Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.
Paul KrugmanRead
Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
Interpretation
The wealthy often resist acknowledging systemic inequalities that benefit them.
This quote highlights the tendency of wealthy individuals to react defensively when confronted with the reality of social and economic inequalities. Krugman suggests that those who are advantaged by a 'rigged' system may express outrage or denial when their privilege is called into question, thus highlighting a disconnection between their lived experiences and the struggles faced by others in society.
In practice
In a speech addressing economic disparities, one might use this quote to emphasize the resistance of the wealthy to recognizing their privileges.
Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.
Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with no exception I can think of, they use their books to do an end run around the normal structure of scholarship, to preach ideas that few serious economists share. Often, these ideas are not just at odds with the professional consensus; they are demonstrably wrong, and sometimes terminally silly. But they sound good to the unwary reader.
The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century ... has taken place via globalization.
It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.
The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.
The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.
No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government, every time an appropriation bill is passed. The people pay the expense of government, often many times over, in the increased cost of living. I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more.
The present tax codes inhibit the mobility and formation of capital, add complexities and inequities which undermine the morale of the taxpayer, and make tax avoidance rather than market factors a prime consideration in too many economic decisions.
If the practice persists of covering government deficits with the issue of notes, then the day will come without fail, sooner or later, when the monetary systems of those nations pursuing this course will break down completely. The purchasing power of the monetary unit will decline more and more, until finally it disappears completely.
Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.
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