Professor Paul Krugman in his New York Times blog says my recent column about him is funny and scary. Last weeks column here inferred that Prof. Krugman is leaving Princeton in quiet disgrace. It drew pretty wide attention. It also drew over 150 comments. Many commentators merrily berated me. (Comes with the territory.) The column quite flatteringly even drew a riposte from Prof. Krugman himself in his Times blog entitled Fantasies of Personal Destruction:
A correspondent directs me to a piece in Forbes about yours truly that is both funny and scary. Yep scurrying away with my tail between my legs I am disgraced for policy views shared only by crazy people like the IMFs chief economist (pdf). One thing Ive noticed though is how many people on the right are drawn to power fantasies in which liberals arent just proved wrong and driven from office but personally destroyed. Does anyone else remember this bit from the OReilly scandal? Look at Al Franken one day hes going to get a knock on his door and life as hes known it will change forever" OReilly said. That day will happen trust me. . . . Ailes knows very powerful people and this goes all the way to the top." And people wonder why I dont treat all of this as a gentlemanly conversation.
- Prof. Krugmans prestige and the immense influence provided him by the New York Times gives his opinions enormous political weight. What he writes has impact in liberal and Democratic quarters. Yet he by no means is infallible.
Dr. Freud relates that there are peculiar reasons deep in our subconsciousness why gold in particular should satisfy strong instincts and serve as a symbol.It presumably is this to which Prof. Krugman obscurely alludes in a blog entitled The She-Devil of Constitution Avenue:
Ive been saying for a long time that we arent having a rational argument over economic policy that the inflationista position is driven by politics and psychology rather than anything the other side would recognize as analysis. But this really proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt; if you really want to understand whats going on here the Austrian you need to read isnt Friedrich Hayek or Ludwig von Mises its Sigmund Freud."Put aside the demonstrable fact of Prof. Krugmans consistently sloppy conflation of gold investors and gold standard proponents. Put aside his failure to engage with the arguments of the many gold standard proponents not predicting imminent virulent inflation. (Such as this writer.) Eruditely ridiculing gold proponents as well full of s*** is clever. It likely will tickle those readers who find monkeys flinging poo at each other hilarious. Ridicule is much easier and cheaper than grappling with scholarly analyses such as that from the Bank of England which provided in 2011 Financial Stability Paper No. 13 a genuinely interesting critique of the real world performance of fiduciary currency. That paper is a rigorous analysis of the empirical performance of the fiduciary Federal Reserve Note standard in comparison to the Bretton Woods gold-exchange standard and the classical gold standard. It does not at least not explicitly advocate for either predecessor standard. It simply assesses that the Federal Reserve Note standard in practice has proved substantially worse than its predecessors (and calls for the exploration of a rule-based system). A thoughtful response by Prof. Krugman to this paper would be far more interesting and edifying than sly scatological insults. One of the wittier of the commentators to last weeks column accused me of impudence. Guilty as charged. This writer confesses to having committed in broad daylight an act of lse-majest against the Great and Imperious Krugman. My critics are right to point out that this columnist is a minor figure. Still do consider: the counsels of integrity to Pinocchio by the tiny Talking Cricket proved in the end well founded. One also could wish that more of Prof. Krugmans defenders would tender more persuasive arguments (say fact-based) than their many variants of How dare you!" In responding to my column Prof. Krugman states that many people on the right are drawn to power fantasies in which liberals arent just proved wrong and driven from office but personally destroyed." Given Prof. Krugmans vilification of his adversaries this could be dismissed as rich with irony. Yet there may be more to say. Prof. Krugman has introduced the great Sigmund Freud into the conversation. Thus it might be fair to say that his consistently rude denigration of his adversaries appears to be what Freud called projection (in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others). Consider Prof. Krugmans public admission that he does not regularly read that which he presumes to criticize. Prof. Krugman states forthrightly:
Some have asked if there arent conservative sites I read regularly. Well no.Carefully reading ones opponents arguments is not a requisite in life. Yet critiquing arguments one has not thoroughly assimilated is lazy louche intellectually slovenly and one might fairly infer unacceptably beneath the standards of say Princeton University. Prof. Krugman dismisses me as funny and scary." My several columns pointing out the errors of fact and unsupportable interpretations in his op-eds had been and surely again will fall beneath his notice. Still inaccurately presenting that which one is criticizing is just bad journalism. Readers should be able to rely on editors to assure that a columnist is shooting straight. As many of my commentators correctly point out I do not command (nor do I presume to deserve) the elite social status of Prof. Krugman. Yet had Prof. Krugman taken even a moment to aim before he fired he could have discovered a right winger who has offered many respectful words and when warranted praise for Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Elizabeth Warren George Soros MoveOn.org and Occupy Wall Street (among others with whom he has disagreements). Theres no agenda of personal destruction. If Prof. Krugman had dug a little deeper he might have discovered that my columns routinely are informed by The New York Review of Books the New Yorker the Atlantic Monthly and yes the New York Times all of which I read regularly usually with pleasure. He would discover that my use of them is not by and large to ridicule but to learn and when in disagreement to present their claims fairly and dispute them honestly. Scary stuff? Prof. Krugman if you find the words of this extremely minor pixel-stained wretch scary" ... what does that say? Perhaps speaking truth to power is scary … to those with power? Yet let me speak a little truth to the powerful and indispensable New York Times. The Nobel Prize in Economics is one of the greatest laurels bestowed in that field. Should Prof. Krugman be permitted to rest on this laurel? Joseph Pulitzers directive still applies: Put it before them... above all accurately.... It is not the purpose of this column to see Paul Krugman driven from his virtual office within the paragovernmental New York Times. This columnist makes only a modest call for the Times to assign an editor to fact check his work and help him refrain from reckless disregard for the truth.