How Paul Krugman Would Ruin Steve Jobs’ Apple

From blogger Paul Roderick Gregory at Forbes online:

The Left considers Steve Jobs, the charismatic PC pioneer, a self-centered individualist, who did not to conform to elite etiquette. As Warren Buffet and Bill Gates gave away money with great fanfare, Jobs quietly devoted himself to creating value in Apple. He was conspicuously silent as Buffet recruited the super rich to argue for higher taxes. He told President Obama unwelcome truths (“Apple jobs are not coming back to America”).  He advocated school vouchers and the emphasized the importance of the family. He did not dash to DC to testify on the latest fad or navigate the elite cocktail party circuit. He had more important things to do.

Although Steve Jobs was a major donor to Democrat causes, his errant behavior did not sit well with the “progressive” political class. Now six months after his death at age 56, the attack on his legacy is in full swing, fueled by Apple Computer’s new status as the world’s richest corporation.

The Left’s standard bearer, [New York Times' columnist] Paul Krugman snidely labels Steve Jobs the “heroic entrepreneur, the John Galt, I mean Steve Jobs-type ‘job creator’ Republicans love.”  Krugman rates Jobs’ achievements as inconsequential relative to Obama’s Detroit bailout – “the single most successful policy initiative of recent years.” Per Krugman, real heroes preserve vital “economic ecology and industrial clusters,” even if it takes taxpayer money. The heroes are not rugged individualists but union-industry-government partners, who, according to Obama’s State of the Union address, “work as a team” and “get each other’s backs.”....


The Left’s disregard for Steve Jobs has deep roots that transcend specific personalities. A “heroic entrepreneur,” who creates and brings to market life-transforming products at affordable prices, challenges the Left’s familiar narrative of evil capitalists earning obscene profits by  exploiting downtrodden workers. By their narrative, the common man’s only protection is a benevolent interventionist state, which keeps the rich in check and makes them pay “their fair share.”

The Jobs narrative turns the Left’s argument on its head: We are all the beneficiaries of the wealth and consumer surpluses created by the Steve Jobs, who take for themselves only a small portion of the wealth they create. At the time of Jobs’ death Apple insiders owned only one percent of Apple stock, leaving $500 billion for outsiders.  Of even greater value are the new and innovative products (IPads, IPhones. Google, Beta blockers, endoscopic surgery, etc) they create, which improve the quality of lives and raise living standards....

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Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/04/15/how-krugman-would-ruin-steve-jobs-apple/