New York Times Review of "The Conscience of a Liberal"

Here is a review of Paul Krugman's new book, The Conscience of a Liberal from David Kennedy. The review appears in the New York Times. When you start, as David Kennedy does, with the premise that "maybe Krugman is not really an economist" because he believes that sometimes government intervention is necessary to correct market failures, you have to wonder if it's worth reading on. It's not "anti-economist" as Kennedy suggests to believe markets sometimes need to be corrected. The suggestion that it is "anti-economist" displays the reviewer's ignorance about basic economics. Also, if you are going to have an historian rather than an economist or political scientist review Paul Krugman's work, it ought to be one who at least gets history right. Paul Krugman reviews his review:

Continuing the tradition, by Paul Krugman: Well, I’ve gotten a dismissive review in the NYT. It’s sort of a tradition. After all, The Great Unraveling received an equally dismissive review from Peter Beinart, in which he portrayed my conclusion that the Bush administration deliberately misled us into war as a crazy conspiracy theory, and contained this immortal pronouncement:

But most Americans do not consider the Bush administration corrupt, and Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is.

I think David Kennedy’s review will hold up about as well as Peter Beinart’s. I presented facts on voting behavior, which point to the centrality of race — he ignores them. I presented polling evidence about the timing and role of the perception that Democrats are weak on national security; he just waves it away.

Oh, and when Kennedy says, to illustrate my alleged factual problems, that

Kansas, whatever its other crimes and misdemeanors, is not customarily regarded as the birthplace of Prohibition

you have to ask who’s got the factual problems. I don’t know what “customarily regarded” means, but Carrie Nation wielded her ax in Kansas - and Kansas was the first state to ban alcohol in its constitution.

And here's the review itself:

Malefactors of Megawealth, by David Kennedy, NY Times: Paul Krugman is a justly renowned professor of economics... His abundant accolades include the John Bates Clark Medal, ... perhaps even more prestigious than receipt of the Nobel in economic science. His twice-weekly column in The New York Times routinely and authoritatively demystifies complex economic arcana.

And yet maybe Krugman is not really an economist — at least not according to the definition offered more than a century ago by Francis Amasa Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who wrote that laissez-faire “was not made the test of economic orthodoxy, merely. It was used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.”

Most modern economists continue to celebrate Walker’s orthodoxy, and behind it, the classical doctrines of Adam Smith, whose fabled “invisible hand” regularly works wonders of production, distribution, innovation and efficiency, provided it is kept free of the meddlesome “nanny state.” Against the constant threat of encroachment from that benighted quarter the free-market faithful are ever vigilant.

Krugman will have none of this — well, very little of it (he won the Clark Medal for work demonstrating the limitations, but not the total illogic, of free trade). Where the orthodox see nothing but market miracles, he sees many a market failure. And where they detect the invisible hand, he finds manipulation by the richest Americans to rig the game in their favor.

In our time, Krugman argues, the malefactors of megawealth have triumphed. He recites the now-familiar data that the wealthiest 0.01 percent of Americans are seven times richer than they were three decades ago, while the inflation-adjusted income of most American households has barely nudged upward. ...

But Krugman the anti-economist does not believe that growing economic inequality incubated modern political conservatism. In his view, the “arrow of causation” points the other way: political change, cunningly engineered by “radicals of the right,” has spawned egregious economic disparity, as well as a toxic level of partisanship. Ever the iconoclast, Krugman says “this strongly suggests that institutions, norms and the political environment matter a lot more for the distribution of income — and that the impersonal market forces matter less — than Economics 101 might lead you to believe.” In short, it’s the politics, stupid.

The bulk of this book consists of a historical explanation for how this sorry state of affairs came to be. It’s a story that is as factually shaky as it is narratively simplified. (Kansas, whatever its other crimes and misdemeanors, is not customarily regarded as the birthplace of Prohibition; the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, not 1964.) History according to Krugman goes something like this: the nation suffered through a “Long Gilded Age” of let-’er-rip, dog-eat-dog capitalism until the New Deal created a new social order characterized by income-leveling taxes, job security, strong labor unions, a prosperous middle class, bipartisan solidarity and general social bliss. Krugman invokes that post-World War II “paradise lost” in his first paragraph, and his yearning to restore that Edenic moment informs all the pages that follow.

But as the story unfolds, serpents slither into the garden, in the form of pesky “movement conservatives.” Those upstarts set out in the 1960s to exploit racial tensions, national security anxieties and volatile value-laden matters like abortion, school prayer and gay rights “to change the subject away from bread and butter issues.” By century’s end they had managed to fasten upon their hapless fellow citizens “a second Gilded Age” in which inequality is on the rise and even the modest American version of the welfare state that the New Deal put in place is in danger of being dismantled.

For this dismal state of affairs the Democratic Party is held to be blameless. Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics, or Democratic condescension toward the ungrammatical yokels who consider their spiritual and moral commitments no less important than the minimum wage or the Endangered Species Act, nor even the Democrats’ vulnerable post-Vietnam record on national security. As Krugman sees it, the modern Republican Party has been taken over by radicals. “There hasn’t been any corresponding radicalization of the Democratic Party, so the right-wing takeover of the G.O.P. is the underlying cause of today’s bitter partisanship.” No two to tango for him. The ascendancy of modern conservatism is “an almost embarrassingly simple story,” he says, and race is the key. “Much of the whole phenomenon can be summed up in just five words: Southern whites started voting Republican. ... End of story.”

A fuller and more nuanced story might at least gesture toward the role that environmental and natural-resource issues have played in making red-state country out of the interior West, not to mention the unsettling effects of the “value issues” on voters well beyond Dixie. And as for national security — well, as Krugman sees things, it was not Democratic bungling in the Iranian hostage crisis or humiliation in Somalia or feeble responses to the first bombing attack on the World Trade Center or the assault on the U.S.S. Cole, but the runaway popularity of the Rambo films (I’m not making this up) that hoodwinked the public into believing that the party of Carter and Clinton (not to mention McGovern and Kucinich) might not be the most steadfast guardian of the Republic’s safety.

For all that he inveighs against the evils of partisanship, Krugman astonishingly concludes by repudiating the chimera of “bipartisan compromise” and declaring that “to be a progressive, then, means being a partisan — at least for now.” Indeed, at times he seems more intent on settling his neocon adversaries’ hash than on advancing solutions to vexed policy issues. “Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” he writes, a sentence that both stylistically and substantively says much about the shortcomings of this book.

That assorted wing nuts have pretty much managed to hijack the Republican Party in recent years is scarcely in doubt. That the market is at least occasionally fallible is also not at issue. Nor is it deniable that the New Deal rendered the lives of millions of Americans more secure, and that they have become markedly less so in recent decades. A tidal wave of risk-shifting — from defined-benefit to defined-contribution retirement plans, and from employer-financed to individually-paid health care insurance, to cite but two examples — has set millions of American families anxiously adrift on a sea of uncertainty. Krugman’s chapter on the imperative need for health care reform is the best in this book, a rueful reminder of the kind of skilled and accessible economic analysis of which he is capable, and how little of it is on display here. Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced or to advance the national discussion of the important issues it addresses. It may even deepen the very partisan divide he denounces. Where is the distinguished economist when we need him?

More to the point, where's a decent reviewer when we need him? As Krugman notes in his response, David Kennedy is wrong about the history of prohibition, and the other "error" is a pretty trivial slip of writing 1964 instead of 1965. If those are the best examples of Krugman's errors Kennedy (as an historian himself) can come up with, then you have to conclude that Krugman is on pretty solid ground with the historical story he tells.

The review also ignores a lot of evidence from political scientist Larry Bartels on values voting that supports Krugman's position on the influence of racial politics. The values voting conclusions aren't things Krugman simply asserts - as you might conclude from the review - Krugman reviews solid evidence before coming to this conclusion. So when Kennedy launches into other reasons why voters may have supported Republicans, it does nothing to undermine Krugman's thesis that a large amount of the change arises from racial politics. The Bartels evidence is still there, nothing is presented in the review to counter it, and it paints a clear picture.

The author also takes issue with the statement that “Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” but once again he does not tell us about nor bother to try to rebut the careful, detailed discussion of right-wing institutions and their common funding sources that comes before this statement. Krugman's statement is a summary of this evidence, and to focus on the summary statement rather than than the evidence that supports it is not much of a rebuttal.

It's too bad that Kennedy chose to argue that, in essence, "Democrats have problems too" -- as though that somehow excuses Republicans for issues like racial politics -- rather than dealing with the evidence Krugman presents concerning the political and economic changes that produced the New Gilded Age.

