Paul Krugman: Voodoo Time Machine

Mark Thoma posts excerpts from Voodoo Time Machine, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times.

The main point, however, is that we’re looking at a political subculture in which ideological tenets are simply not to be questioned… Supply-side economics is valid no matter what actually happens to the economy, guaranteed health insurance must be a failure even if it’s working, and anyone who points out the troubling facts is ipso facto an enemy.

And we’re not talking about marginal figures. You sometimes hear claims that the old-fashioned Republican establishment is making a comeback, that Tea Party extremists are on the run and we can get back to bipartisan cooperation. But that is a fantasy. We can’t have meaningful cooperation when we can’t agree on reality, when even establishment figures in the Republican Party essentially believe that facts have a liberal bias.

Emphasis Mine

As a Capitalist economist, Krugman can say this with a straight face because his reality is a Capitalist one. He could have only ascended through the ranks of academia and to have a regular column in the New York Times by doing so. Misfits are efficiently weeded out.

Academia and the press are but two (2) components of the ideological superstructure that justifies, preserves and defends the Capitalist system. Their credo is that Capitalist:

…ideological tenets are simply not to be questioned…

Their entire existence is to present and interpret reality in Capitalist terms, and to find excuses when reality cannot be made Capitalist.