Groovy, Baby!

I am guilty of derisively dismissing a lot of boomer liberals as being stuck in the 60's. It is particularly easy living in Boulder County.

Arnold Kling suggests that many of today's leftists are stick in the Conventional Wisdom of 1968, which he defines as:

• Anti-Communism was a greater menace than Communism.


• The planet could not possibly support the population increases that would take place by the end of the twentieth century.


• Conservatives stood in the way of progress for minorities.


• Government programs were the best way to lift people out of poverty.


• What underdeveloped countries needed were large capital investments, financed by foreign aid from the rich countries.


• Inflation was a cost-push phenomenon, requiring government intervention in wage and price setting.

His great article shows that these were decent assumptions before Woodstock but that, since that time, we have seen empirical evidence to contradict all of these. Yet, these beliefs seem rather fixed in a lot of people I encounter.

Economics and Markets Posted by jk at January 27, 2006 3:32 PM