Update: Brad DeLong adds:

David M. Kennedy of Stanford Makes His Play for the Stupidest Man Alive Crown, by Brad DeLong: Stanford's David M. Kennedy reveals that he is a serious contender for the "Stupidest Man Alive" title. Let's roll the tape: the start of his review of Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal:

Malefactors of Megawealth: Paul Krugman is a justly renowned professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. His abundant accolades include the John Bates Clark Medal... a distinction... perhaps even more prestigious than... the Nobel.... [Y]et maybe Krugman is not really an economist — at least not according to the definition offered more than a century ago by Francis Amasa Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who wrote that laissez-faire “was... used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.” Most modern economists continue to celebrate Walker’s orthodoxy, and behind it, the classical doctrines of Adam Smith, whose fabled “invisible hand” regularly works wonders of production, distribution, innovation and efficiency, provided it is kept free of the meddlesome “nanny state.”... Krugman [is] the anti-economist...

David Kennedy thus demonstrates that he (a) has never read Adam Smith, and (b) has little acquaintance with modern American economists--who are (like Adam Smith) much more interested in prescribing how the nanny state should meddle to be effective than in protecting the naked market from interference.

Equally bizarre is the end of Kennedy's review:

Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced or to advance the national discussion of the important issues it addresses...

David Kennedy thus demonstrates his allegiance to those who have never had substantive arguments to make in reply to Paul Krugman's arguments, and hence have no move to make save the rhetorical one of dismissing him as "shrill." Because, of course, David Kennedy had just before admitted that Krugman is right on the substance:

That assorted wing nuts have pretty much managed to hijack the Republican Party in recent years is scarcely in doubt. That the market is at least occasionally fallible is also not at issue. Nor is it deniable that the New Deal rendered the lives of millions of Americans more secure, and that they have become markedly less so.... Krugman’s chapter on the imperative need for health care reform is the best in this book...

And Paul Krugman replies... [as above]

Update: Also see:

Ah. Stanford's David Kennedy Can't Quote Properly Either...: David Kennedy of Stanford opens his review of Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" with a claim that AEA founding president Francis Amasa Walker defined an economist as a faithful believer in laissez-faire, “not... the test of economic orthodoxy, merely.... [But] used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.”

Why am I not surprised that Francis Amasa Walker actually said something very different?

And, for a round-up of posts, see:

A Gathering of the Clans...: Economic historians, historians of economic thought, practitioners of political economy, and others are painting themselves blue with woad and practicing with staves after reading Stanford's David Kennedy's trashing of Paul Krugman.

Comments

[Dickeylee]

I'm guessing that Kennedy is a Guliani man? Thompson? The point of how a Republican always sees the smote in others eyes, but never the log in his own is very apt here. Keep blaming the Democrats, keep blaming the Democrats, keep blaming the Democrats will be the '08 mantra that their mouthpieces will tell.

[hari]

Krugman and his NYT column is way ahead of his times. I guess his contemporaries may not really understand how and why PK has become such an anatagonist for the "right". The fact that he's become one, is rason why, I suspect, NYT sought Kennedy to review it.

Does anyone know how old is Kennedy? And what was his last book?

[RW]

And always show "balance" by arguing Democrats are "no better" than Republicans even when such a declaration is simultaneously a red herring and non sequitur, a distraction from the problem under discussion and pointlessly irrelevant to boot.

[anne]

Mark Thoma:

"When you start, as David Kennedy does, with the premise that 'maybe Krugman is not really an economist' because he believes that sometimes government intervention is necessary to correct market failures, you have to wonder if it's worth reading on."

Finding the review, I noticed who was reviewing and was sadened; reading the review, I was startled at the vituperation, repeatedly wrong and always unjust, and to my knowlege unlike the review of any New York Times columnist's work ever appearing in the New York Times.

[anne]

Paul Krugman corrected my memory, still I am shocked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/books/review/Kennedy-t.html

"Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics, or Democratic condescension toward the ungrammatical yokels who consider their spiritual and moral commitments no less important than the minimum wage or the Endangered Species Act, nor even the Democrats’ vulnerable post-Vietnam record on national security."

Now, I am thinking to the embrace of inherently divisive identity politics and wondering whether that means Democratic Presidential candidates appearing for debates at African American or Latino forums. Has the civil rights movement been inherently divisive identity politics only Martin Luther King never realized?

[patroclus]

David Kennedy's "Freedom from Fear" was full of subtantial historic and economic errors; never corrected by either him or any New York Times review. As any securities lawyer will inform you, the U.S.'s basic statutes governing the cpiatl markets include the Securities Act of 1933, the Exchange Act of 1934, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Maloney Act of 1938, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Holding Company Act of 1940, the Investment Company Act of 1941, the Investment Advisors Act of 1941 and the Administrative Procedure Act of 1941. Yet, in his book, Mr. Kennedy informs us that no significant New Deal legislation was enacted in FDR's second term.

Look at the years of those statutes! The vast majority of law governing the securities industry was indeed enacted in FDR's second term - the Maloney Act brought NASDAQ under the disclosure rubric; the Holding Company Act extended PUHCA to all holding companies, the Investment Advisor Act brought broker-dealers under the disclosure auspices, the Investment Company Act brought non-bank securities houses in and the APA codified the regulatory system whereby the SEC issues regulations and interpretive rulings.

Mr. Kennedy made a glaring series of errors, including historical errors, legal errors and economic errors - reading Freedom From Fear with actual knowledge of the dates, times and political arguments about our securities laws is an utter joke! And yet, he won award after award after award and never got caught!

That a writer such as Mr. Kennedy was employed to write a book review about subjects with which he is not familiar is an insult to Mr. Krugman and all readers of the NYTimes. Mr. Kennedy is not much of an historian and certainly not much of an economist. This review is as shoddy as the Beinart review. Surely, the NYTimes can do better.

[anne]

"Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics...."

Consider carefully what such a condemnation tells us. Does it tell us that identifying with a girl's wish to play soccer is of no account in a boys' footballer world? Women were, of course, not admitted to Harvard engineering till the 1970s, among other divisions. Sliderules and sex mixed poorly in olden times.

Blacks going to school with whites, public school; blacks voting with whites; blacks working with whites. We had separate and equal for 50 years, so who needed more? Martin Luther King just would not understand, and all that marching is, you know, divisive identity politics especially when Blacks are marching. So much for civil rights, being divisive and all.

[WM123]

Kansas was no leader in prohibition

From History of Alcohol Prohibition

“In 1847, the first such cure was enacted for the state of Maine (Cherrington, 1920: 134). (Actually, the first Prohibition law went into effect in 1843 in the territory of Oregon. This was repealed five years later.) “

“A wave of prohibition statutes followed. Delaware, on the heels of Maine, passed its first prohibition law only to have it declared unconstitutional the following year. Similar laws were enacted in Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York during the next few years. They met with varying fates, including veto by the governors, repeal by the legislatures and invalidation by the state supreme courts.”

From Prohibition in the United States (Wikipedia)

“In May 1657 the General Court of Massachusetts made illegal the sale of strong liquor "whether knowne by the name of rumme, strong water, wine, brandy, etc., etc."[1]”

“Some successes were registered in the 1850s, including Maine's total ban on the manufacture and sale of liquor, adopted in 1851. However, the movement soon lost strength, and prohibition was not a major political issue during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It revived in the 1880s, with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. “

However, what does Krugman have against Kansas? It is one of the richest states in the nation and ranks 18th in inequality. New Jersey ranks 36th and New York ranks 50th.

[CaptainVideo]

Why is someone so pathetically ignorant of economics allowed to review a book dealing to an important degree with economics?

Anyone who understands even a minimum of economics knows that in the presence of externalities, monopoly power, and asymmetric information, markets left to their own devices do not produce efficient results. And even if these were not present there is absolutely no gurarantee that the results markets left to their own devices would produce results that are equitable.

Any competent historian will know at least that much about the related field of economics. Clearly he should have failed a course in undergraduate micro principles, if he took one.

[F. Frederson]

"More to the point, where's a decent reviewer when we need him?"

Maybe Paul Kennedy was unavailable, so they went to the nearest name in the Rolodex.

More likely is that the NYT for some reason felt the need to find a "critical" - as in negative, not analytical - review that could pass as well done. Or perhaps David Kennedy phoned this one in, and the editors just never looked at.

Hopefully a good review will be forthcoming in the NYRB sometime soon.

[Bruce Wilder]

I can readily see why a New York Times editor might choose David M. Kennedy, a Stanford historian noted for combining economic, social and cultural analyses in his histories, to review Krugman's book, with high expectations for the quality of the resulting review.

