[lit-ideas] Re: The Missing Link
- From: Torgeir Fjeld <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mr T <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 23:01:46 +0200
Back in the day, let's not get into numbers here, it was as such that one
thought of Europe as belonging to the guarde avant of social policy. It had the
State de Welfare, Coal and Steel Agreement (Union de Roma), fagotted expats
(the WIlde Oscar in the IV Republic) and so forth. However today thing are --
or so they seem -- different. Reading the "reactionary" New York Times one
wonders -- has the World of Olde at last earned its name?
One can't really be opposed to Austerity on Europe. Then one seems irrational
and Completely Out Of Touch with Commonly Agreed Knowledge. Nonetheless,
reading Paul Krugman in NYT one wonders. The commentator, located as he is in
the Neo-Liberl Republic of America (NRA), claims that the reasons "European
Leaders" have tabled for convincing working Europeans that they really should
admit they've been living beyond means (this in contrast to the well-heeled
Europeans, who have been paying too much taxes) and tighten their belts --
well, those reasons have been tabled "in the teeth of evidence". The crisis,
Krugman claims, is NOT about fical irresponsibility -- and the "savage
austerity" measures imposed from on high have made "a terrible situation worse."
You thought this was BAD -- coming from a commentator in a country where social
insurance is a legally imposed gift from the working person to insurance
companies --? Well, wait. It gets worse. According Krugman that European elite
has gotten into a "habit of disguising ideology as expertise, of pretending
that what it wants to do is what must be done" and this approach has "created a
dificit of legitimacy."
So, in the post-cCarthyan NRA one is allowed to talk about ideology in the
national broadsheet (and not getting sacked), one can hint at critique of the
establishement (still while not getting the boot), and one can make the claim
that there is evidence in the field of Scientific Economics that counter that
FACT that Austerity is The Only Way to Salvation.
WTF.
-t
Sendt fra en Samsung Mobil
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