Hundreds of fans of the Austrian School are joining the campaign, because they realize the wonderful corner into which Krugman would be painted. He will either have to debate Austrian business-cycle theory or explain why a New York City food bank would miss out on $100,000+ in “right-wing” money. FULL ARTICLE by Robert P. Murphy
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/14401/my-debate-challenge-to-paul-krugman/
My Debate Challenge to Paul Krugman
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I don’t get it.
If Krugman doesn’t debate, the poor in New York will go hungry. Where’s the downside for him? Watching the poor starve is probably entertainment for Krugman.
Reputation.
Awesome. Note that genuine economic innovators, the source of so much genuine satisfaction of actual wants, like ThePoint and Xtranormal didn’t receive TARP funds, yet we’re told TARP was necessary to keep up vital economic activity.
Because the big banks were funding innovative projects like ThePoint … right?
Just goes to show how disconnected Congress and TARP supporters are from reality
Too bad it ended with a poorly considered attack on IP by equating it with state-enforced IP and casually assuming that entrepreneurs can just use their brilliance to make up for the absence of property rights.
Too bad that IP proponents never explain what is wrong with current IP or how it should be correctly. But I’ve become accustomed to IP proponents not having any arguments or a theory whatsoever so they just need to continue making up stuff. Too bad they don’t use patents or copyright to restrict the dissemination thereof, then at least more people would be able to live their lives without becoming deceived by the nonsense.
According to Krugman, the best way to benefit the hungry masses in NYC and elsewhere is to print trillions of dollars to “get the economy going”.
Perhaps one could appeal to Krugman’s ego, and tell him how much easier it will be to convince the Fed and Congress to implement QE2/3/4/etc. after he has thrashed one of those noisy, ignorant “Hangover Theory” louts in single combat. That is if he actually believes in his heart of hearts of the wisdom and defensibility of his prescriptions, which is not certain. Therefore it may be best, as Murphy is doing, to hand him the white feather – and make sure everyone knows it.
The reasons that Krugman won’t debate Mr. Murphy are at least two:
1. He doesn’t want to give Mr. Murphy a broader audience and legitimize him to that broader audience. As dumb as his ideas are about the economy, Krugman has won a Nobel Prize for his work on international trade and he does have the NY Times as his bully pulpit. That, in the opinion of the collectivist herd, validates him as an expert on the economy.
2. Krugman would lose the debate in the judgment of any rational person.
Thomas,
I don’t think Krugman agrees with either of those two points.
Jonathan,
I would be surprised if Krugman agreed with either of my two points openly; what he believes in his heart-of-hearts is another thing.
What do you think Krugman’s reasons are for not taking Mr. Murphy invitation?
Do we know if Krugman either formally accepted or refused the invitation?
The article mentions the challenge going viral but nothing about an actual direct formal invitation
Thomas,
Whatever his reasons may be, it isn’t because he considers himself intellectually inferior or wrong.
Losing debates would require that the listener understands the debate. The problem that I see is the short time frame, 1 hour. Very little can be debated in an hour.
I think Krugman would merely use the time to make jokes and tell half truths that the average listener would say, yeah, how are we to sell things if demand goes down – if they print money and buy my stuff, then things WILL get better. After all, money is wealth, let’s make more of it.
You see, you can’t teach Austrian economics in 1/2 hour and besides, in 2 minutes the average Joe will start to fall asleep and turn to a football game.
So, when this happens, can we get John Pappola to produce the highlight reel. Perhaps auto-tuned?
Oh gawd, this is classic.
Modern debates tend to be fairly puerile events – short on in-depth analysis and long on inflammatory misstatements. Krugman demonstrates weekly his mastery of misstatements. Unless Murphy decides to sink to the same level, he will be left with what exactly to win this debate? Reason? Truth? Good luck, buddy.
When Block took on the likes of Epstein, it was a serene, scholarly sort of battle (relatively speaking). Will this debate be like that? If not, beware.
Heifer International sets up poor people as Agricultural Entrepreneurs, a very libertarian form of charity if you are looking for a single recipient of the charitable donation.
Krugman will not take the bet. He probably will ignore the request. The reason I think this is so is that the outcome based logic of Keynes is indefensible when examined using todays mathematical knowledge, and he knows it.
