Ezra Klein at the Washington Post

Ezra Klein begins his new gig as a Washington Post blogger today. He has published an "Introduction" this morning. Now, if you'll notice the slogan next to his picture, he describes his blog as covering "Economic and Domestic Policy, Lots of It." And at the post he says:

Our topic will be the politics and policy of the economy. But that doesn't limit us to the latest unemployment numbers or the wreckage of a freshly collapsed bank. Those are economic outcomes. We'll be focusing at least as much on economic inputs. The forces that decide what tomorrow's economy will look like.

Okay. There's more (Klein says he'll blog on "Anything else that comes up"), but let's focus on "economic inputs" for a moment, since Klein is often feted at an expert on these things.

One of the historic "forces" shaping the economy is the American political culture. About a month ago Klein wrote a post at the American Prospect arguing against our culture of individualism: "The Argument Over Inequality: The Myth of Individual Exceptionalism May Undermine Society On the Whole." Klein, unfortunately, pitches his analysis to the "going Galt" phenomenon, which provides a strawman set-up for his socialist advocacy:

The argument over inequality is, in general, an argument between two camps: One group -- call them the Galtists -- believes that the top percentile is making so much money because they are immensely skilled and tremendously productive. Bill Gates might have an obscene amount of money, they argue, but he gave the world Microsoft Vista (sorry, bad example). We live in a world in which great achievements ensure great rewards, and so much as possible, we don't want to muck with that feedback structure.

The Galtists tend to end up in long arguments with their opposites: the Rawlsian liberals who believe life is luck, and so too with the bulk of achievement. Impressive as a corporate titan may appear, his success is truly testament to a thousand variables far outside his control. Good genes and attentive parents and a smart peer group and a legacy admission to Yale and perfect timing and much else. We live in a world, in other words, where great luck ensures great rewards, and it is the job of public policy to smooth out the jagged edges of fate.

I wouldn't quibble with this so much had not Klein directed his fire at the level of culture rather than a debate between Randians and leftist economists. But no, Klein questions the entire historical understanding of America as an unforgiving frontier society in which personal strength and boot-strapping perseverence meant the difference between success or starvation.

There's no doubt that governmental institutions affect the success of Americans today. But success is not all publically driven. I had loving parents who stressed education, and who modeled hard work and personal initiative. I had the public schools and universities too, the latter made affordable through financial aid. But my own success was more than public support and a little "luck." Indeed, my family faced hardships so many times in life, without public assistance, I tend to think of the best social institutions as those bolstering the individual ethos of personal responsibility embedded in our culture. Hence, I tend to think that the family-level aspects of my own career belie Klein's repudiation of individualism.

The American political culture of individualism precedes Ayn Rand, of course, which is why Klein's analysis is so flawed. I teach this every semester. Individualism is a core concept in introductory American government. For example, here's Thomas Patterson in his text, The American Democracy:

Individualism is a commitment to personal initiative, self-sufficiency, and material accumulation. It is related to the idea of liberty, which makes the individual the founation of society, and is buttressed by the idea of equality, which holds that everyone should be given a fair chance to succeed. Individualism stems from the belief that people who are free to pursue their own path and not unfairly burdened can attain their fullest potential. Individualism has roots in the country's origins as a wilderness society. The early Americans developed a pride in their "rugged individualism," and from this governance grew with the idea that people ought to try to make it on their own.

You can see why Klein conflates extreme wealth and inequality with the "myth of individual exceptionalism." For Klein, the fact of growing income inquality in society necessarily invalidates the concept of personal initiative and self-sufficiency. Klien, in other words, argues the sytem is rigged, and we need redistributive policies to set level the playing field. As he notes at the American Prospect post:

The story of history ... is often told through the achievements of individuals. And to some degree, there is value in that. Society is a collection of individuals. If there were no rewards for innovation, we might find spontaneous invention giving way to its opposite. But we are far from that world. Instead, we have set up a system that lavishly rewards individuals and impoverishes society.

So keep all of this mind when you read Ezra Klein at the Washington Post.

Klein's a socialist and atheist. He's been known to attack people with outrageous charges of anti-Semitism. He was recently in the news as the ringleader of JournoList.

For what it's worth, I have it on good faith from TigerHawk that Klein's a good guy.

But see James Joyner's earlier take on Klein's move to the Post. See also Memeorandum.