Given the remarkable economic success of not-so-democratic states like China or Singapore, etc. I half expect the academic economics profession to come out against democracy as a result. Hey, it’s inefficient, let’s be rid of it! (/snark)

In that context, it is telling that he wants to talk about _tax policy_: We are not to think about governing the actions of master capitalists, or about what to consume or whether to consume at all, no, _no_, NO, but rather to think about what government, that great clumsy oaf, should do to make a better environment for master capitalists to maximize. The whole idea is to get the public mad _at government about bungling taxation_ to distract from any public disquiet with capitalists who need regulation. I find the rhetorical smarminess of these kinds or devices positively evil in their bait-and-switch management of the great unwashed, though I doubt Summers thinks he is deliberately misleading anyone. His kind of dodginess is so ingrained as to be invisible to its practitioners.

To me, the main reason to support globalization, which in many respects I still do, is that this process has the potential to raise the wages and improve the labor standards of many in the low-end workforce of the rest of the world. We may not think that factory labor in S China is such a great deal: Ask them how it compares with their other options. In Sri Lanka, would you rather work in a clothing factory or sign a slave labor contract to work in the Gulf? That such increases in the living standards of the rest of the world come at the expense of US labor is tough to advocate for here, but we need a fairer world, and that means we in the US may have to give up that second car and third TV in every home. But in the process we might start by putting the squeeze on out own master capitalists who gain the most from exports, and putting some of _that_ money back into a national health care system without useless and costly financial intermediaries. The fat in the US is largely in domestic intermediaries. If we had the outlines of a national economic plan (without the details), we might realize how little we can afford to make the shareholders of Wal-Mart rich at our expense through globalization—and do something about it. Summers would rather, far rather, that we think about _anything_ else. Or better still, leave the ‘thinking’ to him.

Fear not Messire Yves! The punditocracy deserves every critic they get, and yours have the added value of informing and explaining topics that I just couldn’t fathom by myself without a considerable amount of time and efforts.

Keep up the great work…and give’em Hell!