Do I Contradict Myself?

Matthew YglesiasOn January 22th

So the era of big government wasn’t over in 1995 and it’s not over in 2010, but what is over is the era of big government liberalism. That’s not to say there will be no new changes to health care policy or to education policy or any of the rest of it. But there aren’t any major new fundamental commitments to be undertaken and there isn’t any more money to undertake it with.

 On January 25th

That’s all to say, in other words, that while there are new things I would like to see the government undertake realistically a large portion of the revenue would have to be taken out of existing commitments.

  Today:

In a global context absolute poverty remains an extremely severe problem in a way that dwarfs any conceivable worry abouot inequality. But especially in the developed world, we’re not doing a good job of meeting real human needs.

So, you see, big government Liberalism is over with because everything that needs to be done has been done, except for all those other things that need to be done which we can't pay for because I won't argue for a sensible tax plan, to say nothing about the crushing inequality that needs to be dealt with through some means other than state intervention in the market place because the era of state intervention in the market place is over.

UPDATE:
After bemoaning the role of "creative destruction on his own family, Yglesias concludes that

[i]t’s clear if you look at the past 300 years of human history that allowing this process of change to move forward leads to huge increases in average living standards. But the notion that it makes everyone better off or that market outcomes are “fair” is a lie. Hence the need for redistribution in general and, ideally, some kind of active labor market policy for people like these former auto workers.

 Add this to the list of state interventions into the economy which, while technically no longer necessary because the age of big government liberalism is well and truly over.  Consider that sort of sadist whose advice on fixing a system that periodically destroys the economic and social life of a not insignificant number of its victims is to train the victims and their children to be savaged at some point in the every nearer future.