SALON

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 6:28 PM UTC

David Brooks, “structuralist”

The New York Times moderate says the welfare state is unsustainable, and buys himself a new $4 million home

By

Topics: David Brooks, New York Times, Unemployment, Great Recession, U.S. Economy,

David Brooks,

David Brooks is everything that’s wrong with elite opinion in America. The president reads him and takes him seriously. That is why the opinions of venal faux “reasonable” clowns like Brooks matter. Brooks today sums up the new argument for not actually doing anything to alleviate worldwide unnecessary hardship: The problem is “structural,” not “cyclical”!

Long Op-Ed short, Brooks says “cyclicalists” (unnamed) think we should deficit-spend our way to prosperity, because, according to Brooks, they believe that “the level of government spending is the main factor in determining how fast an economy grows.” (No one actually believes this.) But according to Brooks, all of our problems are “structural,” which is to say that the reason we have mass unemployment and debt and growing wealth disparity is because of “technological change” and crappy schools. And “special-interest deals” in the tax code.

The point of the Brooks argument is simply to make continued non-action to address actual short-term pressing problems sound serious and wise. He’s not even making a partisan argument, you see. Oh, people on “the left” have been having their silly little debate, but all the serious people — “some on the left but mostly in the center and on the right” — have accepted the sad truth, like Brooks. And Brooks is soberly explaining the situation. He is not at all responding to Paul Krugman, his fellow New York Times columnist, who has lately taken to fiercely rebutting arguments put forth by various unnamed “centrists” and “moderates” in his columns.

This is Brooks’ conclusion:

But you can only mask structural problems for so long. The whole thing has gone kablooey. The current model, in which we try to compensate for structural economic weakness with tax cuts and an unsustainable welfare state, simply cannot last. The old model is broken. The jig is up.

It’s so sad, but everyone will now just have to accept that social democracy is an impossibility. We have learned that “the old economic and welfare state model is unsustainable,” so shut up about your unemployment benefits running out and there being no jobs still. (Silly me, here I was thinking the recent massive international financial crisis actually exposed post-industrial capitalism as the “unsustainable” thing.)

Ezra Klein has the rather polite, policy-based response to Brooks’ argument: Essentially that even if Brooks is right about America’s structural problems needing to be addressed, we should still also give poor people money and indebted people relief and spend money on infrastructure improvements to prevent these structural problems from becoming even worse.

Dean Baker has the response in which it is pointed out that Brooks is full of predictable, repetitive shit. The “we have no jobs because of technology and also there are plenty of jobs but unemployed people have the wrong skills” line is as old as the Great Depression and there is no actual evidence for it. It’s just what people who want to sound serious while dismissing efforts to spend money on economic stimulus say.

Hey, let’s check out some recent real estate news at the Washington Post’s Reliable Source blog, for fun. Looks like a Mr. David Brooks just bought himself a $3.95 million home in Cleveland Park!

The New York Times op-ed columnist and wife Sarah are trading up — from their longtime home near Bethesda’s Burning Tree Club to a century-old (exquisitely renovated) five bedroom, four-and-a-half bath house in Cleveland Park. It includes a two-car garage, iron and stone fence, generous-sized porch and balcony, and what appear to be vast spaces for entertaining. The timing seems to have been right: After only a few days on the market, their old place (which also boasts five bedrooms) is under contract for $1.6 million.

Whoops, sorry about your welfare state collapsing, 12 million out of work Americans, but it was just too “unsustainable” to keep you employed — you should all consider developing new skills and trying to find more “productive” work, like writing bullshit columns for the New York Times, maybe.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 64 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
362 points363 points | 313 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
267 points268 points | 25 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
230 points231 points | 32 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
110 points111 points | 14 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
84 points85 points | 16 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations