What are the odds that Krugman has actually read any Garrison, Hayek, Horwitz, Mises, Salerno, Rothbard, Selgin, Robbins, or White?
I’d estimate … none.
Let’s look at it. Krugman tells us directly he doesn’t have the stomach to waste his time with economics written in prose, especially economics written “in the past”. And I can’t say I’ve ever picked up a trace of evidence Krugman has actually read the work of Hayek or Garrison or Mises or Horwitz — and I’ve spotted a great deal of evidence that he has not.
I think we should take Krugman at his word. He’s attacking a economic construction he doesn’t know, hasn’t studied, and doesn’t understand. And he’s disparaging economists whose work he hasn’t read, hasn’t studied, and could care less to understand.
And the evidence of Krugman’s deep ignorance and academic malpractice is staring us in the face.
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Greg and others might wish to see these two blog posts of mine responding to recent idiotic blogs from Krugman:
http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2008/12/paul-krugman-doesnt-get-it-part-whatever.html
http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2008/12/krugmans-historical-three-card-monte.html
So I followed the link, but I fail to see where Krugman addresses business cycle theory. As far as I can tell, he constructs a straw-man economic theory (basically lumping together all theories that suggest a recession might be necessary to correct malinvestment) and then posits a few “problems” with this theory that are so trivial even an amateur like me could answer them.
The caps are for what purpose? Anyway, he’s ignorant. Nothing new. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/12/krugman-still-wrong-after-all-these.html
I am always astounded by Krugman’s consistently illogical writings.
When I first became familiar with him, I switched back and forth between thinking of him as a shameless liar/hack or a monumentally delusional lunatic.
Over time, I have come to see him as a mix of the two. He is a liar that is deluded, like a more palatable Sean Hannity of economics.
he goes more deeply into it here: http://www.slate.com/id/9593
let alone the economics, it’s amazing how many purely logical mistakes he makes in this piece.
Greg,
All fair points, but I wonder, whenever we Austrians get mad at idiots like Krugman for not reading our works, how many of us have REALLY read Keynes/Marx? We claim familiarity with their ideas and are quite confident we can out-argue these dunderheads in a debate, but how many of us have ACTUALLY finished Das Kapital, or The General Theory?
I haven’t… I’ve paged through a bit of each, but I’ve honestly never gone beyond familiarizing myself with the basics of either, reason being– as soon as an economic/moral theory begins to advocate theft and coercion to solve its problems, I quickly lose interest.
Perhaps Austrians should avoid utilitarian arguments with the likes of “economists” like Krugman (as some have pointed out, we’re talking past each other on these points because people like Krugman don’t actually WANT to maximize utility, they want a forceful reordering of society according to their preferences) and stick to pointing out the criminality/immorality of what they pine for. After all, people like Krugman spend most of their time whining about what an immoral system free market capitalism is… how can we talk past each other when we point out the immorality of their proposal?
Greg, I think you meant “…couldn’t care care less…”
Greg, I think you meant “…couldn’t care less…”
… and I should use the “Preview” button.
Taylor, Krugman is a professional economist. Hoppe, Mises, Rothbard, Block etc. have actually read Marx and Keynes and other important economists. Krugman does not even do this honour to an Austrian economist, so self-important is this charlatan.
Krugman is a court economist whose job is to spray economic perfume upon the machinations of his masters and stank upon the policies ploys of his masters’ enemies. To get credibility, he does have to disagree with his masters at times, he can’t just be their lap-dog. His big problem with ABCT is that it shows that his masters machinations are worthless at best and are most likely dangerous. To call the man stupid or ignorant is to fail to understand the fact that empiricists, probably most people, interpret data based on their interests.
Taylor,
In a lot of college courses and even some high schools that I am familiar with, reading Marx’s Manifesto and other similar works, such as Keynes’ General Theory, are mandatory. So at least some us have read these works, albeit unwillingly.
