The Conservative Commie's Guide to the Economy

So this avowed commie publishes a list of five policies to fix the economy - calling them the "left wing of the possible," and conservative apologist Josh effing Barro calls all five "sound conservative ideas."

How embarassing.

Kathleen Geier at Political Animal:

Can I tell you how much I love this Rolling Stone piece by Jesse Myerson? It’s called “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” Myerson’s reforms are the following:

1. Guaranteed Work for Everybody

2. Social Security for All

3. Take Back The Land

4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody

5. A Public Bank in Every State

All right, settle down, these proposals are hardly as far-out as they may sound on first hearing. Number one is a public works program, number two is a universal basic income, the third is a land value tax, the fourth is collectivizing wealth ownership by having the government buy up private sector assets and paying a dividend to all citizens (Alaska has a program similar to this in place), and the fifth is pretty much what it says: i.e., a public bank that doesn’t rip off its customers or rape the country.

As Digby points out, the wingnuts are having a meltdown over Myerson’s article — that’s how you know it’s having an effect. Conservatives tend to be made seriously uncomfortable when someone on the left dispenses with the tired script pundits have been reading from for the last 30 years and throws out some ideas that threaten to unsettle the terms of the debate.

Myerson’s program may or may not be, in the words of Michael Harrington, “the left wing of the possible” — at least not yet. They are too visionary for that. But that’s not to say that what he envisions does not exist in the world, and could never exist here. The reforms he outlines are your basic social democracy — you know, society as it exists in uncivilized hellholes like Denmark and Sweden — spiced with some classic American populism. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or in the next five years. But I think it’s important for progressives to have a long-term plan that is truly aspirational and idealistic — in other words, something other than fending off further cuts and praying the Republicans don’t get re-elected in the next two or four years. Without boldness and imagination, a political movement will fail. It will lose its power to inspire, and it will end up at best barely holding steady, and at worst, seriously losing ground.

 But the best part is the discussion with Myerson and Barro on All In With Chris Hayes Tuesday night, in which  Barro basically calls out Myerson for cloaking conservative ideas in commie clothing, and Myerson doesn't deny it.

Yes, MSNBC still has the WORST embed codes on the entire Internet.