It seems to me that Kennedy pretty much concedes the factual case, in the final paragraph of the review. So, what is the essence of Kennedy's critique? That Krugman is "shrill"?

I find myself particularly curious about Kennedy and what drives the expression on display in this review -- the disdain for Krugman's "shrill" analysis? Kennedy's own sneering summary of Krugman's argument is loaded with the kind of content-free "kool kidz" snark pioneered by the likes of Maureen Dowd.

When Kennedy complains: “Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” [Krugman] writes, a sentence that both stylistically and substantively says much about the shortcomings of this book. what exactly is Kennedy's point? As far as I can tell, Kennedy does not like the "shrill polemic" quality of Krugman's book, and that's about it: "shrill polemic, bad" sums up Kennedy's argument.

I perfectly understand why "shrill polemics" are not necessarily an attractive form. I doubt that Krugman, himself, much enjoys the effort. It is uncomfortable to be angry. It is anxiety-producing to realize that Rich People want to become richer still, at your expense, and are actively manipulating a nominally democratic politics to accomplish that end.

But, at this moment in our history, there's something pathological in Kennedy's snarky serenity and compulsive retreat to partisan symmetries.

[Morris Sheppard]

Kennedy complains about Krugman's stylistic and substantive shortcomings in a poorly written review that has a plethora of those very faults. This is a man who teaches history but seems unaware of it, or maybe just forgot it. In the end he admits that Krugman is basically right about everything, but is just too "shrill." Where is a handy bucket of ice in which to soak one's head when you need it?

It appears that if you traded one Paul Krugman plus all the trash you wanted to get rid of in a year for six David Kennedy's, you'd come up way short on the deal. Simple economics.

[CaptainVideo]

With respect to the reviewer's quotation that he uses to suggest that maybe Krugman is not really an economist,

"the definition offered more than a century ago by Francis Amasa Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who wrote that laissez-faire “was not made the test of economic orthodoxy, merely. It was used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.”

the context of that statement needs to be examined.

Since the American Economic Association was founded by institutionalists who were critical of orthodox economics, this statement by Walker looks like part of a critique by institutionalists of orthodox economics, that is that he was criticising such a definition of what an economist is and therefore criticising the very thing the reviewer is trying to do.

Perhaps someone who is an expert in the History of Economic Thought can clarify this?

[CaptainVideo]

"a Stanford historian noted for combining economic, social and cultural analyses in his histories"

His total ignorance of some of the most basic economic propositions (see my post above) raises serious questions about his competence to do this.

[duus]

as Anne said, "Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics," is a ridiculous claim. identity politics is *not* inherently divisive. You can believe that only if you believe that, in absence of identity politics, we would not be divided. Identity politics is pointing out existing divisions (at least arguably) with, perhaps, the hope to rectify said divisions. Although one might take issue with that claim, it is an empirical claim, that, a priori, could go either way; and therefore reveals the 'inherent' part of Kennedy's claim to be false.

[Incertus (Brian)]

You can believe that only if you believe that, in absence of identity politics, we would not be divided.

Well, in the sense that pre-Civil War politics weren't divided because all the power was held by white men, I suppose the claim that identity politics divides us holds up. But that's a pretty stupid way to look at it.

[pseudonymous in nc]

This hatchet job is only the most recent example of an ongoing trend in the NYT BR: books by conservatives have been handed off to sympathetic reviewers, while books by liberals are given to people guaranteed to deliver dismissive, sniffy writeups. Sam Tanenhaus may have been described as a 'smart conservative', but his smartness is the insidious way he has skewed the BR's coverage of political books.

[Danny Okrent]

Come on, people. We all know Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.

[donna]

Again with the Adam Smith nonsense - read "Theory of Moral Sentiments", Mr. Kennedy, and then we'll talk. Smith assumed most men had a conscience. At least Paul Krugman has one! If "the rich", whoever they are, ever develop one, then we won't have income inequality or complaints about their "high taxes." I'm so tired of those who use the system to their advantage complaining about paying for it.

[GM123]

If you type history and prohibition into Google you get any number of histories of prohibition. Kansas does not figure prominently (if at all) in these articles.

The reference to Carrie Nation is interesting and revealing. She did attack saloons in Kansas. However, her efforts were a protest against the failure of the state to enforce its prohibition law. She was from Kentucky (and later Texas).

[Mumon]

The "western states became red because of environmental regulation" is another ridiculous canard, that's being overturned as this went to press; the NYT published this bit...

n increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement is developing here. Environmental groups that have long opposed new power plants are being joined by ranchers, farmers, retired homeowners, ski resort operators and even religious groups.

[save_the_rustbelt]

I'm certainly glad Democrats never play racial politics.

Oh, wait.........

[anne]

Duus:

"Identity politics is *not* inherently divisive. You can believe that only if you believe that, in absence of identity politics, we would not be divided. Identity politics is pointing out existing divisions (at least arguably) with, perhaps, the hope to rectify said divisions. Although one might take issue with that claim, it is an empirical claim, that, a priori, could go either way; and therefore reveals the 'inherent' part of Kennedy's claim to be false."

Nicely written.

[Jrossi]

I agree with the above poster that Kennedy concedes Krugman's most important points. "Shrill polemics" means that Kennedy just doesn't like the cut of Krugman's jib. A common situation.

[anne]

Danny Okrent:

"Come on, people. We all know Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults."

This is a writer pretending to be Daniel Okrent.

[Dan]

CaptainVideo teases out a crucial point in his comment above:

Since the American Economic Association was founded by institutionalists who were critical of orthodox economics, this statement by Walker looks like part of a critique by institutionalists of orthodox economics, that is that he was criticising such a definition of what an economist is and therefore criticising the very thing the reviewer is trying to do.

A quick Google search yields this gloss on Walker's words:

Thus, to be an economist in America before the AEA was founded in 1885 meant that one was an advocate of laissez-faire, and this belief was based on a loose interpretation of the Protestant work ethic filtered through Say's and Bastiat's writings. But there was no modern, technical argument for this advocacy: the support of laissez-faire was an ideology. The young economists who founded the AEA were, of course, interested in pushing the envelope and founded the Association, in part, to give legitimacy to their desire to study the legitimate functions of the state in the economy (in contradistinction to the older advocates of laissez faire).

I think this is one hell of a gotcha right here.

And Kennedy is looking more and more like a clown the deeper we delve.

[Tom Jones]

Who the hell cares about Prohibition anyway?

[evagrius]

Who are "the ungrammatical yokels"?

[anne]

"Kansas was the first state to ban alcohol in its constitution," in 1880.

No matter, in 1657 Massachusetts was wild about alcohol and seemingly still is, but Paul Krugman does not dislike Kansas, though my support is conditional on Kansas no longer being so crazy about the teaching of evolution but that's me and not Krugman. Can a Republican run for President, and acknowledge 150 years of biological thought? I actually think not.

[GM123]

Tom Jones,

"Who the hell cares about Prohibition anyway?"

Apparently, Krugman and Kennedy care a lot about prohibtion and the supposed role of Kansas in prohibition. Why isn't clear.

[Paul G. Brown]

It says a lot about the quality of Kennedy's review of the book, and folk like WM123 and GM123, that the best they can do is to pick on a throw-away line about Kansas and prohibition.

Rather than make any effort to confront the substance of PK's argument (and here let me say I actually have a couple of problems with PK's ideas; specifically that the way voluntary voting works means elections in the US tend to give you a pretty distorted view of the attitudes and beliefs of the general populace, making me skeptical of any associations between general population trends and voting patterns) they instead pick up some debating point.

People in the US are suffering and dying needlessly. The world's peoples are losing its faith in the ideals of democracy and freedom that the US has come to represent. The planet is heating up. And the response to a serious contribution to the debate is that the book exaggerates the role of Kansas in the passage of the 18th Amendment?

And then there is the review's last paragraph. In these times, to be 'shrill' is to be aware.

[anne]

Dan, thank you.

I am interested in the social context of the passage by Francis Amasa Walker, and will ask reference about it. Richard Hofstadter relates classical economic thinking to "social" Darwinism * in a way I wish to look after.

* Charles Darwin was in no way a social Darwinist and I dislike the expression but the expression remains.

[Julio]

Besides being wrongheaded, this is a poorly written review:

You learn something about Mr. Kennedy's opinions and character, and practically nothing about the book itself.

[WM123]

Paul G. Brown,

I wrote

"However, what does Krugman have against Kansas? It is one of the richest states in the nation and ranks 18th in inequality. New Jersey ranks 36th and New York ranks 50th."

