Krugman: many on the right now portray the postwar years of prosperity as a triumph of libertarian

[pampango]

principles

The 91 Percent Solution

There’s such a blizzard of misinformation out there that it’s hard to pick any one thing to single out, but David Frum picks up on one bit from the Paul/Paul show: the remarkable way many on the right now portray the postwar years of prosperity as a triumph of libertarian principles.

Yeah, it was a libertarian paradise all right — with a top marginal tax rate of 91 percent, a third of the work force in unions, and a minimum wage much higher relative to the average wage than it is today.

Propose a return to those conditions now, and everyone on the right would predict utter disaster. What we actually had was unprecedented prosperity.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/the-91-percent-solution/

[Electric Monk]

1. k&r

&u&g&m&a&n

[n2doc]

2. And...much higher estate taxes

That one really gets to me. The estate tax is one of the only things that works against the formation of a permanent aristocracy.

[Prophet 451]

3. They just plain lie about it

Usually, you're talking to someone either ignorant of the history or one of those "the New Deal made things worse" bullshitters.

[4th law of robotics]

4. I'm always weary of drawing any direct comparisons between the 1950s and today

Because yes there were vastly different economic policies in place (taxes, union membership and so on as you say) but also the rest of the industrial world was in ashes. That kinda helped too.

American workers were competing with . . . I dunno, maybe Canadians?

Now they're competing with 2 billion Chinese and Indians as well as a fully rebuilt Europe and japan and various emerging nations in south america and Asia.