Liberal Economists

Paul Krugman gave an interview on book recommendations where he said this:

In my experience with these things – which I find both within economics and more broadly  – is that if you ask a liberal or a saltwater economist, “What would somebody on the other side of this divide say here? What would their version of it be?” A liberal can do that. A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get at. The reverse is not true. You try to get someone who is fiercely anti-Keynesian to even explain what a Keynesian economic argument is, they can’t do it. They can’t get it remotely right. Or if you ask a conservative, “What do liberals want?” You get this bizarre stuff – for example, that liberals want everybody to ride trains, because it makes people more susceptible to collectivism. You just have to look at the realities of the way each side talks and what they know. One side of the picture is open-minded and sceptical. We have views that are different, but they’re arrived at through paying attention. The other side has dogmatic views.

It’s interesting because my view is exactly the opposite: it’s the conservative economists and laymen that understand both sides, and it’s the liberals that usually don’t, especially the laymen. This is why I primarily stick to academic type liberals: Paul Krugman, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Dean Baker etc….because even though I disagree with these liberals, often strongly, they tend to atleast know what us conservatives are thinking and trying to argue – they deal with the argument head on, and not some straw man(usually, not always). They also all tend to agree to the fundamental premises of economics.

Every time I venture off, and try to deal with liberal pundits, not trained in economics, I always find myself first explaining the fundamentals of economics – and then find myself having to debate that which is standard economics. That which the Krugman’s of the world would agree with without argument.

It seems like another economists agrees, see here.

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