His greatest weakness is to be questioned on his own micro-economic experience! He won’t put himself in that position. He would have to admit that the banks are always sitting between himself and his economic outlook. He would have to admit that those same banks, even with that level of control, cannot account for the economic activity of the whole system, let alone Krugman himself. He would be vulnerable to the knowledge problem of centralized banking and planning. It simply can’t be defended logically. It’s like driving a car by only looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing where you’ve been. If the banks can control the economy, but their only means of acquiring knowledge of that economy is to see where it was, then how can they know where it is going? OOps! Slow down! We just hit a tree! Gosh, I wonder why we didn’t see that crash coming? It must be the animal spirits in the road ahead…..We need to enforce straighter roads!
/rant
I do xtramormal videos. I did a number of them while reading Prof Murphy’s new book in PDF form. I am really a cheap bastard!
Yes you do have to pay for some of the things but if you explore you can find ways to change up the cartoons while still not paying. There are a couple different voices, one or two different characters and you can have them do various motions.
http://www.youtube.com/user/lesterhalfjr
Brilliant idea, and I like the comments about IP and innovators (no offense, Silas).
I think your xtranormal video is bad and played little role in this idea’s success; the video drags on too long. Still, it’s impressive what you can do with free tools like this. I liked your youtube krugman-bathroom video better, but I’m afraid to link to it!
If you liked the comments about IP in this article, that speaks volumes about your intellectual standards, as well as the ease with which you can be impressed.
Silas Barta is the intellectual equivalent of a hairy milk dud.
How about a Kinsella-Barta debate, held at the Mises Institute?
I have a better idea. Remember the scene in Full Metal Jacket where they punish this dumb-ass by beating the shit out of him with bars of soap wrapped in socks? Let’s do that to Silas.
o.o
I’m up for it.
Silas,
Do you have any academic responses to Stephan’s position on intellectual property? We were actually discussing the topic at the Monday Mises meetup I attend in San Diego, and I don’t know if I completely agree with you (I don’t know your position, in any case), but I am a believer that intellectual property is not incompatible with capitalism (that is, naturally developed intellectual property laws, not government enforced property laws).
I approach the topic from a different perspective: not as a natural rightist, but from what I’d like to think a praxeological perspective (that is, from a study of human action).
In any case, this is going off topic. Do you have any academic papers that explore the subject?
Thanks,
Jonathan
What happens to the money when Krugman completely ignores you or just flatly declines? Then it will be you withholding the money from the poor.
The money is only collected from the people when Krugman accepts the challenge. Therefore, it would be YOU withholding the money if you choose not to donate.
I don’t follow your logic. Could you explain it step by step? All I can see, at the moment, is a promise to reward an action by another on the condition that the action actually be done. Purportedly the actor would find the reward satisfying. Nothing is being withheld, and no suffering is caused by this. If the action bargained for causes injury, what is an entirely different matter.
Like the movie disclaimer, no actual animals were hurt in producing the film.
Krugman will turn it around and cite that if we still have the money to be promoting such a cause, we’re not getting taxed enough.
And @confused, … the money was never taken. So no, it will not be withholding anything. It will be a bunch of people who chose not to give their hard-earned money toward the already amply provided for “poor”. But if you say, you were willing to give that money but didn’t — that’s like saying we’re withholding money from the poor by buying televisions, cable, internet, computers, couches, and the whole likes. Anything above the bare minimum should be go to the poor!
Krugman wouldn’t debate Peter Schiff, who already has a high profile, so it’s not just that he doesn’t want to elevate a lesser-known economist.
Krugman has nothing to gain from a debate with a serious Austrian economist because he will decisively lose the debate. Whenever he has discussed ABCT, he has done so by setting up a straw man which does not resemble the actual theory. In a debate, he would have to deal with the real thing.
Why would he do that when he could continue resting comfortably on his perch, handing down Central Bank-Laureate “wisdom” from his NY Times blog, to accolades from his fawning groupies?
He will play it safe and ignore your challenge.
Krugman wouldn’t debate Peter Schiff
That’s because Krugman isn’t quite as stupid as James Galbraith, to embarrass himself on national TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnKsgelpuHU
Get Gleen Beck to mention the debate on his show, and at the same time, spend some cash advertising it on The New York Times. It will be pretty difficult to ignore the challenge after those two things happen.
That’s actually not a bad idea… I’m not Beck fan by any means but I bet he’d mention it if for no other reason than to bash Krugman…
Murphy debating Krugman on ABCT would be like a biologist who specializes in evolutionary theory debating another biologist who doesn’t, on the topic of evolution. It wouldn’t even be fair, and Krugman must know this. His only reasonable course of action is to feign ignorance of this challenge. It’s a no-win for him otherwise.
