The sickness that pervades the global economy in the West is contraction-ism--- the moralistic doctrine of take your medicine, pay for your mistakes, suffering is noble. First there is a great agony about economic pain. Then the cure for the agony is prescribed-- more agony. It comes not only from elites such as those in Europe which are leading the world towards disaster, but also from popular blogs and online commentary and in news articles of the day. The voice is nearly unanimous: contraction!
Alongside the doctrine of contraction-ism is the voice of pessimism. All good news must be dismissed at once-- it cannot be real. Only suffering is real. There is a downside to everything, for if it is day in America, it is night in China, and if it is night in China, it is day in America. The glass half full, is half-empty. You see? There is no corner into which the ideology of relentless defeatism cannot possibly thrust and triumph.
The greatest fear of the Contraction-ists is inflation. Whether they label themselves progressives, conservatives, or libertarians, whether they are to be found on Daily Kos or Red State, the contractionists will cry about inflation on their dying day. To them, America is always one step away from Zimbabwe. Of course, the contractionists will never blame inflation on rising demand from places like China, India and Brazil -- whose voracious appetite for goods raises prices as they develop. That would be to acknowledge that some rising prices cannot be reversed and are actually a side effect of a good thing: the world's poorer getting richer. Nor will the contractionists blame inflation on speculators. That wouldn't be Contractionary enough: cracking down on speculation wouldn't cost many jobs, it wouldn't slow the economy. It might even help it! No, the Contractionists will always blame inflation on any measure the government tries to do to stimulate the economy-- whether that be lowering interest rates, printing money, or deficit spending. These are the true villains-- for they are the enemies of Pain.
The Contractionists are angry. They see the world as a conspiracy against them, the Powers That Be forever engaged in a misguided attempt to stimulate the economy and bring down unemployment, when the real goal should be increasing Pain so that the evildoers can suffer. They echo the words of Herbert Hoover's Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, to liquidate, liquidate, liqduidate. Liquidate housing. Liquidate the banks. Liquidate government. Liquidate manufacturing. Liquidate the farmer. It will purge the rottenness from the system, they say.
Actual Pain does not soothe the Contractionists. The more banks fail and people suffer, the more investments go bad, the more countries go bust-- that does not reduce the quota of Pain that still needs to be dished out. No, au contraire, it Increases the amount of Evil in the world, and thus Increases the amount of Pain that needs to be dished out as punishment for this Evil. The Contractionists are the ultimate worshippers of Original Sin, but there is no Jesus figure to die on the Cross for them. We must All Die on the Cross.
Things are looking up for Contractionism these days. Ron Paul is on the rise in the Republican Party. German stinginess rules over Europe. The voices of the few dissidents, such as Paul Krugman, are isolated and powerless. Look on any message board, forum, blog, and the voices of the Contractionists are loud, bitter, and most of all numerous.
During the Black Death, it was said that crowds of miserable peasants roamed the countryside, flagellating themselves in conviction that the pestilence was the punishment of their sins, hoping to whip themselves into good karma before the plague got to them. The more the plague killed, the more convinced they were, and hence the more whipping.
Even the Sun is Black.