Reihan Salam
bemoans Paul Krugman's latest attack
on a right-ish economist, this time Krugman's fellow Nobelist
Edmund Phelps.
[Krugman] brings a valuable, informed perspective to bear on
vitally important debates. I welcome that. But his intolerance
and his near-constant mischaracterizations of his interlocutors
are having a coarsening effect. Moreover, Krugman has enabled
the rise of an unthinking, reflexive interventionism that is,
in my view, doing real damage to our economy and our democracy
by creating unreasonable expectations of what bright,
well-intentioned planners can realistically accomplish.
Salam also explains that not only did Krugman badly
mischaracterize Phelps's piece, he did so while admitting that he
did not take the time to read beyond the first paragraph.
Of course, Krugman also did a hatchet job on two other prominent
economists on his blog just yesterday: Greg
Mankiw and Allan Meltzer, who he said "should be ashamed of
themselves" for saying something that turns out to be true and
reasonable. Mankiw rightfully called it an "illogical
cheap shot."
Krugman was legitimately a great economics commentator. But
nowadays the ratio of partisan screeds or sloppy
mischaracterizations of other people's views to insightful
commentary is way too high.