Shouldn’t we still kick the food bank some money? It’s not nice to tease.
By all means…
Donate as much as you feel is appropriate.
How come Murphy’s head isn’t photoshopped into that picture?
How about this twist: Offer a full scholarship to the Mises University to a deserving student at Princeton if Krugman debates Robert Murphy.
I love the idea of this debate, but I thought that the animated video was a horrible idea. Way to go to characterizeing libertarians as crack-smokers who live in their parent’s basements. While humerous, the video lacks a hint of professionalism and serves to discredit this effort to promote this debate. If Krugman actually took the time to watch the video, it would only give him additional reasons to discredit the Mises Institute and not participate in the debate.
What would be “professional”?
Not every video can be the quality of the Keynes/Hayek rap. That’s an extreme rarity and extraordinarily expensive in normal circumstances.
I agree that the Keynes/Hayek rap was indeed something special. I think that a good cartoon would have described the challenge, briefly outlined to topic of debate and incorporated humor to make the cartoon “catchy” so that it could get plenty of hits. While all the libertarians I talk to think the video was hilarious, given the average person’s perception of crack smokers, I don’t think it would be best to use one to promote ABCT and it could lead to people not taking this issue seriously. I think LVM himself would have come up with a classier dialogue while still making it humorous and “catchy.”
I’m not a Krugman fan at all, but let’s be real, Krugman is not ducking because he’s afraid of losing the debate. He’s as cocky as they come. He has a Nobel Prize, a NYT column, and an adoring lefty fan club — who wouldn’t be? But it’s still a no-win situation for him. There will be no headline of “Krugman lets kids starve” — he could always do some lefty charity event instead. Unless this gets some real attention, there’s no pressure yet. Even with an impressive sum, right now it’s just a few wackos who made some pledges that can be withdrawn at any time.
I dont think the pledges can be withdrawn once they are placed.
Krugman was much better BEFORE he got the Nobel Prize. If it’s any consolation, check out Richard Feynman’s book, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.” He has a lot of funny stories about getting the prize, and how it changed his status in the world. He ends up saying that except for enabling him to buy a beach house (which he rarely used, anyway), he’s just as soon have not received it. Lots of good stuff there about how public schools choose textbooks, and of course he was the one who exposed the massive malfeasance leading to the Challenger shuttle disaster.
By the way, we are still not privy to the reason behind hosting it at the Mises Institute (other than using its resources), making it very easy for Krugman to ignore — he just has to point to some Krugman bashing, not to mention go through the archives to find something that sounds particularly wacko (to the mainstream) in or out of context.
There’s no upside for Dr. Krugman for this debate. What does he gain? Wrong as he may be, he’s already at the pinnacle of his profession- defeating Dr. Murphy in a debate would do nothing for him, and losing the debate would harm him.
You folks are over-complicating the issue.
The reason Krugman won’t answer the challenge is that he’s a pussy.
If you could get this onto http://slashdot.org then you would generate a HUGE amount of traffic. THe site was origionally aimed at technical computer users (programmers, admins, gamers and the like) but its appeal has spread. There is a reason people say “oh that site has been slashdotted”
Use it dont use it.
I honestly can’t believe the attack on IP at the end of this article. The author says that before IP artists were dependent upon patrons for backing. This is absolutely true. Just look at Yeats.
Then he says that it’s not necessary.
When just a few sentences earlier, he points out the dangers of having no intellectual property rights!
Maybe this guy isn’t the best to debate Krugman.
Paul Krugman Is A Scaredy-Cat Up Against A Cool Cat!
Robert Murphy is a cool cat! He not only will shred Krugman in a debate but he will heap over $100,000 on the poor in New York City with his (your) donation to the soup kitchen.What a cool cat Robert Murphy is to put together this comical video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w2xXOQY-NY&feature=player_embedded) showing his ‘training’ for the upcoming head-to-head fight with Krugman. Although head-to-head may not exactly be accurate since we all know where Krugman is speaking from!!!
Anyway, ‘Krugman the Great’ better plan on moving to some unknown deserted island soon before his Nobel Prize turns to dust! O the shame of it!!!
The challenge is dying out. Promote it!
i emailed peter schiffs radio show. hopefully he can get some airplay for this challenge. its probably the only widespread way to get attention (other than a paid media blitz on the MSM)
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