tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post1783903137758200244..comments2024-03-29T00:25:24.008-04:00Comments on the daily howler: THE ABSENCE OF THE PROFESSORS: Don’t do it, Krugman was told!<b>bob somerby</b>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02963464534685954436noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-54604979094959649792011-09-21T01:35:11.667-04:002011-09-21T01:35:11.667-04:00At some point I will find the time and energy to d...At some point I will find the time and energy to describe here some of the transformations of the larger academic world I have witnessed since I got my first position back in the 1970's. Maybe when I retire (should that day ever come) and no longer have classes to prepare, papers to grade, reports and recommendations to write, students' emails to reply to well into the night -- forget my own research. For now, I'll just say it's been distressing to witness the big C of my youth enacted over time in academic life: co-optation. <br /><br />Yet when it comes to the issues cited here -- Medicare, SS, health care -- we (citizens) look most to those academics -- economists -- who have almost never in my student or adult life been public intellectuals (or, for that matter, true intellectuals; the word "technocrat" seems more appropriate for most). Krugman's evolution into one is unusual, perhaps exceptional not just for recent years but for many, many. <br /><br />The growing dominance of economics departments in liberal arts colleges and universities over the last decades has been something to behold, btw. Not least in my own college, even as it has shed its token "radical left" position in economics. And these economics professors don't lead the lives the rest of us lead, since they get all kinds of "course relief" for the grants they get and the work they go off to do for this acronym or that think tank. I'm not sure why many of them are even called academics. <br /><br />I'm rambling and will stop, except to say that back in the day, in the 60's and 70's, it was the realpolitik "political scientists" who held sway. (The designation "government" was being abandoned.) The Kissingers, for instance. I doubt that was any better. <br /><br />Meanwhile, most professors continue to be busy teaching their students, the ones they meet everyday in the classroom or their offices. That's what the academics have been doing.mchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-69939163580243354132011-09-20T20:13:18.948-04:002011-09-20T20:13:18.948-04:00And for his pains, Krugman gets a massive ration o...And for his pains, Krugman gets a massive ration of abuse from the right-wing blogosphere.sticklerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11468746880489986775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-23706438690235101112011-09-20T13:44:05.984-04:002011-09-20T13:44:05.984-04:00The relentless disinformation campaign continues i...The relentless disinformation campaign continues in tandem with a state of impenetrable ignorance. The Social Security Trustees annually publish three - not one - three forecasts of the possible prospects for the trust fund and for the program's capacity pay full benefits. In keeping with the legendary laziness of journalists, only one of these, the Intermediate, is discussed in the media. The High Cost and Low Cost projections are ignored because the former would terrify its readers and because the latter would persuade many that Social Security is in good shape for all the years to come. That would mean no frightening tale with which to lure, delude, and inflame a gullible public. It is the projections of the Intermediate that provide the myth of trust fund exhaustion in 2036, reduction of benefits by a quarter until 2085, and the unspoken implication of the abyss afterward.AVANCEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06782426715457773543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-80849380556956850572011-09-20T12:46:19.857-04:002011-09-20T12:46:19.857-04:00"If he started writing for a newspaper, would..."If he started writing for a newspaper, would his colleagues think he’d become a pseudo-economist, a former economist, a vapid policy entrepreneur like Lester Thurow?"<br /><br />How prescient. Add in "disingenuous partisan shill" and you've got a pretty accurate description of Krugman today.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-85500743846420884252011-09-20T10:53:51.522-04:002011-09-20T10:53:51.522-04:00Didn't know that about Krugman's past. It ...Didn't know that about Krugman's past. It explains a lot.<br /><br />I wonder, though, how an economist can possibly think that the "left and the right as more or less equal in power." The left, by definition, is on the side of labor and the right, by definition, is on the side of capital. (If that's not so today, it's only because we've become promiscuous with our use of the word "left.") Capital is, by definition, more wealthy than labor, and in the US wealth is power. This is why rightwing information campaigns are better organized and better funded than leftwing information campaigns, why rightwingers fund their own universities while public schools are "balanced" and "liberal" at best, etc. I learned that in high school civics; a PhD in economics should be familiar with the concept.<br /><br />I'm glad he eventually got to the place where he is today, but his past does explain his nonchalance towards poverty and his inclination to talk about getting people in jobs (instead of getting people incomes) all the time. <br /><br />There are quite a few former Republicans with prominent positions in the liberal world, it does seem to affect their current approach to politics even if they do back the same candidates as people who've always been liberal.Alex Blazenoreply@blogger.com