Bruce Bartlett, apostate.
Krugman, Paul ; Sullivan, Andrew
Former Reagan economic adviser Bruce Bartlett's December
article, "Revenge of the Reality-Based Community," quickly
became The American Conservative's most popular article ever,
garnering more than 200,000 page views and 18,000 Facebook
"likes"
All hail Bruce Bartlett, who writes movingly about how he came to
realize that movement conservatism and its economic doctrine
weren't what he imagined them to be, and in particular how he came
to realize that Keynesian analysis had a point.
Bartlett's essay only drives home, of course, how very few
economists--whether in the policy/think tank world or in academia--have
been willing to do the same.
PAUL KRUGMAN
Excerpt from a New York Times blog post
What Bruce and I shared was a belief that the conservatism of the
1980s, while defensible in its time with a few obvious exceptions, was
irrelevant for the world that Reaganism had created.... Taxes were way
lower than they had historically been, and conservatives should be glad
about this but vigilant about debt and spending--not eager to cut taxes
even more, especially in wartime. America was more multicultural, and
one minority, gay citizens, was actively seeking greater responsibility
and inclusion. But by the new millennium, low taxes were unbreakable
theological truths on the right and gays were Biblically repellent and
had to be re-ostracized--by amending the federal constitution no less.
Then came the crash of 2008 and a whole set of ideas about
self-regulating markets and risk had to be re-thought (as intellectually
honest libertarians like Alan Greenspan and Richard Posner conceded).
Facing this reality, Bartlett rediscovered Keynes as he actually was and
recognized the salience of Keynesianism for a new crisis that was an
almost textbook case for government intervention ...
We can easily become cynical about Washington. It contains a
hundred times more schmoozers and social climbers and lobbyists and
parasites than it does individuals genuinely committed to the common
good in different ways. And of those earnest individuals, only a few are
ballsy enough to follow their own reason doggedly enough to sufer social
ostracism, removal from all conservative media outlets, and loss of a
job--because their mind is not for sale or rent.
Bruce Bartlett is that kind of guy. We need so many more.
ANDREW SULLIVAN
Excerpt from a blog post at The Daily Beast
