Paul Krugman: Structure of Excuses

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=1&hp

Structure of Excuses
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 26, 2010


What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there are no quick or easy answers. There is work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it — they’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problems are “structural,” and will take many years to solve.

But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand — full stop. Saying that there are no easy answers sounds wise, but it’s actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will to act.

In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.

snip//

So all the evidence contradicts the claim that we’re mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?

Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of high unemployment — in part because pundits and analysts believe that declaring the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound serious.

I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is “unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer.” A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs — and suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers.

But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been proliferating: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.

So what you need to know is that there is no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren’t suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we’re suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t a real problem, it’s an excuse — a reason not to act on America’s problems at a time when action is desperately needed.

[cilla4progress]

1. Thank you, Babs

Love Krugman...he is so consistent. Perhaps he will be picked to replace Summers? In my dreams...!

[Supersedeas]

2. intellectual clarity and political will are hard to come by these days

[eridani]

3. This is why Dems are in trouble. People vote from what is happening--

--in their lives, and laundry lists of achievements that they don't see around them are useless. How about talking honestly about the problem and blaming Repubs?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. Yeah, but back then, the defense build up only needed people turning wrenches and tightening rivets.

Today's products can't be made so simply. Automated manufacturing facilities require technicians who know how to handle sophisticated machinery. The problem of skills is a lot different today than it was back then, when the war buildup created a lot of low skilled jobs. Those are not to be had.