed writer for the past 30 years or so has been writing Neoliberal, Reaganite, glibertarian screeds in service of the agenda you outline. Then look out the window and see what the Neoliberal, Reaganite, glibertarian screed writers have participated in creating, which is to say the opposite of what you propose. And then you could explain how your Neoliberal, Reaganite, glibertarian screeds denouncing regulatory regimes and regulators are some how different.
I'm less informed than either of the two previous commenters, but I thought that out of Yglesias's 4-point plan a Reaganite would support (1), reject (2), and do the exact opposite of (3) and (4). And not "pretend to support (3) and (4) but treacherously do the opposite when in power," but be against them every step of the way.
ReplyDeleteEric M., thanks for commenting and don't underestimate your knowledge. It is true that Reaganites support 1 and reject 2, 3, and 4 but use Neoliberal support of 1 to weaken the state which then makes 2, 3, and 4 impossible.
ReplyDelete