Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize winning economist, Princeton professor, and Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics has a beach house in St. John and two cats named Doris Lessing and Albert Einstein. He has written that the reason he got into economics in the first place is “because I read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, in which social scientists save galactic civilization, and that’s what I wanted to be.” I don’t think I am venturing into ad hominem when I say he has a well-earned reputation for having a very high self-regard and a pronounced tendency to denigrate the intelligence of those who lack the proper credentials or who simply disagree with him.
In his column today he goes after “policy elitists” whom he describes as “self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing” who go around “lecturing the rest of us.”
I thought that use of the word “us” was the funniest thing I’ve read in a while.
Update: Some readers and commenters are complaining that I’ve defended elitism in the past and that I failed to address the substance of Krugman’s article.
Meh.
Sure, I’ve defended elitism in the past. And I’ll do so again in the future. I’m not attacking Krugman for being an elitist. I’m laughing at him for trying to sound like he isn’t one. I kind of thought that would be obvious.
As for the substance of his argument. You’ve got to be kidding. The substance of his argument is the same junk he’s been screaming about for years. Bush — chiefly through his tax cuts and the Iraq war — is the source of all of our problems.
My critics who think I’m ignoring this argument may have a point. But they miss why I’m ignoring it. I’m ignoring it because it is stale beyond words. He is correct that the policy elite has been behind the curve, but only someone blinded by his deep-seated and utterly conventional liberal-policy-elite passions would point to the tax cuts and the Iraq war as proof of the point or, more importantly, pretend that it is a novel insight.
It must be April Fools Day because Paul Krugman couldn't have been serious when he scolded elitists for lecturing the rest of us. Paul Krugman makes a comfortable living as a wiseman elitist who lectures the rest of us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLike all the other nabobs on the NYT opinion page, he is the living embodiment of elite contempt for the American people.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKrugman fancies himself a real-life Hari Seldon and wants to Save The Galaxy?
That explains a LOT.
So do the words "narcissistic personality disorder."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was going to make that point in the article's comments section, but it was already closed. Maybe a lot of other people had already beat me to it, and the editors didn't like where it was heading.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAre you the same Jonah Goldberg who wrote this External Link
a few months ago? If so, you change your mind a lot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo do the words "narcissistic personality disorder."
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For some reason, that phrase and liberal are found together in a surprisingly large number of cases.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"For some reason, that phrase and liberal are found together in a surprisingly large number of cases."
Swap out "liberal" for "progressive" and delete "surprisingly" and by Jove you've got it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseredfate : I'm confused at your point. I think Jonah is not disagreeing with Krugman's point as much as disagreeing that Krugman is making it and including himself among the aggrieved. In other words, Krugman is himself a condescending elitist, hardly should he be calling others such.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHmmm. An ad hominen attack.
What about the article don't you like. Was he not spot on? If not, why not? Do bankers not have responsibility for the economy failing? Did the tax cuts not reduce the tax rolls? Did the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not cost trillions of dollars?
Or maybe you think the economy was doing just fine and there was never any crisis.
Blaming the lack of government regulation is a farce. Basically, you are arguing that the government was lax in regulating. Perhaps that is the case, but it is no excuse for two reasons. First, the government regulators were led by Republicans with a disdain for regulation. Second, that is like blaming the sheriff for a murder. Sure, the sheriff could have stood at the saloon door and taken all the guns from the patrons, but the fact is that one patron murdered another and it is that patron who is culpable, not the sheriff.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think they're trying to get NPD removed from the DSM5 diagnostic manual... I guess they're not a danger to themselves or anyone else?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat a split personality this deluded elitist suffers from! US? People like Krugman are as common as the Hale Bop Comet!
Normally, he's bragging about how well-credentialed he is, and smarter than the average bear. Now, he's lumped himself in with us sidewalk travelers, needlessly lectured by his NYT colleagues.
Maybe we should cut him slack. Perhaps he meant that, like onion odor in Summertime, or garlic breath after Thai food, he offends himself!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@ denroy: That is my point. In the article I linked Goldberg defends conservative elites who attack other "elites." He argues these elites are not hypocritical, because when they say "elite" they really mean only liberal elites.
As he says: "Not because they’re hypocrites, but because when they denigrate Ivy League elitists, they have a particular elite in mind."
Now, I realize this is a silly argument. But it's the argument Goldberg made, at great length, when he was defending a conservative from charges of hypocrisy. To not apply the same twisted logic to Krugman is, dare I say, a bit hypocritical of Goldberg.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJonah:
This is priceless. I met Asimov when I was in high school. He was both full of himself in a Krugmanesque way and had everything I have come to associate with liberalism.
At least he had the decency to call his work fiction.
Best
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseQuote from Krugman in the not too distant future:
"Quiet! The pigeons are listening."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen I started the Foundation series, I thought Asimov was an idiot for the very reason Krugman fell in love. In fact, I wondered if Asimov was making fun of these dopes. It's why I never bothered to read anything but the trilogy. I was in 6th grade when I realized this. Much later, I tried reading them again. No change.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI guess that's why the fact that he is absolutely 100% correct is so infuriating!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRedfate, the difference between Paul Krugman and Ginny Thomas remains that Krugman isn't merely a member of the elite: he typifies PRECISELY those elites he (here) seeks to criticize, the busybodies who presume to lecture -- and, really, to control -- the rest of society.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I think they're trying to get NPD removed from the DSM5 diagnostic manual... I guess they're not a danger to themselves or anyone else?"
Unless they hold high office.
Really high office.
Like the White House high office, QED.
Or you have the misfortune to marry one or be the offspring of one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI always wondered why Asimov, a working scientist who was of course quite familiar with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the Uncertainty Principle, would so slavishly follow John W Campbell's suggestion that he write a story based on the premise that you could scientifically predict specific future events 1,000 years in advance.
I think the answers, which the youthful Krugman and his elder self seem to have missed, are:
1) It was only a story, and
2) Even with that proviso, Asimov couldn't resist sneaking in an unpredictable wild care (the Mule) in deference to Heisenberg. The real lesson of Foundation is that no matter how inhumanly perfect your predictor is, there will always arise some unpredictable factor that makes your calculation worthless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePopulist conservatives should give the 'elite' charge a rest. There's nothing wrong with being a "member of the elite" if you actually are superior at something worthwhile.
Einstein was near the top of the elite in physics. James Madison was a superior political philosopher. Admiral McRaven is an elite military man.
The problem in Krugman's case is (a) the Nobel Prize for Economics is a joke, nowhere near as worthwhile as the one in, say, Chemistry; (b) Krugman's economic theories are all completely false and even a modestly well-educated person can know this; (c) Krugman himself has no superior personal attributes, morally or intellectually and; (d) he works for a company - the New York Times - that is itself laughable in every way: as a business, in its political point of view, and even on the basic scale of honesty and competence.
If Krugman were anything remotely like, say, Peter Ferrara, I would have no trouble whatever applauding him for being 'elite', because he would have earned that description.
To be opposed to anything 'elite' is at best to misuse language and at worst to oppose excellence and invite another French Revolution among the mob.
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