Blindly Into The Bubble

Blindly Into The Bubble

Paul Krugman writing for The New York Times:

Given the role of conservative ideology in the mortgage disaster, it’s puzzling that Democrats haven’t been more aggressive about making the disaster an issue for the 2008 election. They should be: It’s hard to imagine a more graphic demonstration of what’s wrong with their opponents’ economic beliefs.

I agree with Krugman on politicizing the mortgage crisis, but I disagree on Krugman’s alternative, which simply involves a rejection of ideology (here he’s referring to Greenspan’s Objectivist overtness). I’m all for pragmatic solutions, but Krugman is missing the Althusserian point which is that the rejection of ideology constitutes ideology at its finest. It’s important that the Democrats use this to articulate a critique of neoliberal economic policy, but the problems of the mortgage crisis, which are, of course, of a global nature, are perhaps more suited to a fundamental critique of late capitalism — that is, global capitalism.