No mention prohibition.

[anne]

NC reminds me, and I did not want to be reminded, that in several important instances, a conservative polemical New York Times review has made what should be an important reference review unusable. Similar comment was made recently by Yale's Harold Bloom. I had not thought about the influence of the editor of the book review before however. The New York Review has been excellent, the Guardian has moments, but more is needed from the Times.

[anne]

As in whether Kansas enjoys drinking or not, we have no idea of why the matter is raised; the review is not about developing Paul Krugman's thesis, which is where the problem lies most of all. These comments are helpful, even in understanding what is missing in the review beyond any political slant.

I am especially interested in any thoughts on whether the American Economic Association was a response to counter social Darwinist thinking among classical economists. What might this mean?

[RW]

A agree with those who consider the discussion of prohibition rather trivial but did notice that Krugman actually wrote "Kansas was the first state to ban alcohol in its constitution" and, knowing that Krugman is rarely careless in either writing or speech, did a bit of googling and could not find any state that, in fact, banned alcohol in its constitution before Kansas did: Many states made it illegal before Kansas but I can't find a single one that did so via the process of constitutional amendment.

I confess I am curious about this now: Anyone know different; was there any state that enshrined prohibition _in their constitution_ before Kansas?

Either way David Kennedy is just looking worse and worse which, btw, is probably a critical reason Krugman keeps looking better and better: It's not that Krugman is without flaw or never indulges in stridency or can not make errors (although if one attends closely to his wording those errors are few indeed), it is simply that the work of those who attack him tends to be worse by comparison.

[Dan]

Even the libertarians at Ludwig von Mises Institute agree that the AEA was found in the spirit of "progressivism."

http://www.mises.org/story/2318

The economists' premier professional society, the American Economic Association, was itself created as an explicitly "progressive" organization. Its founder, the religious and social reformer Richard T. Ely, planned an association, he reported to a colleague, of "economists who repudiate laissez-faire as a scientific doctrine."

The other founding members, all of whom had been trained in Germany under Gustav Schmoller and other members of the younger German Historical School — the so-called Socialists of the Chair — were similarly possessed with reformist zeal. The constitution of the AEA still contains references to the "positive role of the church, the state and science in the solution of social problems by the 'development of legislative policy.'"

Conflating laissez-faire with Social Darwinism, however, only serves to muddy the water, IMO.

[jawbone]

Well, at least Kennedy knew that Krugman is known as "The Shrill One." Must read blogs....

[anne]

Actually, if the AEA was a reaction to understanding of classical economic thought in the 1880s, I am almost sure when reference sends along material I will find that the ARA was a reaction against the thinking of Herbert Spencer or against social Darwinist thinking which was possibly strongest in the 1880s. This is important, and I am confident I will find just this as did Richard Hofstadter.

[anne]

The American Economics Association was formed when western economic thought was rationalizing colonialism, and as great trusts were forming and being rationalized here and abroad taking advantage here of communications and transportation developments from the Civil War on and colonial consolidation internationally.

[Harold]

The poet Paul Malarme kept a cage of parrots whom he called, "Mes petits acadamiciens."

[ken melvin]

Well, if there's a mistake in the book I shan't be reading it and I don't think anyone else should read it either; the danger's simply too great.

In re the richness of Kansas: Take Johnson County and maybe another burb or two out and run the numbers again.

[Hank Essay]

Let Prof. Kennedy know what you think of his bullshit smear review of Krugman's book:

dmk@stanford.edu

-

[James Killus]

Professor Kennedy understands that if Paul Krugman is correct, the United States is in the hands of criminals and ideological idiots whose policies will lead the country into political, economic and social chaos. Professor Kennedy is disturbed by the idea of political, economic, and social chaos, so he desperately wants Paul Krugman to be wrong. Thus, he has written a review reflecting his desires.

This is how actual conservatives, those who do not wish for tumultuous change, are coopted by authoritarian thugs. "This is a nice country, we've got here," say the thugs. "Pity if something were to happen to it." So the cowards pay the protection and lash out at anyone observing the actual state of things.

I've heard that neighborhoods controlled by the Mafia are very safe, also. That's the story that gets told, anyway. Maybe Prof. Kennedy would like to live in one, or maybe he thinks he does already.

[anne]

Let me be clear that I thoroughly like Michael Moore and having watched "Roger and Me" a while ago I was taken by how clever he was and how much he might have helped General Motor's Roger had Roger ever thought about what producing cars could really be about. "SiCKO" is terrific, and the next time I think about my friendly health insurance company, which I hope not to have to do, I'll think again.

[doggril]

WM123 is being a bit, shall we say, conservative in his sharing of Wikipedia quotes.
Here's another sampling of the Wikipedia information on Prohibition:
"In 1881, Kansas became the first state to outlaw alcoholic beverages in its Constitution, with Carrie Nation gaining notoriety..."
Does WM123 think the rest of us don't know how to use the intertubes?

[el loco]

Then I shall conclude that John Maynard Keynes "is not really an economist", since he believed that the "nanny state" played a role in Adam Smith's invisible hand.

How stupid can these twits get?

[PrestoPundit]

According to everything I find on the internet -- excepting _only_ Paul Krugman -- the birthplace of prohibition was Maine, NOT Kansas. Krugman is one of the most fact challenged academics in the public arena, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.

On history my advice is to go with the historian, not with Krugman.

[gordon]

Kennedy attributes to Krugman a belief in "...a “Long Gilded Age” of let-’er-rip, dog-eat-dog capitalism...". To me, "dog-eat-dog capitalism" would signify a truly competitive market without monopoly or oligopoly rents. This doesn't fit with my understanding of the Gilded Age as an age of trusts and market manipulation. Does Krugman really think of the Gilded Age as an age of perfect competition, or is Kennedy just misinterpreting?

[ScentOfViolets]

Well, Presto, maybe _you_ could answer the question then: Which states banned alcohol in their constitution before Kansas did?

[John V]

Having read the book, I can see where Kennedy is coming from with his critiques on economics....because I read the book. However, without that perspective, he simply looks like he's making weak arguments.

I don't really like his review. He comes across as pithy while dwelling on minor issues. In fact, he displays the same problem as Krugman:

Saying a lot about his own views without convincingly backing them up in a way that leaves himself beyond cursory reproach. Of course, Kennedy is writing a review, Krugman wrote an entire book.

Unfortunately, I was not able to write a strong REVIEW of the book. I lack both the inclination (because of the time involved with little reward in return) and economic mastery to thoroughly convey my problems with the book. I was also in a bit of a fog that day and found my review to be clunky and rough upon rereading it. And, considering how many little notes I made throughout the book, I feel I failed in expressing them anywhere nearly as well as I wanted to.

That's not to say I didn't agree with parts of it. I did. BUT, a lot of it, particularly on "Movement Conservatism" is well covered in previous books I've read on the matter. So it seemed rehashed and mostly unoriginal.

Besides his major economic assertions which I don't think he proved in a convincing way, I do agree with Kennedy about the tone. Being a nonpartisan libertarian-leaner with equal disdain for both parties (though my nose-holding voting record actually leans Dem), I found such cartoonish partisanship taken to such dizzying heights from an academic like Krugman to be off-putting and unbecoming for someone of Krugman's ability.

That said, the book was an interesting yet ultimately unfulfilling read. It had its meaty parts and vapid parts. The health care chapter was both informative and annoying. Informative because he articulates the Left perspective and its good points very well but annoying because, as an economist, Krugman should have explained why opposing views from other economists are wrong and don't offer a solution...not in an anecdotal political pundit way but in a sound and dispassionate economist way.

If Krugman were merely a pundit, I would understand and most likely would not have read it. But being that he is an economist, I wanted more solid explanations via solid economics and less advocacy via selective data and anecdotes.

Nowhere is this more clear than his chapters on the New Deal, "The Great Compression" and his general overview of his take on historical and "cause and effect" corollaries involving economic policy and inequality. This was the meat and potatoes of the book for me. The economic history of the period from the 20s to post-WWII is incredibly fascinating to me and I feel his analysis was more slippery and anecdotal than devastatingly convincing. He ignores A LOT of things like technology, the state of the global economy after the war and, most importantly the 800lb gorilla in the room called the Great Depression and the effects of all these things on the reality he "over-attributes" to seemingly solely the New Deal.

His chapters on this era are a contribution to its study but very, very far from the final answer. I'm in the middle of "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Schlaes now. Schlaes's book deals solely with the period from the late 20s to the war. It's actually quite good so far and takes a very up close look of the policies of the period. Sadly, I don't think it will continue into the 50s.

