Paul Ryan's Economic Ideology Is At War With Social Democracy

The US economy is recovering very slowly from recession.  Unemployment is above 8% and Europe is in recession. The GOP majority leader in the House, is criticized in this article. He reflects the views of  Paul Ryan who is not worried about unemployment and recession.  Ryan claims to be worried about inflation even though it is well below the Fed's 2% target. He wants the Fed to raise interest rates to prevent inflation. If the Fed raised interest rates, one thing is certain.  The economy would get worse.  That might be good for Republicans in the 2012 election but it would not be good for the US or the global economy.

Paul Ryan has worked hard to make us worried about future inflation and future budget deficits.  He and his constituents are not affected by high unemployment.  They are also not affected by cuts in Medicare and other social programs that many depend upon.  Ryan, and his GOP colleagues, are really against social democracy.  They justify their opposition to social democracy by an appeal to neoliberal economic ideology.  The political economic issue is about the compatibility of social democracy with economic ideology. GOP economic ideology replaces the moral ideology that has been the motivation for social democracy. For the GOP, democracy is only acceptable when government can be captured by economic elites, and social welfare programs are harmful because they redistribute income from "job creators" to the needy.  The political economic issue of our time is the incompatibility of neoliberal economic ideology, as interpreted by Paul Ryan and the GOP, with social democracy.