Krugman is a great example of an ignorant (adjective)intellectual (noun). You normally think of the two attributes (ignorant and intellectual) as mutually exclusive but most of the highly educated intellectuals today, many of whom are in high places in government, fit into this category.
The inmates (court jesters) really are running the asylum.
In his latest blog, Paul Krugman destroys Austrian Business Cycle Theory so easily I could not help but shed a tear. I have never read a blog with such wit and rigorous logic as Lord Krugman’s newest blog. Due to the fact that Lord Krugman is such a brilliant economist, he does not even need to study ABCT in order to understand and proceed to dismantle ABCT piece by piece!
/end sarcasm
In all seriousness, I want to congratulate Paul Krugman on his phenomenal job striking down a straw man. Keep it up and you may win a Nobel…. never mind.
I have now posted the following as a comment to his entry;
“I think we should take Krugman at his word. He’s attacking a economic construction he doesn’t know, hasn’t studied, and doesn’t understand. And he’s disparaging economists whose work he hasn’t read, hasn’t studied, and could care less to understand.â€
http://blog.mises.org/archives/009162.asp
Now let us see if he “approves” this comment and keeps the discussion open on his own venue. Somehow I doubt he will.
I agree with Glen.
However, Krugman obviously is successful. He is the new high priest of mainstream economics. He has now thrown Mises et. al. into prison for their blasphemy.
Geir,
did you mal-post that url? It points back here.
I also had posted to that blog, but it is a moderated blog, and so it never saw the light of day. I merely objected to his 2 claims:
“1. It doesn’t explain why there isn’t mass unemployment when bubbles are growing as well as shrinking — why didn’t we need high unemployment elsewhere to get those people into the nail-pounding-in-Nevada business?”
This makes no sense at all. When people leave one industry to go into another, they don’t count the shortage of workers in the former industry as unemployment.
And during the boom, unemployment drops because the marginal workers are employed – the same ones who are first to go when the bubbles burst.
“2. It doesn’t explain why recessions reduce unemployment across the board, not just in industries that were bloated by a bubble.”
Even assuming he meant employment (not unemployment) I wonder where he gets the data to back up this statement.
I’d rather doubt that this is true “across the board”, as in saying employment is down 10% in all industries equally. We may be experiencing more unemployment today, but some industries don’t seem to be affected at all. I see no sign that the NFL is laying off football players.
Movies were still made in the 1930′s.
It would seem to me that it would depend upon which industries were interconnected with the bubble industry. And also, it would take time for the effects to propagate through the entire market place.
Krugman is the weapon, not the warrior–and a blunt instrument at that–as has been observed already, a ‘court’ intellectual–a loyal employee of the state.
Austrian Economics is the enemy of the state, and the state will not voluntarily embrace it.
Isn’t there some way we can get James Galbraith into this conversation, too.
This may seem like a shot in the dark, but I’m currently working on a thesis on Environmental Sustainability (completing my Masters in Environmental Management) and I’ve been looking into asset/ commodity back currency (a la Gold Standard) as a foundation tool for sustainable macroeconomic policy. However, I live in China and my at-hand resources to pursue this research is limited. Can anyone point me in a direction as to where I can research this? I think it’s an interesting angle to pursue but will require a lot of research so any help will be appreciated. Cheers
I’ve been telling you that the fine folks at the Mises Institute need to publish a book attacking Krugman and his fallacies. Have entries by Gordon, Block, Rockwell, Tucker, I would buy that book up as soon as it went out on to the market.
Lorne -
There is a wealth of information right here on the Mises website in the literature section:
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=subject&ID=11
This seems to be a wonderful opportunity to correct some misconceptions about Austrian theory. But then, it’s not like Krugman is intent on understanding the situation, as much as he is bent on defending government policies.
If there’s any justice to history, I hope Krugman’s name takes on the same connotation as Hoover’s in future decades.
