Paul Krugman- The Laziness Doctrine

[n2doc]

Americans work longer hours than their counterparts in just about every other wealthy country; we are known, among those who study such things, as the “no-vacation nation.” According to a 2009 study, full-time U.S. workers put in almost 30 percent more hours over the course of a year than their German counterparts, largely because they had only half as many weeks of paid leave. Not surprisingly, work-life balance is a big problem for many people.

But Jeb Bush — who is still attempting to justify his ludicrous claim that he can double our rate of economic growth — says that Americans “need to work longer hours and through their productivity gain more income for their families.”

Mr. Bush’s aides have tried to spin away his remark, claiming that he was only referring to workers trying to find full-time jobs who remain stuck in part-time employment. It’s obvious from the context, however, that this wasn’t what he was talking about. The real source of his remark was the “nation of takers” dogma that has taken over conservative circles in recent years — the insistence that a large number of Americans, white as well as black, are choosing not to work, because they can live lives of leisure thanks to government programs.

You see this laziness dogma everywhere on the right. It was the hidden background to Mitt Romney’s infamous 47 percent remark. It underlay the furious attacks on unemployment benefits at a time of mass unemployment and on food stamps when they provided a vital lifeline for tens of millions of Americans. It drives claims that many, if not most, workers receiving disability payments are malingerers — “Over half of the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts,” says Senator Rand Paul.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/opinion/paul-krugman-the-laziness-dogma.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

[Hotler]

1. Selfishness is the backbone of the republican party. n/t

[DirkGently]

2. Ayn Rand's "geniuses vs. parasites" conceit

plays into all of that as well. I've actually heard conservative attorneys talking about lending each other the "wonderful" Atlas Shrugged movies on DVD.

Managed not to fall off my stool laughing, barely.

[safeinOhio]

11. Just read a great book on the subject

The Gospel According to John Galt

You'd love it. Spends a whole chapter on Paul Ryan and his budget. He had to throw Ayan Rand under the bus when he got a letter from the American Bishops on his misuse of Catholic doctrine. Great how she justified her relationship with a married man, while she was married to someone else. Then when he dumped her for a younger lady, she went nuts. The deeper you dig on her the more crap you can find to use against the American Neo-Fascist that worship her.

[DirkGently]

15. Thanks for the tip. I may just have to

grab that. Rand's pseudo-philosophical nonsense, dumb as it is, has provided a handy rationalization for naked greed and hypocritical disregard for the social contract.

She's almost too much to stomach, though, really. I recall that among her other bizarre ethical notions, Rand idolized a sadistic child murderer as some kind of ideal of a free-thinking superman, living by his own rules. She planned a book based on her admiration for him. He posed the 12-yr-old girl's mutilated body so as to appear alive when picking up the ransom he demanded from her parents, then shoved it out of the car and drove away.

The fact mainstream Republicans like Paul Ryan have no problem touting their love of Rand's whacked-out nonsense speaks volumes.

[hifiguy]

17. That is in fact a true story. Googled it a while ago

and it pops right up.

Rand was a shrieking psychotic.

[Nevernose]

21. Let's not forget that she collected Social Security

A nice little government program designed to help out the elderly. People say she paid into it, was therefore "entitled" to it (we certainly have a culture of entitlement, but it's not the poor who feel entitled).

True story: my great-aunt was widowed and was left a very[/] comfortable sum of money. She didn't need social security, didn't want social security, and when she started to get checks, she marched her ass down to the SS office and demanded that they stop giving social security checks to rich people. Eventually hired a lawyer to get SS to stop giving her checks. This wasn't Rand's "altruism," it was simple human decency with logic attached.

[treestar]

3. Republicans suck

No empathy

[Enthusiast]

4. +1

[Cosmocat]

6. sort of

close, and there are a LOT of them that definitely no empathy, but I personally know countless Rs who are basically kind, giving and empathetic.

The whole thing just taps a lot of different negative buttons ...

[Thor_MN]

5. Not to mention that they have made everyone they possibly can salaried.

Salaried people do not get overtime. Work more hours for no additional compensation. Works nicely for the company...

My first job out of college, the mantra was "You are paid as a professional, you are paid to get the job done." Getting the job done was viewed as more than 8 hours a day. They never seemed to mention that if one has a medical appointment, you just go to it - you don't have to use sick or vacation time. That if you finished your work for the day, you can go home.