I'm still waiting for the definitive economic work on this period.

Perhaps an economic scholar could synthesis the findings and/or assertions of the likes Schlaes, Krugman, Zinn, Galbraith, Hayek, Rothbard and other noted economists and economic historians into a defintive work that puts the true correlations and salient economic lessons in a solid irrefutable perspective for all to learn from.

That would be a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize accomplishment.

[depressed]

Shorter Bruce Wilder: rhetorically speaking, here it is 2000 again. As so often, he's absolutely correct.

I wonder if Kennedy will ever repent and join the Order of the Shrill.

[anne]

"I'm in the middle of 'The Forgotten Man' by Amity Schlaes now. Schlaes's book deals solely with the period from the late 20s to the war. It's actually quite good so far and takes a very up close look of the policies of the period. Sadly, I don't think it will continue into the 50s."

The whole point of Schlaes is distortion and deception, as is evidently the point of the comment for there have been decades of fine histories of the New Deal that modern-estremists-conservatives as Schlaes are doing all they can to subvert.

[anne]

Simply the "shrill" label that David Kennedy stupidly applies (stupid, because Kennedy needs to take the state of the art of nutty conservative criticism from 2000 on and set it yet loose again), shows the purposeful distortion of the review. The review is shameful, but there it is.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/books/review/Kennedy-t.html

"Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics, or Democratic condescension toward the ungrammatical yokels who consider their spiritual and moral commitments no less important than the minimum wage or the Endangered Species Act, nor even the Democrats’ vulnerable post-Vietnam record on national security."

Read the pasage, and understand just what David Kennedy is about. Kennedy is about the conservative game of dismissing 50 years of agonizing work on civil rights. Imagine, that Americans of all ethnicities might come to understand the teaching of a Martin Luther Kind. Imagine Americans coming to have civil rights; inherently divisive identity politics is what Kennedy wishes only with no mention ever made of the divisiveness.

[SB]

PrestoPundit: "Krugman is one of the most fact challenged academics in the public arena, so this shouldn't surprise anyone."

I believe there is strong evidence to the contrary. Multiple right-wing Web sites carefully review each and every one of Krugman's columns looking for factual and logic flaws, and only seem to come up with one actual error per year, if that many. This is compared to columns by David Brooks, Richard Cohen, Robert Samuelson, David Broder, George F. Will et al where one could pick one of their columns at random and likely find five howlers.

[anne]

"Never mind the Democrats’ embrace of inherently divisive identity politics...."

What is it about such a comment, which is found everywhere through conservative circles? Can I identify with being Irish, or is that divisive? What about being an Irish woman, which may be more divisive? What about being Nigerian? Japanese? Haitian? Suppose I were to identify with African Americans. What then?

Does identity politics involve identifying with 3.8 million children, disabled children and adults as well, just denied helath care by non-divisive Republicans? Suppose I identify with with these children. Listen to them cough....

[anne]

What is interesting is the Republican craze for niceness, for we must be nice. We were driven to an immoral strategically disastrous war and occupation by fearful deceiving language that is difficult even to repeat, a war and occupation resulting in displacement of millions, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, countless physical and psychological woundings that may scar a lifetime, the utter wasting of what will be $800 billion is direct spending on war and occupation by December 2007. But, be polite. Be academic and dignified and polite, especially while conservative sharks go sharking about.

[anne]

War and occupation are fine, but be polite as Blackwater armored trucks roar through the streets firing. Am I being divisive enough? From here, I need to really practice my divisive identity politics. Me, I identify with all those who David Kennedy abhors, like needy children denied health care by compassionate conservatives who prefer to be compassionate in destroying Iraq to save Iraq. Notice my playing at identity politics.

[SB]

"And as for national security — well, as Krugman sees things, it was not Democratic bungling in the Iranian hostage crisis or humiliation in Somalia or feeble responses to the first bombing attack on the World Trade Center or the assault on the U.S.S. Cole, but the runaway popularity of the Rambo films (I’m not making this up) that hoodwinked the public into believing that the party of Carter and Clinton (not to mention McGovern and Kucinich) might not be the most steadfast guardian of the Republic’s safety."

It is here that Kennedy lets the fig leaf blow completely away, as this passage is chock-full of right-wing crackpottery. It was Bush who failed to respond to the U.S.S. Cole bombing after the CIA and FBI certified that al Qaeda did it. What polling shows that Americans concluded from Somalia, the first WTC bombing response or the Cole bombing response that the Democrats are weak on national security? McGovern argued that the U.S. should stop fighting in Vietnam, which is exactly what the Republicans did. Kucinich was never nominated. And no mention of the Republican party's "humiliation" in Lebanon and Iraq, or their secretly baking a cake for and selling weapons to U.S.-hostage-holding Iran?

Only a partisan would make the above-quoted argument. In this case, an _undeclared_ partisan.

[Icarus]

There are so many interesting, critical writers who have spent decades unmasking the limits of market oriented thought, and the assymetries of power it enables...

Why are we (on this blog) so obsessed with Paul Krugman? I'm serious...It's not like this guy represents a new vision, a new approach to political economy, or anything else so revolutionary.

How did we reduce everything to his bi-weekly scribbles?

I think economists have to spend quite a bit more time reading things outside their discipline, and actually start looking at critical theory and global dialogues. This merry-go-round gets pretty boring.

[anne]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/10/david-m-kennedy.html

October 20, 2007

David M. Kennedy of Stanford Makes His Play for the Stupidest Man Alive Crown
By Brad DeLong

Stanford's David M. Kennedy reveals that he is a serious contender for the "Stupidest Man Alive" title. Let's roll the tape: the start of his review of Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal:

Malefactors of Megawealth: "Paul Krugman is a justly renowned professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. His abundant accolades include the John Bates Clark Medal... a distinction... perhaps even more prestigious than... the Nobel.... [Y]et maybe Krugman is not really an economist — at least not according to the definition offered more than a century ago by Francis Amasa Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who wrote that laissez-faire 'was... used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.' Most modern economists continue to celebrate Walker’s orthodoxy, and behind it, the classical doctrines of Adam Smith, whose fabled 'invisible hand' regularly works wonders of production, distribution, innovation and efficiency, provided it is kept free of the meddlesome 'nanny state.'... Krugman [is] the anti-economist..."

David Kennedy thus demonstrates that he (a) has never read Adam Smith, and (b) has little acquaintance with modern American economists--who are (like Adam Smith) much more interested in prescribing how the nanny state should meddle to be effective than in protecting the naked market from interference.

Equally bizarre is the end of Kennedy's review:

"Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced or to advance the national discussion of the important issues it addresses..."

David Kennedy thus demonstrates his allegiance to those who have never had substantive arguments to make in reply to Paul Krugman's arguments, and hence have no move to make save the rhetorical one of dismissing him as "shrill." Because, of course, David Kennedy had just before admitted that Krugman is right on the substance:

"That assorted wing nuts have pretty much managed to hijack the Republican Party in recent years is scarcely in doubt. That the market is at least occasionally fallible is also not at issue. Nor is it deniable that the New Deal rendered the lives of millions of Americans more secure, and that they have become markedly less so.... Krugman’s chapter on the imperative need for health care reform is the best in this book..."

[Icarus]

There have been a handful of critical thinkers announcing the 'death of economics'...what they mean is that the capacity for this discipline to actually develop critical thought which isn't embedded in mathematical models, and actually shows some awareness of the politics of knowledge.

The separation of 'politics' from 'economics' began the slipperly slope into irrelevance, which is where I believe our cadres of economists now lie.

[John V]

Anne,

Thanks for your insightful comment.

It's a shame watching you and your counterparts on the Right dismiss everything that runs to counter to your world view as deception, nuttery and devious ploys.

IMO, the only deception is to self with that kind of attitude.

I've read Gore, J Perkins, Hayek, Rothbard, Bryan Caplan, Naomi Klein, Krugman and now Schlaes in just the past few months....mainly on audio-book because I drive a lot. I consume a book less than a week. From that open-minded and balanced perspective, you can imagine how such comments strike me. Not good.

[ScentOfViolets]

Oh, what are your theories then, John V? What sort of explanatory and predictive powers do they have? Go, on.

But here is a bit of a tip for you: "Being a nonpartisan libertarian-leaner with equal disdain for both parties . . . " is translated as libertarian nutjob or partisan shill by most people.

In case you hadn't noticed, libertarians are in extremely bad odor in most parts. About the only way to wash that smell off of you is to publically disavow most of the followers of that 'philosophy'.

[John V]

Scent,

why so hostile? I wrote quite a bit there already. I would have expected comments and discussion not insults and snide deflective questions.

