Reactionary Economics
Paul Krugman calls himself a “progressive,” but I don’t know why. In the Sunday New York Times Magazine he gives a full throated defense of Keynesian economics against virtually all modern economists. There is no mention of stagflation or any of the other policy blunders the Keynesians foisted upon us in the 1970s. For the other side, see my review of Robert Samuelson’s latest book.
Paul Krugman has done some great work in the field of the international trade and economic geography — the research for which he won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. Too bad he has ventured far afield from where his core competencies are.
Thanks for identifying Krugman correctly. He is indeed a reactionary and not just in the field of economic theory.
He is also a political reactionary — he would like to resurrect the politics of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who tried to impose Italian facism on the entire country.
The most irritating thing about Krugman’s writing is that he is so insulting to his colleagues. I’m sure most of them hated it when he got a Nobel Prize –probably because of all his editorials insulting President Bush.
Perhaps because being a “liberal economist” doesn’t quite square with the term “liberal economics”?
Actually “liberal economy” was what I meant to say.
But I don’t see where Krugman gets the idea that modern economics doesn’t allow for the existence of market failure. Because some practitioners are either not good economists or did not anticipate a particular failure? Or because he’s deliberately setting up a straw man?
Interestingly, I actually agreed with one of his columns. In the spring of 2008 he wrote one about the various housing subsidies as a contributor to the real estate bubble.