New York magazine has a long interview with Barney Frank that is interesting for all sorts of reasons, one of which is this scene:
You were talking about the Republicans and not being able to work with them. But isn't your ultimate beef with the voters, since it's the voters who reward that behavior?
I'm glad you said that, you're very smart. These days, in developed countries, everybody says you need a private sector to create wealth, you need a public sector to create rules by which wealth is created. Sensible people understand that. The tension between left and right has been where you draw that line, but it's been a contest between people who see maybe a 20 percent overlap. Let me read this to you. [Picks up copy of Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.] "In no system that could be rationally defended would the state just do nothing." [Closes book.]Do you read Hayek a lot?
For these purposes. For the first time in American history, we have people in power now who reject that idea. If they knew it was Hayek, they might think, Well, maybe. But they reject the public sector. That's why we can't work together.
