Posted by: Jon Henke on Thursday, June 01, 2006 Greg Mankiw — whose blog has risen near the top of my must read list — points to this Finance and Development (an IMF magazine) look at Paul Krugman, the Academic and Pundit... Economics made Paul Krugman famous. Punditry has made him a celebrity, famous for being famous. But Krugman aspires to be long remembered, and, in this respect, John Maynard Keynes is the gold standard. Keynes left his mark in three distinct ways: through the power of ideas, through the art of public persuasion, and through the shaping of historic changes.The entire article is a fascinating and even-handed, even sympathetic, overview of Krugman's career, but they did quote one subtle dig at his punditry that's worth passing along... One of his former teachers, Jagdish Bhagwati, tells F&D, "We were all pleasantly surprised that Krugman has been able to play the Mike Moore of the economics profession."I'm just gonna guess that calling Krugman the Michael Moore of Economics is not what you might call a compliment. calling Krugman the Michael Moore of Economics is not what you might call a compliment. I've spent quite a lot of time in the past few years criticizing Paul Krugman, and I think there are some solid examples of factually incorrect claims, or what might charitably be called willfully bent data. But I'll stop short of saying that Krugman (the pundit) is intentionally dishonest. In part, because I don't believe very many people are intentionally dishonest, and in part because I think there is a simpler explanation. Go back over his punditry from the past 5 years or so. How many non-trivial criticisms of the Democrats can you find from Krugman? Not criticisms of insufficiently-partisan Democrats like Lieberman, but actual criticisms of Democrats qua Democrats — of Democratic policy, rhetoric or ideology? I can think of one time he came close. In February of '04, Kerry and Edwards made strong overtures to protectionism. Edwards said he should have voted against NAFTA and disapproved of China's entry into the WTO; Kerry said "he would crack down on corporations that sent jobs overseas" and that he and Edwards "have the same policy on trade". In response, Paul Krugman made some noise about the need to pacify the proles and then offered to "spare you the usual economist's sermon on the virtues of free trade". Think about that. The premiere trade theory economist in the world — the guy who won the John Bates Clark medal and made his reputation "largely on work in international trade and finance" — couldn't muster a single substantive criticism of Kerry or Edwards, both of whom ran on significant protectionist rhetoric. Shame the New York Times didn't have somebody on staff who could have explained that stuff to us. Some sort of, I don't know, economist or something. Instead, we were spared any substantive criticism of protectionism. So long as Bush is in office, Paul Krugman will be a dedicated apparatchik of the Democratic Party. In any event, the simpler explanation for Krugman's punditry is something Krugman told Kevin Drum in an interview a few years ago. He said that during "the 2000 campaign I was inspired to get radicalized". At that point, Krugman seems to have decided that his role was not to be an economic commentator or objective pundit; his role was not to criticise those who deserved criticism and praise those who deserved praise. Instead, his role was to be The Opposition — an uber-partisan. Paul Krugman was a more fairminded critic in the 90s, and I believe he may be again when Democrats are ascendent. But so long as Bush is in office, Paul Krugman will be a dedicated apparatchik of the Democratic Party. Not because they are right, but because Paul Krugman is on an anti-Bush mission. I see no reason to believe [Krugman will] forsake the war just because the facts sometimes don't fit the mission Now, I happen to think that Bush is a pretty bad President for a variety of reasons and I'm not shy about criticizing him on those grounds. But when I know, going in, that a pundit is a priori dedicated to opposing a person, it's a bit difficult to accept each new criticism as an objectively arrived-upon, dispassionate analysis of the facts. It's entirely too easy to believe that Krugman knows his goal going into each article, and finds the facts to fit it — or, on occassion, molds "facts" of his own. Academic Krugman may be right or wrong, but he is not on a pre-determined mission. Pundit Krugman has his marching orders, and I see no reason to believe he'll forsake the war just because the facts sometimes don't fit the mission. In that sense, perhaps Krugman and Bush and not entirely dissimilar. |
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