Lorne: “I’ve been looking into asset/ commodity back currency (a la Gold Standard) as a foundation tool for sustainable macroeconomic policy.â€
The Austrian Business Cycle Theory is all about sustainable development, that is, growth without the booms and busts. The best article on it in my opinion is Hayek’s “Profits, Interest and Investment†which he wrote in 1939, but I haven’t found it on the internet. I had to get it through interlibrary loans. Hayek’s “Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle†is also very good and it’s available online on this site. Of course, Mises’s “Human Action†is absolutely necessary, but you might want to skip the first parts on epistemology until you have finished your paper. Good luck!
I was interested to find this blog. 20 years ago I had a book published on different economic concepts to point the way to a sustainable world economy. Someone who liked the book contacted me this year to suggest that I update and re-publish it as a blog. She set up the blog, and the book is now complete on the blog in a series of postings. There are now also additional pieces on global warming and other subjects. Here is the link:
http://www.economicsforaroundearth.com
With all good wishes,
Charles Pierce
The trouble with Paul Krugman is that he’s too easy a target, and unlikely to listen to us and change his mind. Publishing a book about Krugman and his work from the Austrian perspective might indeed be a good idea if it will reach people beyond Krugman, people more open to new ideas (or raher, old ideas) about economics.
Krugman is the Dan Quayle of economics.
“I’ve been telling you that the fine folks at the Mises Institute need to publish a book attacking Krugman and his fallacies. Have entries by Gordon, Block, Rockwell, Tucker, I would buy that book up as soon as it went out on to the market.”
… a la “The Critics of Keynesian Economics”.
I’d buy one. And pass it around.
Congratulations (and thanks) to all the mises.org readers who took Dr. K. to task over at the Times website. They may not make a big impression on K., but they’re bound to have some influence on readers who until now have never heard of Austrian economics.
Does K. actually refer to the Austrian theory by its name anywhere, or does he only refer to it by the insulting-sounding name “hangover theory”? Evidently he wants a platform from which to fight his enemies without naming them, in order to prevent his audience from being able to look up his opponents’ ideas for themselves.
Matthew, Charles and Fundamentalist,
Thanks a heap for that, really appreciate the help. At some point in the future, I’ll post this paper (provided it stands to up to review) and hopefully it will draw aspects of the environmental community into having a closer look at Austrian economics.
Happy New Year from Shanghai!
Since Krugman is so fond of the term “hangover theory”, I’ve tried to come up with an analogy that even he can understand:
The Fed is like the rich guy who goes into the bar and offers to buy everyone a drink, only to find out that the bar is going to run out of alcohol before everyone can get a drink. Sure, eventually, the bar will get more alcohol, but the Fed’s money isn’t creating it, and in the meantime, those who were late in line have to do without a drink.
Krugman’s critique of Austrian Business Cycle Theory may be easily refutable, but it’s not the worst one out there. This is probably THE dumbest one.
It states the long- refuted fact that (price !) deflation causes unemployment, that “The amount of money has to be optimal – not too much, but not too little, to support the natural amount of trading that goes on”. It then repeats the persistent economic myth that “recessions commonly occur when people start hoarding money”. And this isn’t just your ordinary piece of Keynesian propaganda – its author denies the ethics of property rights, too.
This guy really should get a good reading of “Economics in One Lesson”.
While I agree with many of the comments being made, and am a recent convert to Austrian Economics, the fact is that Krugman has a Nobel Prize and is well published and widely read, the better option (than writing anti-anybody articles) would be to further promote your own economic beliefs through blogs, books, magazine submissions and ideally to get published as a counterpoint view in the same newspapers.
Rather than focusing on what you are against, focus on what you are for.
The general public cannot be blamed for not seeing other sides of the argument if they are not presented with them
Krugman is your modern day reincarnation of Keynes. People assume he’s the god of economics and take everything his says for absolute truth. The guy is a partisan hack and his writings on economics are highly illogical or flat out deception.
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