The Laziness Dogma

New Krugman:

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.

It all adds up to a vision of the world in which the biggest problem facing America is that we’re too nice to fellow citizens facing hardship. And the appeal of this vision to conservatives is obvious: it gives them another reason to do what they want to do anyway, namely slash aid to the less fortunate while cutting taxes on the rich.

More here.

Here's the deal. American workers aren't lazy. American workers want to work. So American capitalism needs either to pay workers more, such that people can afford rent, bills, health care, and college tuition for their kids, OR the capitalist class needs to get used paying much higher taxes to be used for more social services in order to make up for the fact that they refuse to pay workers what they're worth. Probably a combination of both.

But that's what's going to happen. And it can happen easily, with input and cooperation from the capitalist class, or it can happen painfully, with the capitalist class kicking and screaming all the way. My money's on the latter.

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