Krugman on the Three Kinds of Inequality Denilalism

     It's a great list and I think it may be fully exhaustive:

     "The bit about the WSJ’s continuing denialism on rising inequality brings to mind a point I think I’ve made before, but which seems especially appropriate for recent debates. It is this: Today’s right wing never gives up on a politically convenient argument, no matter how thoroughly it may have been refuted by analysis and evidence. It may downplay that argument for a while — though often even that doesn’t happen — but it always comes back."

    "Inequality is a clear though not at all unique example. Consider three arguments one might make against 21st-century populism:

    "1. Inequality isn’t increasing."

     "2. OK, inequality is increasing, but it’s not a problem."

    "3. OK, it would be nice to have lower inequality, but any proposed solutions would do more harm than good."

     "Which of these arguments does the right choose, when making its stand? The answer is, all three. Argument 1 faded away briefly when the CBO published its landmark study documenting the rise of the one percent, but as we’ve just seen, it’s back (this is an illustration of the concept of cockroach ideas.) Argument 2 doesn’t stand up under scrutiny, but it just keeps being made anyway — it’s a zombie. But meanwhile, argument 3 is made against anyone like, say, the new mayor of New York who proposes even the slightest effort to equalize opportunity."

      http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/bodyguard-of-zombies-counterattack-by-cockroaches/?_r=0

     I think that's more or less a law of physics of modern conservatism-no politically convenient argument is ever given up on. As Krugman says the worst arguments that clearly have no intellectual basis whatsoever but are clear fallacies are 'cockroaches'-many conservatives may use them but none will ever admit to using them. 

    I love Krumgan's list because the more I think about it the more convinced I am that it may be exhaustive of inequality denialism and this is very impressive as there are so many inequality deniers. 

   Sumner usually argues that

   A) If it's true it doesn't matter very much

   B) In any case it's probably not rising if you go by differences in wealth rather than income-he also calls income a 'useless concept.'

   So basically he goes with Krugman's 1 and 2 as well as 3. All conservatives use 3. Indeed, this is why Okun wrote his book Equality and Growth-because there's an implication that equality and growth are more or less mutually exclusive at least as policy goals. 

   On the other hand I have to admit I am very optimistic after hearing the words of NYC's new Mayor, Bill de Blasio. I think that it's very important that the subject of inequality was actually broached even just at the symbolic level of speech. 

   I see that CNN has a headline that kind of gives de Blasio a very tough task-'Can he live up to his soaring rhetoric and end inequality?'

     http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/02/opinion/louis-de-blasio-inequality/

    This kind of boxes him in-it's as if unless he achieves 100% equality he's an unmasked fraud. I don't think he anywhere quite promised this. 

     I see that some have complained that his Inauguration was 'not the time and place to get so partisan.' 

    "The attacks, which dominated an inauguration ceremony that is normally a celebration of municipal unity, jarred many observers. "As outside observer, hard to understand the bitter partisanship at De Blasio ceremony," noted an Israeli journalist on Twitter. "There's a time for everything, and this isn't it."

    Over the last 20 years of GOP Mayoral rule the time for this had never come. So there wasn't a time for it then. 

   "The criticism was partly a matter of political overreach:Polls suggest that a majority of New Yorkers, while ready to turn the page on the Bloomberg years, also think the city is on the right track. Forty-nine percent approve of what Bloomberg did for the city, including innovative programs aimed at low-income residents."

   I think that on some things the City may be going in the right direction-social issues, certainly. I don't think that there is nothing good to say about Bloomberg's terms in office-though he did manage to have that third term he criticized Guliani for considering back in 2001.  However, economically his policies were generally very harsh on the poor and those with modest income. 

   Certainly my favorite line of his speech may be where he argued that a couple of extra dollars in taxes for the rich won't kill them. You'd never get this by listening to a Mayor Bloomberg or a Scott Sumner but it won't. The idea that trying to fight inequality will destroy economic growth is one of those ideas that Krugman talks about-they keep coming back no matter how little truth there are in them.