Krugmania: It's a Condition

Steve Horwitz fisks Paul Krugman here on the Great Depression and other instances of Krugmania. Most economists, though they respect the trade theory stuff that won Special K the Nobel, wonder what happened since. (Most economists I know think Krugman is off his rocker.) Lefties love him because he gives them an aura of economic legitimacy that only, say, a Galbraith Jr. might. Otherwise, forget it. Very few economists agree with Krugman. And in the age of "consensus" a la global warming, we must take seriously the fact that he is a tiny minority still clinging to the kind of Keynesian silliness and redistributive fancies that lengthened the Great Depression by a decade (even as super math-oriented macroeconomists are abundant in the ivory towers). As I have written elsewhere (here and here) Krugman is a purveyor of economic "intelligent design."

Why does Paul Krugman believe so much of the decidedly un-economic stuff he hocks in the Grey Lady? Probably because incentives matter. He gets to be the darling of a left-chic, economically illiterate salon culture that needs a "real" economist to confer legimacy on their views. Alas, Krugman is pretty much an anomoly - an intellectual throwback - and one that is guided not by intellectual honesty, but by money and adoration from champagne socialists around the world.