Sorry. I'm not playing that way.

[WM123]

Folks,

Let’s step back a moment and see what is going on here. Krugman somehow decided to focus on Kansas and Prohibition. Why isn’t clear, at least to me. Does anyone know? Has anyone read Krugman’s book?

Kennedy then reviews the book and offers the following, quite correct, statement

“Kansas, whatever its other crimes and misdemeanors, is not customarily regarded as the birthplace of Prohibition”

For better or worse, Kennedy’s statement is accurate. Typing prohibition and history in Google turns up any number of histories of Prohibition in the United States. I didn’t find any that treated Kansas as the keystone state of the movement. Presumably Krugman could have done the same thing and found the same information.

Unfortunately, Krugman make his position worse by referencing two factoids. First, that Kansas was the first state to include Prohibition in its state constitution. Second, that Carrie Nation attacked saloons in Kansas.

Unfortunately, both of the (valid) data points diminish Krugman’s argument. The Oregon territory implemented Prohibition 38 years before Kansas. Maine was only 34 years ahead. Any number of other states implemented (or tried to) Prohibition before the Civil War. The fact that Kansas amended its constitution decades later just doesn’t make it “the birthplace of Prohibition”.

The reference to Carrie Nation also undermines Krugman’s argument. Carrie Nation was protesting the failure of Kansas to enforce its Prohibition laws. Her first attack on a saloon was in 1900, 19th years after the constitutional amendment. Once again, saloon attacks 57 years after the first Prohibition laws just don’t support a claim about “the birthplace of Prohibition”.

Of course, Carrie Nation was never more than a local leader of the WCTU. The actual history of the WCTU further undermines Krugman’s thesis. The WCTU was founded in 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. The WCTU website offers the following capsule history

“In many towns in Ohio and New York in the fall of 1873 women concerned about the destructive power of alcohol met in churches to pray and then marched to the saloons to ask the owners to close their establishments. They met with success but it was only temporary so by the next summer the women concluded that they must become organized nationally. This led to the founding of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union - the oldest continuing non-sectarian woman's organization in the world.”

No mention of Kansas. The history of the Prohibition party is also revealing. It was founded in 1869 in Chicago and held its next convention in Ohio. The subsequent history of the party reveals no special connection to Kansas. The same holds for the Anti-Saloon league founded in Oberlin, Ohio in 1893.

I did find one interesting counterpoint. In 1887, Prohibition Party member Susanna M. Salter of Argonia, Kansas, became the first female mayor in the United States.

If Krugman had connected Prohibition and Ohio he might have been able to make his case. However, with Kansas he struck out.

So let’s summarize here. Krugman chooses (for unknown reasons) to obsess over the 19th century history of Kansas and Prohibition. Kennedy rightfully corrects Krugman. Rather than honorably backing off, Krugman digs a deeper hole with factoids that only worsen his case.

However, the real point is why is Krugman so obsessed with Kansas in the first place? Does anyone kinow?

[John V]

WM123,

I read the book as I stated above. It's funny, this whole thing about prohibition was so minor in the book that I had to pause to remember when and why he even talked about it.

If I recall, it was an aside while discussing progressive, populist politics. He referenced Frank's book "What the Matter with Kansas?" in the process of discussing the roots of populism and the intersection of economic and social issues and how the landscape has changed since then since the Prohibition issue was not a partisan issue....which was all part of larger narrative about a populism revival.

They may not make total sense and I'm probably blurring some points. It's a bit foggy to me now as it wasn't a major part of the book for me so my retention of it is a bit weak.

says...

Kennedy notes that Krugman won the John Bates Clark Medal, adding that it's "perhaps even more prestigious than receipt of the Nobel in economic science." He then says Krugman may not be a "real economist" because he does not adhere to Laissez Faire uber Alles.

This year the Nobel in economics was shared by three Americans who developed "Mechanism Design Theory," which helps distinguish situations in which markets work well and those in which they do not.

From the Nobel Materials: "In some cases, no market mechanism can ensure a fully efficient allocation of resources. In such cases, mechanism design theory can be used to identify other, more efficient institutions. A classic example concerns public goods, such as clean air or national security. Paul Samuelson (1954) conjectured that no resource allocation mechanism can ensure a fully efficient level of public goods, because “it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective activity than he really has...”

No wonder Kennedy downplays the prestige of the Nobel. It refutes him.

[anne]

There is a need to read and understand what can be trusted in reading. There is a need to discard historians who methodically distort, and that is what Rothbard and Schlaes have been about. History is forever being newly written, but that does not mean distorted. Become an expert on the New Deal, which deserves much more attention as I am finding, but read from sources that can be trusted.

[RW]

Stating an opinion as if it was a fact does not make the opinion fact. Who is the one obsessed about prohibition?

Kennedy? Possibly since he apparently agrees with all of Krugman's main points and only has the disagreement concerning Kansas and the fact that Krugman appears "shrill" to offer as critique.

Krugman? Doubtful since it was neither a central point of his argument nor a central trope of his book but he certainly does appear sufficiently irritated with Kennedy's vapid review to wish to paint his reviewer as factually challenged in addition to manifest analytic challenges.

So let us step back indeed: What else do those who dislike Krugman and his conclusion have beyond the assertion that he (not Kennedy of course) is somehow "obsessed" with a topic that he, and not Kennedy either if it comes to that, has not positioned as central to anything in the first place.

Does anyone know?

[anne]

John V, thank you for the comment and review which are interesting but too shy of specific content possibly because of being confused on who and what can be trusted. Paul Krugman can be trusted, even when I disagree. Please continue your critique, but as with Kennedy's review there is no development of Krugman's thesis.

What is the story, Krugman's story? Kennedy will not tell. I will know Krugmans's story on reading, but the Kennedy review is of no use and worse.

[WM123]

John V.

Thank you for clarifying the underlying issue. I guessed that the context might be Frank’s book, but wasn’t sure. I assume Krugram praised Frank’s book and/or used it in a positive context. This is a more serious error than getting the 19th century history of Prohibition wrong.

As a economist, Krugram should either know or be able to look up the economic rankings of the states. As I observed earlier, Kansas is one of the richest states in the nation and ranks 18th in inequality. By contrast, New Jersey ranks 36th in inequality and New York ranks 50th in inequality.

I am not too surprised that a historian, such as Kennedy, would know the history of Prohibition better than Krugman. However, Krugman should know that Frank’s book is based on a factually incorrect premise; i.e. that Kansas is a poor state.

By the way, Krugman could have dropped the Kansas / Prohibition topic when Kennedy corrected him. He choose not to.

[CaptainVideo]

"There have been a handful of critical thinkers announcing the 'death of economics'..."

As Mark Twain said "stories of my death have been greatly exaggerated." The same is the case with economics.

For example: the actions of the Federal Open Market Committee probably has a greater effect on the functioning of the U.S. economy than the actions of any other institution. Virtually all the members of this committee have Ph.D.s in economics.

[anne]

There was a time, why know why, when I decided to wade through Rothbard. What I found from the beginning was non-history pretending to be history. Supposition that is passed as truth and is false. I am not interested in bothering again. So, I make choices and will be ever more discriminating in so doing. I am especially tired of modern conservative defensiveness and rank revisionism.

[John V]

Anne,

"sources that can be trusted"??

hmmm. That sounds a little like:

sources that agree with me

I have a little faith in my ability to see truth and BS. Sadly, they are often intertwined. But even then, the BS isn't necessarily intentional. It's often sincere but ideological and prone to selective information.

In the end, though, even after separating the info, the next level is seeing how the truth fits into larger truths and consistencies. Sometimes, truths are given to incorrectly bolster arguments where the truth in question has little to no bearing on a larger narrative....or is overstated at the expense of inconvenient or contradictory truths that undermine the original argument.

I've read more books than I can remember to count on politics, economics and history. Nevermind articles and papers. I'm not reading either Krugman or Schlaes on a blank slate.

Krugman's "Great Compression" idea may have some merit. I'm simply saying, again, that he doesn't argue it convincingly enough. Anecdotes and appealing corollaries can either be insightful or self-deceiving. On this point, it's far from clear to me. Like I said, the final answer isn't clear to me since so many factors, that he didn't address or refute, are still staring us in the face. The more I read, the harder I find it to say "eureka" about complex truths that hinge on so many variables.

[Dr. Wu]

If the New York Times had any journalistic integrity left, they would prefix the article with "A Review by Neocon Whore David Kennedy."