[CrispyQ]

16. Salary & the electronic leash are a boon for management.

In many IT departments you're given a smartphone & a laptop - a 24x7 electronic leash. Hell, I went to lunch one Saturday afternoon with a friend who is an exec admin & she responded to two emails. I asked her if this was expected & she looked sheepish & said, "Well, when the CEO calls, what are you going to do?"

I've heard salaried people brag about how many hours they work, like it's a badge of honor to give their free time away to the company in exchange for nothing. And that's what it is. It's your family time, time you could work out, time you could read, time you could sleep. It's insane & Americans do it. And now there are so few good paying jobs left, management has even more stranglehold on employees.

[Cosmocat]

7. This perverse thing about this mindset

is that they pit "us" against "them" in a way that people who are TRULY frustrated with being stuck with having to work their asses off vote for the party that keeps them locked into that very existence.

I don't get it, it is plain as day, clear as clear can be.

But, people just gleefully fall into the conservative media complex and they are gone.

[Jerry442]

8. Didn't you get the memo from Jebby, et al?

We'd all be rolling in dough if the {insert racial epithet here}s weren't stealing it all.

[fasttense]

9. This is Jeb bushes mind on drugs:

"Where does Jeb Bush fit into this story? Well before his “longer hours” gaffe, he had professed himself a great admirer of the work of Charles Murray, a conservative social analyst most famous for his 1994 book “The Bell Curve,” which claimed that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. What Mr. Bush seems to admire most, however, is a more recent book, “Coming Apart,” which notes that over the past few decades working-class white families have been changing in much the same way that African-American families changed in the 1950s and 1960s, with declining rates of marriage and labor force participation.

Some of us look at these changes and see them as consequences of an economy that no longer offers good jobs to ordinary workers. This happened to African-Americans first, as blue-collar jobs disappeared from inner cities, but has now become a much wider phenomenon thanks to soaring income inequality."

From one crazy, scientific invalid, racist opinion to another. Where do these neocons keep finding these stupid people to make up jaw dropping lies and call them "theories" to justify their own laziness? It has to be the drugs.

[brewens]

10. I noticed any anecdote from a Republican about a hard working person always has them

working 60 hours or even more to get ahead. I've seen that for years. It's never a guy busting ass for 40 hours a week, a little extra overtime coming in handy like with me.

The want the foreign competition to beat us down and force us to work long hours for very little. We even have some so-called Democrats in on the sellout which is really even a bigger part of the problem. At least we used to have a way to fight back.

Hopefully enough people are wising up to give Bernie a chance.

[ck4829]

12. Create a new Citizens Conservation Corps, watch unemployment disappear overnight

But their fear of "SOCIALISM!1!!" is the obstacle here, then they project that fear they have as a collective into some sort of lack of initiative onto others.

[Babel_17]

20. Yes, clean up blighted sites and build affordable housing and parks.

That's the kind of work that motivates people and rejuvenates communities and society.

[safeinOhio]

13. The right-wing sure

like to complain about "evolution", but jump on the "Social Darwinism" like it's the gospel.

[d_legendary1]

14. There are people who own for a living

God forbid we should inconvenience their comfy lifestyle by increasing their taxes, create competition, and put an end to their government approved rackets. They might have to (gasp) WORK for what they have!

[jwirr]

18. Obviously the rw ideal worker is someone who works in a shop in Asia for very little and for long

hours. So has anyone taken a real look at how these workers actually live? We need to have a documentary or a movie portraying their real situation. Then let the jebby's of America tell us how we are so bad to ask for living wages and decent hours.

[Babel_17]

19. It was Bush's Animal Farm moment

It was Bush's Animal Farm moment, extolling us to "work harder".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_%28Animal_Farm%29

[AnnetteJacobs]

22. It's become a sin to NOT be busy in America

Whenever I ask friends how they are, the answer invariably is, "Busy, busy, busy."

Then if I tell them I'm not so busy nowadays, they look at me as though they resent having to put in so many hours into their work, and I don't.

Maybe it's time they aim their resentment at whoever is making them work so many hours in the first place.

[smirkymonkey]

24. +1000

[kairos12]

23. The Bush Crime family envisions a land of Koch Brothers owned factories staffed by indentured peons