Paul Krugman: King George's Crumbling Monarchy

The New York Times

Monday 21 August 2006

Paul Krugman responds to readers' comments on his August 21 column, "Tax Farmers, Mercenaries and Viceroys."

Peter Durantine, Hummelstown, Pa.: All of this - the administration's incompetence on domestic and foreign policy, the privatization of tax collectors and soldiers - reflects a fading superpower, an empire in twilight. It's almost as if the administration, unable to find constructive ways for world progress, decided just to dismantle hundreds of years of progressive achievements.

Victoria Dahlgren, Bellingham, Wash. : Your sentence "... privatization provides both an opportunity to evade accountability and a vast source of patronage" is right on the money. By reducing the ranks of civil servants, it also excludes people who may have more progressive/liberal values.