Krugman Doesn't Care about Process

At Obama's press conference, Obama used 'I' instead of 'we' a lot. As part of a narcissistic profession his narcissism stands out, but I guess to run for President on his resume that's a given. Obama also talked about paying more attention to process, Jon Stewart's main complaint when Obama visited his comedy show last week (Comedians running the country? It would be an improvement!).

But Kruman was having none of it. In a post title 'Nobody Cares About Process', he argues that neither should they:

Nobody cares about this stuff — they care about results. Nobody really cares about earmarks; they’re just code for spending less (less on somebody else, of course, not me). Nobody cares about civility and bipartisanship, which in practice are code for Democrats giving in to Republican demands.

Lenin reduced the past and future alike to two pronouns and a question mark: "Who—whom?" No verb was necessary. It meant 'who prevails over whom?' Everything is always about power, in the past and in the future. Krugman dismisses the 'how'--institutions, incentives, and all other means to an end and focuses on what--for him, matters: who gets what, and who pays what. Krugman's dismissal of means over ends explains why he's unconcerned about deficits and taxes because those are means to his end, which is egalitarian redistribution managed by an all-powerful (but smart and good) state.

The serenity prayer highlights it is important to do what works, not merely try to do what one wants. Countless times in the past people have expropriated the rich to spread power to the more numerous poor (Russians and Kulaks, Turkey and Armenians, Jewish expropriations throughout history). This has not been a productive strategy because prosperity and liberty comes from having strong property rights, which includes letting people keep their income and property. You can't get the end 'prosperity and liberty' directly, you merely can merely create conditions where this is maximized.

Suggesting the President avoid civility and issues around 'process' is like suggesting one ignore indirect effects. It's what differentiates an economist, even a liberal economist, from a radical adolescent muckraker. I guess this highlights Lord Acton's dictum that power corrupts, and so like Smeagol to Gollum, his popularity and power have turned him from a thoughtful person to a dogmatic liberal shill for more government.