Brooks and Lazy Debt Moralism

I do enjoy reading David Brooks, perhaps because there are few I disagree with so agreeably. David has written a column today praising the responsibility of the Tories for their fiscal responsibility.  I suppose responsibility is a relative thing and relative to the Republicans the Tories are indeed responsible.  The problem is that nobody has held them to account.  The country has had enough of Labour and so all they have to do is master the optics, and they have been pushing the austerity theme because it is popular. Sunday’s Observer has a number of articles that have a closer look and I recommend the editorial wondering whether David Cameron is naïve or cynical, Andrew Rawnsley dissecting the political calculations, and Will Hutton’s Sorry, David, if you roll back the state, you invite disaster.

My problem with David Brooks’s column is the irresponsibility of it’s neo-Hooverism.  I will leave the economics to others, but the precedent of 1937 should be fresh on every one’s minds. It does seem extraordinary that the kleptocracy can crash the world economy, reflate it with tax dollars and , with the real economy—the sections of where people do socially useful things—in pieces and unemployment rocketing, can start demanding a return to ‘responsibility’, once these very same people have resumed their siphoning operation.  As Yglesias points out, those arguing for tight money are looking after the interests of the moneyed.

Bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted makes no sense if the horse upset an oil lamp getting the exit and the rest of the horses now need out. Being responsible and moral does not mean following moral impulses but thoroughly questioning them.