Beltway Bullshit
Liberal wonks aren't afraid of Bernie's "inexperience." They're afraid of an economy where working people have power.
One of the long-running criticisms of Bernie Sanders is that while his proposals are attractive, they are impractical and lack crucial details. Many liberals have been quick to position Clinton as the expert and pragmatic choice against Sanders’s dangerous idealism. His economic policies have drawn particular scorn.
Recently, J. W. Mason explained why Sanders’s plans, could, in fact, produce strong growth and employment. In this interview with Michal Rozworski, Mason explores these questions, looking at how strong growth hands power to workers and the political roots of the “wonksphere” opposition to Bernie Sanders.
Michal Rozworski
There’s been a big debate recently around Bernie Sanders’s economic ideas. It was precipitated by Gerald Friedman’s claim that Sanders’s plans would lead to 5 percent nominal economic growth over a certain period, substantial working- and middle-class income growth, and massive job creation. Pretty quickly, liberal economists like Paul Krugman or former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors attacked this paper as unrealistic. What is your argument here?
J. W. Mason
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