The Austerity Myth

On the global scale of hackish irritation, the American left’s persistent determination to misdiagnose the reasons behind Britain’s faltering economy cannot be considered the most grievous pundit-crime. Nevertheless, it remains annoying. Here, for instance, is Joe Klein:

Word now comes that Great Britain has slipped back into recession after several years of David Cameron’s austerity experiment. It seems, yet again, that John Maynard Keynes has been proven right. Real Keynesianism–government deficit spending–is essential when economies go bottom up. This can mean more government programs or lower taxes, or a combination of the two. That would seem to be plain vanilla logic, right? But you’d be amazed how many otherwise intelligent people disdain Keynesianism these days–four decades after Richard Nixon said, “We are all Keynesians now.” There’s a reason for that.