August 27, 2012
Op-Ed Columnist
Ny TimesPaul Krugman
Galt, Gold, God as well as Mr Ryan
By Paul Krugman (08-23-12)
So far, many of a contention of Paul Ryan, a unreserved Republican nominee for Vice President, has focused upon his bill proposals. But Mr. Ryan is a male of many ideas, which would usually be a great thing.
In his case, however, many of those ideas appear to come from works of fiction, specifically Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged." For those who someway missed it when growing up, "Atlas Shrugged" is a anticipation in which a world's productive people a "job creators," if you similar to withdraw their services from an ungrateful society.
The novel's centerpiece is a 64-page debate by John Galt, a angry elite's
ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted which he never done it through which part. Yet a book is a perennial a a single preferred between youth boys. Most boys in a future outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.
And Mr. Ryan is a single of those devotees. True, in recent years, he has attempted to downplay his Randism, job it an "urban legend." It's not tough to see why: Rand's romantic atheism not to mention her stipulation which "abortion is a dignified right" isn't what a G.O.P. base wants to hear.
But Mr. Ryan is being disingenuous. In 2005, he told a Atlas Society, which is devoted to compelling Rand's ideas, ! which sh e desirous his political career: "If we had to credit a single thinker, a single person, it would be Ayn Rand." He additionally declared which Rand's work was required reading for his staff as well as interns.
And a Ryan mercantile program obviously reflects Randian notions. As we documented in my last column, Mr. Ryan's reputation for being critical about a bill necessity is utterly undeserved; his policies would actually increase a deficit. But he is deadly critical about cutting taxes upon a rich as well as slicing assist to a poor, really many in line with Rand's worship of a successful as well as contempt for "moochers."
This last point is important. In pushing for draconian cuts in Medicaid, food stamps as well as alternative programs which assist a needy, Mr. Ryan (right) isn't just looking for ways to save money.
He's also, utterly explicitly, perplexing to make hold up harder for a bad for their own good. In March, explaining his cuts in assist for a unfortunate, he declared, "We do not wish to spin a safety net in to a hammock which lulls able-bodied people in to lives of dependency as well as complacency, which drains them of their will as well as their inducement to make a many of their lives."
Somehow, we doubt which Americans forced to rest upon unemployment benefits as well as food stamps in a vexed manage to buy feel which they're living in a comfortable hammock.
But wait, there's more: "Atlas Shrugged" apparently shaped Mr. Ryan's views upon financial policy, views which he clings to despite having been repeatedly, utterly wrong in his predictions.
In early 2011, Mr. Ryan, newly installed as a Chairman of a House Budget Committee, gave Ben Bernanke, a Federal Reserve chairman, a tough ti! me over his expansionary policies. Rising commodity prices as well as long-term seductiveness rates, he asserted, were harbingers of high acceleration to come; "There is zero some-more insidious which a country can do to a citizens," he intoned, "than pollute a currency."
Since then, acceleration has remained quiescent while long-term rates have plunged as well as a U.S. manage to buy would surely be in many worse figure than it is if Mr. Bernanke had allowed himself to be bullied in to financial tightening. But Mr. Ryan seems undaunted in his financial views. Why?
Well, it's right there in which 2005 debate to a Atlas Society, in which he declared which he regularly goes back to "Francisco d'Anconia's debate upon money" when meditative about financial policy. Who? Never mind. That debate (which clocks in during a small 23 paragraphs) is a case of hard-money obsession gone ballistic. Not usually does a impression in question, a Galt sidekick, call for a lapse to a bullion standard, he denounces a notion of paper income as well as demands a lapse to bullion coins.
For a record, a U.S. banking supply has consisted overwhelmingly of paper money, not bullion as well as silver coins, since a early 1800s. So if Mr. Ryan really thinks which Francisco d'Anconia had it right, he wants to spin a clock back not a single though two centuries.
Does any of this matter? Well, if a Republican ticket wins, Mr. Ryan will surely be an influential force in a next administration department as well as bear in mind, too, which he would, as a clich goes, be a heartbeat away from a presidency. So it should be concerned us which Mr. Ryan binds financial views which would, if put in to practice, go a prolonged approach toward recreating a Great Depression.
And, over that, cruise a fact which Mr. Ryan is deliberate a modern G.O.P.'s big thinker. What does it contend about a party when a intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas mostly from deeply unrealistic anticipation novels?
! A chroni cle of this op-ed appeared in imitation upon Aug 24, 2012, upon page A25 of a New York edition with a headline: Galt, Gold And God.
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