From the unintentional humor department:
Political conservatives have long believed that the best government is a small government. But if this were true, noted economist Jeff Madrick argues, the nation would not be experiencing stagnant wages, rising health care costs, increasing unemployment, and concentrations of wealth for a narrow elite.
Actually the second sentence would arguably be true if “this” referred to the first sentence rather than to the view attributed to conservatives by the first sentence.
I actually had a bigger laugh out of this line:
“The book [The Case for Big Government] sets aside ideology and proposes bold steps to ensure the nation’s vitality.”
A practical call to arms, The Case for Big Government asks for … a willingness to fail.
That about sums it up.
I agree this counts as Left-Conflationism. Would you agree that Kevin Carson is dealing with Libertarian-Conflationism here?
I’m partial to this political compass. I would think the AAE may be mapped a few blocks south of where I’m mapped, but probably not many blocks to the west. Would you agree that libertarians who categorize the green box and the purple box as one box are misled?
I laughed at the part where the Republicans want to go back to the 19th century and the Democrats want to go back to the New Deal, as if there were no third option.
Also, this quote:
>The Case for Big Government considers whether the government can adjust its current policies and set the country right.
In other words, like most proponents of government he imagines that the government will either have him in charge or have the right kind of people running it. That saying “my government” would achieve something is about is as believable as saying “my free market” would achieve something doesn’t occur to him.