[WM123]

John V,

Krugram's "Great Compression" idea is not empirically correct. Mark Thoma provided a link to the underlying Piketty/Saex data in Excel spreadsheet form. Download the data and check it out. The actual fall in inequality is from 1940 onwards. In other words, it was driven by the war (including price / wage controls).

Conversely, Krugman would have a much stronger case if he argued that the maintenance of low inequality after WWII was a direct and indirect consequence of the New Deal. That is a much harder argument to prove. However, I believe it to be correct.

[John V]

Anne,

Rothbard is a radical and I find him absolutely fascinating and frighteningly sharp. Having listened to audio files of him at Mises.org, I can also say that he was a very witty, charming and funny in a good natured way. You don't get that from just reading him. I've only read two books by Rothbard:
For a New Liberty and his treatise Man, Economy and State...well, I have to confess...I haven't read the whole thing. It's about 1000 pages long and very, very at times. I've just waded thru oft-cited and noted chapters.

I don't necessarily agree with everything he says. But he's extremely lucid and very compelling....even if if I think he holds impossible view on some issues.

Reading accounts from Hayek on his rival and close friend Keynes also makes me see Keynes through a different lens. The animosity between them is very overstated as is the extent to which he agreed with how FDR used some his macro insights or false-positives (depending on perspectives).

As for revisionist history, I've read it both ways. Liberal revisionism like Lies my teacher told me and Don't know much about History were quite good and I reversed some of my ideas and views about American History. Conservative revisionism and libertarian revisionism (sometimes they overlap, sometimes not) can be quite good as well. The thing, though, is that neither liberal book I mentioned refutes or contradicts (necessarily) anything Schlaes has said so far or vice versa. Same goes for shorter non-book-length works I've read by others...including Rothbard. Sometimes, yes, there is clash on facts with deep implications. Sometimes, they are telling very complementary stories can co-exist as true since the implications are different. It gives the reader view of truths and what those truths say about larger narratives.

Schlaes's is my non-left revisionist book. Much of what I've read so far is absolutely true in terms of economics. How it fits into larger truthful narratives is another level of consideration I'm ready take yet. But I can tell you that dismissing it as deception and garbage is simply preposterous. She's actually both commended and condemned different policies by FDR and how they affected the depression and, on a longer view, our economy and society...some good, some bad...some with no real opinion.

She's actually said close to nothing positive about Hoover. But she doesn't criticize FDR's character or intent. It's not a polemic. But, like I've hinted at earlier, it's hard to take it in and comfortably digest what I'm saying in its proper light when everything falls on stark partisan battle lines that don't tolerate challenging narratives.

[John V]

WM123,

I'm aware of those stats. This is why I say that one of Krugman's main contentions in the book, The Great Compression" is not very convincing and comes across as anecdotal. He ignores a lot of forces in play and is very selective with what he chooses to cite.

I'm not saying there's no there there. there might in fact some there there. What it is and what it means is a matter he did not do at proving. You simply can't be an impartial skeptic and find Krugman's argument on the matter satisfying and conclusive. And even though some his critics on this, like Tyler Cowen, have has pointed out serious problems with his "thesis". But, if you read the link, Cowen does not dismiss the book. He encourages others to read it. Cowen sees a glimmer of something or other but nothing conclusive for lack of solid empiricism shaky assertions. Personally, I think Cowen should write a rebuttal book and demonstrate, an alternate view if he's so inclined. But maybe he doesn't have the answer either, which is possible. One can assert that someone doesn't "have it right" while not quite knowing what the right answer is. They are not mutually exclusive.

You can tell me I'm wrong for saying the universe has 123,567,734 stars without being obliged to know the right answer.

[anne]

http://www.swordscrossed.org/node/1643

John, thank you for the review which is more satisfying than than the New York Times review, and will be a perspective in reading the book. This coming week, I will get to it.

[ScentOfViolets]

why so hostile? I wrote quite a bit there already. I would have expected comments and discussion not insults and snide deflective questions.

Sorry. I'm not playing that way.

Then do not act so hostile. You said this:

It's a shame watching you and your counterparts on the Right dismiss everything that runs to counter to your world view as deception, nuttery and devious ploys..

Frankly, given your 'getting it from the left and right' schtick has been done to death. 'Not the right' does not in any way equate to the 'left'. Certainly you can't imply as you did that people like Anne are as nutty as 'her counterparts on the right.' If you want to say that's misreading what you intended to convey, then the fault is with you. I suggest you rectify this unfortunate phrasing if such is the case. If you don't think that's misreading, then I've got to say that you have an attitude problem.

Nor did you say anything of substance in your 'review'. You gave your unsupported opinion on a variety of topics, and that is that. If you want your opinion to actually be worth something, I suggest you stick with one issue per posting, and develop the reasons with supporting cites as to why you reach those particular conclusions.

Now, you may not want to 'play that way', but that's how most people who have something worthwhile to contribute do it.

[ScentOfViolets]

As a economist, Krugram should either know or be able to look up the economic rankings of the states. As I observed earlier, Kansas is one of the richest states in the nation and ranks 18th in inequality.

Does Krugman explain what he means by 'one of the poorest'? From your other commments I get the impression that you might be reading something into his sentences that isn't there. And since Krugman is in fact an economist, and really doesn't make a lot of these sorts of errors, I'd go with that as the more plausible interpretation until I find out otherwise.

[Paul G. Brown]

Just regarding Thomas Frank's book. Frank's thesis is not that 'Kansas has done badly.' His argument is:

i. Kansas up until the 1960s was a hot-bed of economic populism.

ii. Beginning in the 1960s, Kansas voters began to marginalize 'economic' issues and instead emphasize social issues. You can see this trend in -- say -- the 'issues' and vocabulary of political campaigns and their attendant media coverage.

iii. This trend -- repeated across the US -- has led to the emergence of a modern GOP which appeals to 'values' voters, and conservatives, using quite different, though not contradictory messages. The 'values' voters get told about gays, abortions and gun control. The traditional economic conservatives get talked to about tax cuts.

v. Often, the 'values' voters are voting for politicians who's stated policies are to reduce the government services they use (education, social services, etc). To an economic rationalist this looks like 'voting against their economic interests'.

vi. The striking thing is that, once elected, the Kansas GOP (and the GOP across the US) has tended to ignore the issues 'values' voters care about and instead pursued their economic agenda. In fact the general historical current runs heavily against the issues so important to the 'values' voter. Abortions are easier to get, guns are harder to get, and gays are everywhere.

vii. Frank - and other writers - have made clear that guns/gays/abortions are not the ONLY social issues that 'values' voters care about. They also care about the environment and social justice. In fact he goes on at length about a successful progressive politician in Kansas -- Kathlene Sibelius(sp?). But in general, the progressive side of the political divide has too readily written these folk off.

Somet hings to point out about various claims on this thread.

First, economic measures of Kansas' performance as a whole has exactly nothing to do with Frank's argument, or with Krugman's by extension. It's not that Kansas has done badly by national standards. The broader point concerns the nature of GOP voters, and the way in which these 'values' voters have been treated once their votes are counted. Prayer is still out of schools. Blacks can marry chinese and live in suburbia. Grover Norquist thinks Muslims are natural GOP supporters.

Second, have none of you anything to actually SAY about Krugman's ideas? John V. says he can't comment about the economics (which makes up a lot of the material), yet still sniffs "I ... don't think [Krugman] proved in a convincing way". XX123 seems obsessed with a throw-away line about Kansas and Prohibition (which as ScentofViolets points out, seems perfectly correct as a trite factual matter).

I'm not through it yet. PK's book is populist effort. Nothing I've seen so far is particularly original but PK has done a good job rendering some complex subjects in clean prose. But then, Barry Goldwater's _Conscience_of_a_Conservative_ wasn't exactly the sermon on the mount either.

[WM123]

John V.,

I have read Tyler Cowen’s comments several times. However, Tyler apparently didn’t download the data either. A quote from TC (not Krugman).

“As you can see, the share of the top ten percent (not counting capital gains) falls steeply at about 1937 and flattens out by about 1942-43, with a slight uptick just afterwards. But I am puzzled by Krugman's description of the process.”

This just isn’t correct as several posters made clear (see Barkley Rosser). However, TC’s point 9 rang (more) true for me.

“It is a vitally interesting question why postwar America stayed at this new percentile distribution of income (more or less), even after recovery from the war. It may be possible to defend a version of Krugman's broader hypothesis -- policy matters for income distribution -- in this setting, but the story then puts greater stress on both the equalizing effects of catastrophes and also on path-dependence. That story might also suggest that strongly negative real shocks would be needed once again to make income distribution much more egalitarian.”

