I feel that I am misunderstood. That's my fault of course for not speaking clearly. Fortunately, Herb Gintis speaks. This is what I would say if I could speak clearly. [via Free Exchange]

"Being progressive,'' says Paul Krugman in the concluding pages of The Conscience of a Liberal, "means being partisan." Like Krugman, my training lies in economics, but unlike Krugman, I am not partisan. Rather, I take a policy orientation to social issues: there are problems to be solved in order to enhance the lives of citizens, and it is our job to discover and publicize solutions to these problems. Krugman's partisan stance only clouds the issues.

I'm not an economist, but I think that any other discipline would serve as well here, and Krugman could be replaced by any number of partisans since they are as thick as thieves. The idea that partisanship trumps good policy is the glaring defect with Krugman and those other partisans.

For Krugman there is a "union movement" rather than a "bureaucratic labor aristocracy," critics of the welfare states want to "turn back the clock," rather than streamline and curb the inequities of the welfare state, conservatives have won by "exploiting cultural backlash" rather than by mounting a principled opposition to the explosion of crime, drug abuse, and single-headed households in a manner that resonates with the voting public. Critics of the wealth tax are "financed by a handful of [super-rich] families," with the public being ignorant dupes of the slick politicians. This book epitomizes what is wrong with American liberalism.

Too true. Partisans like Krugman make it difficult for principled people to be progressive since the policies and candidates fielded are often in many ways worse than those of the conservatives.

Krugman was a fine, perceptive international trade theorist, but he is a political hack, with nothing new to offer. There is one problem as far as Krugman is concerned: inequality. But inequality is an intellectual abstraction, not a politically motivating issue. People hated the Robber Barons because they were robbers and barons, not because they were rich. Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates do not send the Pinkerton men out to protect their ill-gotten gains; nor to the other super-rich. Socialists' ringing political slogans dealt with fairness, social progress, and power to the people, not "inequality." Moreover, a truly progressive movement must built on technical progress that is impeded by the reigning powers that be (Sam Bowles and I call this efficiency-enhancing egalitarian redistribution), not the beggar-thy-neighbor, zero-sum-game sort of redistribution favored by Krugman.

Indeed. When my great uncle Lawrence, the union organizer, was busting heads and taking his lumps, it was for sensible reasons that I have always admired. This is no longer the case.

I suspect Krugman is correct in saying that the degree of inequality in the USA today is the product of politics, not economic necessity. This is because some advanced industrial countries have more equal distributions of income and wealth that the USA (e.g., France, Germany). But, these countries are plagued by bureaucratic inefficiency and deeply threatened by the "lean and mean" up-and-coming countries like Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, India, et al. The USA has purchased a thriving economy and full employment at the cost of having a bunch of super-rich families. Not a bad deal, after all.

Not at all. Uncle Larry would be happy if he still lived. So would Great Grandma Grace, Grandfather Bert, and even my old dad Bill. At one time I was as proud of that pedigree as I was of my maternal farmer folk lineage. Now I don't talk about it much.

I am sorry that we can't do better than Krugman. There are very serious social problems to be addressed, but the poor, pathetic, liberals simply haven't a clue. Conservatives, on the other, are political sophisticated and hold clear visions of what they want. It is too bad that what they want does not include caring about the poor and the otherwise afflicted, or dealing with our natural environment. Politics in the USA is no longer Elephants and Donkeys; it is now conservative Pigs and liberal Bonobos. The pigs are smart but only care about what's in their trough. The Bonobos are polymorphous perverse and great lovers, but will be extinct in short order.

I'm sorry too. But I think that the conservatives can be persuaded about our natural environment if the rhetoric is stripped of the Krugman style cruft, and the policies proposed are truly about conservation rather than being trojan horses for the sort of unpalatable and ultimately self defeating social and economic controls that plague western Europe. I think that it is simply false that conservatives do not care about our natural environment, and that we would all be better off if we drummed the Krugman style brigades out so that a truly progressive sort of environmentalism could rise to prominence. I doubt that many would oppose it, not even the conservatives.

In my experience here in Bush country (really, Reagan country) sensible environmentalism is embraced by all. I do it for pay. Once they get it that I'm not a foo-foo environmentalist and that the stuff I'm peddling works, there's a great sigh of relief and the thunder of wallets falling open. Even when there's a net cost involved they are happy to have more productive, more beautiful and more diverse properties. What they object to are costs without benefits of any sort imposed by priggish busy bodies that have no clue what life is about. I help them to be their best selves rather than trying to make them over into something that actually revolts them.

The grass really is greener on my side of the fence, and all the other ranchers want some of that stuff no matter what their politics. They also want some ducks on their ponds like I have on mine, and all the other birds and mammals that hang out around here. They want cattle that are fat, black and sleek. They want a shed that isn't full of poisons from futile attempts to win the battle against Eurasian plant invaders. They want their springs to flow again like they did back in the day. They even want to be scared shitless when mountain lions and bears stroll by their houses.

There is a criminal element in society, sociopaths like the robber barons Gintis speaks of, and there always will be. It is a mistake to equate them with a political temperament since they are as happy to align with one side as the other when it serves their purposes. We have seen that. And there is a perverse element in society that is just as happy to swing with the circumstances and align on either side when it serves their interests. It isn't necessary to have a conflict between "conservative Pigs and liberal Bonobos" since the core of both temperaments are more alike than they seem to grasp. They're all progressives in my view, but some are impetuous and others are cautious. I'd like to see them work together against the sociopaths and perverts. Trust me, some of those conservatives are as hot and nasty in bed as any of the liberals, and some of those liberals are as sharp as any of the clearly focused conservatives. They can all get their propers.