I find this considerably more convincing (but rather hard to prove). However, where are the negative shocks? WWII? Corporate profits (pre tax) rose from $5.0 billion in 1938 to $24.9 billion in 1943.

[John V]

WM123,

I didn't see the stats at MR. I saw them somewhere else. Can't remember where.

As for TC's take on the matter, He makes sense and both he and krugman seem to flicker light on a larger truth but not longer enough to make out what's there.

I simply tend to think, based on many sources from Krugman to GMU economists to Schales to Austrian Economic theory and elsewhere, that a murky picture emerges involving:

The Great Depression
WWII
heavy taxes
Special global economic circumstances
improving technology
lower technology costs
increased productivity
deflation
"pent-up demand" until after war time
"pent-up supply-side" potential til after the war
A heavy surge in blue collar labor demand
and more

How they all fit together and what larger truth they tell is still very unclear.

[greg]

How can the geometric increase in campaign funding and K Street lobbyists be described as anything but "manipulation by the richest Americans to rig the game in their favor"? It sure as hell ain't no invisible hand.

[Paul G. Brown]

WM123 -

Regarding the 'vitally interesting question why postwar America stayed at this new percentile distribution of income (more or less), even after recovery from the war'.

Severe external shocks cause economic pain, which leads to political pressure for change. The period between 1945 and 1975 was characterized by a remarkable (unprecedented?) economic stability. In broad terms, the manner of government entanglement in our economic lives didn't change much either.

The oil shocks, stagflation and the opening up of world trade in the 1970s were the background for the ascent of the Reagan and Thatcher revolutionaries, who were the loudest advocates for change. However, exactly the same real shocks were experienced by Europe's social democracies. Only there, the nature of the social contract was not significantly altered by incoming governments (I'll cite Tony Judt's book _Postwar_ as my reference here). And in those European social democracies income distribution has not returned to 'gilded age' patterns.

Contra Tyler C. It isn't that "strongly negative real shocks would be needed once again to make income distribution much more egalitarian." Rather, strongly negative real shocks create a political climate that makes changes possible. But all of this recent history support Krugman's thesis, that (as TC puts it) 'policy matters for income distribution'.

[daveNYC]

As I observed earlier, Kansas is one of the richest states in the nation and ranks 18th in inequality.
Kansas is 32nd in the country for per-capita GDP, that's not richest, heck it doesn't even qualify as richer. Being 18th on the list of inequality isn't exactly something to write home about either.

Plus they are in the Big 12, the Chiefs actually play in Missouri, and the Royals pretty much stink.

[anne]

Scent of Violets, thank you. I have a difficult time with absurity that masks as balance. The only reason there is a murky picture of murkiness, or something, that emerges from reading Paul Krugman along with pretend historians and analysts like Schales and Rothbard is being unable to distinguish the pretenders in a flash. There have long been a crop of pretend scholars determined to undermine our understanding of our history and especially New Deal history, the crop has grown recently and do not deserve more than sneering.

Krugman is truthful and properly analytical; there is no truth and only sham analysis in Schales and Rothbard. Enough absurdity about murkiness that is designed to undermine understanding.

[anne]

Dave, thank you for answering the question on per-capita income which should be obvious but is continually being distorted. Kansas is not one of the richest states, and not even one of the richer state, really truly not, nor is Mississippi either. Enough nonsense.

Paul, this is absolute rubbish:

"The striking thing is that, once elected, the Kansas GOP (and the GOP across the US) has tended to ignore the issues 'values' voters care about and instead pursued their economic agenda."

This Republican Administration and the Republicans Congress have done all that was Constitutionally possible, and then some, to pursue the issue "values" voters care about. Yes; these conservatives have really and truly pursued extreme conservative "value" issues. Pay a little attention say to the Supreme Court majority to begin with.

[ilsm]

Let's dissect this statement:

"But most Americans do not consider the Bush administration corrupt, and Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is."

"Most Americans" is straight from Limbaugh, hyperbolae.

They are too busy trying to keep their assets to worry much about what they should be concerned with.

I think Washington is not only corrupt but he militarist/fascist.

Then:

"Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is [corrupt]."

Why Kennedy uses the term convincing to modify what Krugman can prove?

Krugman has no need to do what department of justice is neglecting.

See Frank Rich article today, pretty scarey, a couple of suicides and there is no corruption.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[ken melvin]

Dave, Though there is a small Kansas City, Kansas, the real Kansas City is in MO. My comments regards Johnson county and associated burbs was re a few notoriously wealthy suburbs in nearby KS such as Shawnee Mission constituting a small Manhattan if you will.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21rich.html?ref=opinion

October 21, 2007

Suicide Is Not Painless
By FRANK RICH

IT was one of those stories lost in the newspaper's inside pages. Last week a man you've never heard of — Charles D. Riechers, 47, the second-highest-ranking procurement officer in the United States Air Force — killed himself by running his car's engine in his suburban Virginia garage.

Mr. Riechers's suicide occurred just two weeks after his appearance in a front-page exposé in The Washington Post. * The Post reported that the Air Force had asked a defense contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, to give him a job with no known duties while he waited for official clearance for his new Pentagon assignment. Mr. Riechers, a decorated Air Force officer earlier in his career, told The Post: "I really didn't do anything for C.R.I. I got a paycheck from them." The question, of course, was whether the contractor might expect favors in return once he arrived at the Pentagon last January.

Set against the epic corruption that has defined the war in Iraq, Mr. Riechers's tragic tale is but a passing anecdote, his infraction at most a misdemeanor. The $26,788 he received for two months in a non-job doesn't rise even to a rounding error in the Iraq-Afghanistan money pit. So far some $6 billion worth of contracts are being investigated for waste and fraud, however slowly, by the Pentagon and the Justice Department. That doesn't include the unaccounted-for piles of cash, some $9 billion in Iraqi funds, that vanished during L. Paul Bremer's short but disastrous reign in the Green Zone. Yet Mr. Riechers, not the first suicide connected to the war's corruption scandals, is a window into the culture of the whole debacle.

Through his story you can see how America has routinely betrayed the very values of democratic governance that it hoped to export to Iraq....

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001402.html

[ScentOfViolets]

No need to thank me for simply doing what's right, anne. I am quite peeved at the rhetorical chicanery that certain types of people will try to slip into a conversation (especially when they give every indication that they know better, and that they are simply trying to see if they can sneak one through.) Really, this sort of behaviour shouldn't have to be policed. In a just world, people who attempt these sort of tricks would get one warning, and then be bounced, hard. Actually, something like that does happen in the real world, where you can simply walk away from the more egregious defenders; here they remain right next to you, so to speak, in the on-line conversational circle.

Oh, and for the record - I'm not a liberal, not in my own estimation, not by the estimation of people who know me. But I agree with large swathes of what you have to say.

Which, online, is enough to make me a 'liberal'. Sigh.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21rich.html

America has to date “spent twice as much in inflation-adjusted dollars to rebuild Iraq as it did to rebuild Japan — an industrialized country three times Iraq’s size, two of whose cities had been incinerated by atomic bombs.” * (And still Iraq lacks reliable electric power.)

* http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710?printable=true&currentPage=all

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/books/review/Kennedy-t.html

"But as the story unfolds, serpents slither into the garden, in the form of pesky 'movement conservatives.' Those upstarts set out in the 1960s to exploit racial tensions, national security anxieties and volatile value-laden matters like abortion, school prayer and gay rights 'to change the subject away from bread and butter issues.' By century’s end they had managed to fasten upon their hapless fellow citizens 'a second Gilded Age' in which inequality is on the rise and even the modest American version of the welfare state that the New Deal put in place is in danger of being dismantled."

What bothers David Kennedy and similar conservatives so is that Paul Krugman simply describes the shaping of modern conservatism and at all costs the point is hiding this. Conservatives want to make completely sure the minority base know who they are while making sure the majority have no idea.

Identity politics was shaped by and shaped modern conservatism, but mention race race race (notice my mention) and conservatives are crazily denying there is such a thing as race, at least for conservatives.

Imagine David Kennedy reading Paul Krugman and stumbling on the word "race" and shuddering. Republican presidential candidates even now are however throwing themselves to the Values Voters Conference while fleeing from mere counseling with African Americans or Latinos. Got no identity politics nowhere nohow never..

[anne]

Remember "Molly Ivins can't say that, can she?" Paul Krugman can't say race, can he? Race, race, race. Me, I can say it and say it I will 'cause I got no values of the sort them values candidates are looking for.

[John V]

Alex Tabarrok at MR echoes my negative take on kennedy's review of Krugman's book.

see review of the review here.