The "Conscience" of a Liberal: Paul Krugman
Posted by JeanPaulZodeaux 11 years, 8 months ago to Economics
Inexplicably, Paul Krugman is one of the most cited economists and the go to guy for main stream media. He has his own OP/ED column with The New York Times; The Conscience of a Liberal where he regularly regularly pushes his political agenda and Wikipedia claims he is the "18th most cited economist in the world". Krugman is also a regular critic of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. Wikipedia, again, in their article on Atlas Shrugged, cites Krugman, diligently pointing out that Krugman is Nobel Prize Winning economist - Yasser Arafat and Barack Obama are Nobel Peace Prize winners to add a bit of perspective on the Nobel award decision making process - and in this Wikipedia article quotes Krugman as saying:
""There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
On August 23rd of this year, Krugman wrote two separate pieces for the New York Times. One in his "Conscience of a Liberal" column titled: Francisco d’Anconia on Money
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08...
And a longer piece titled Galt, Gold and God
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinio...
In both pieces, Krugman speaks to Francisco d’Anconia ode to money in Atlas Shrugged. In both pieces Krugman, as do practically all detractors of Ayn Rand, creates a straw man argument reducing d’Anconia's speech to be nothing more than an attack on paper money. Krugman refuses to speak to any other thought in that speech, attempting to convince his readers, while also pointing out the speech is 23 paragraphs long, that it is a speech that is nothing more than the dismissal of paper currency.
I don't know what the "conscience" of a liberal is, but it is fairly clear what the conscience of Paul Krugman is and that conscience lies in deceit, falsehoods, fabrications, lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
""There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
On August 23rd of this year, Krugman wrote two separate pieces for the New York Times. One in his "Conscience of a Liberal" column titled: Francisco d’Anconia on Money
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08...
And a longer piece titled Galt, Gold and God
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinio...
In both pieces, Krugman speaks to Francisco d’Anconia ode to money in Atlas Shrugged. In both pieces Krugman, as do practically all detractors of Ayn Rand, creates a straw man argument reducing d’Anconia's speech to be nothing more than an attack on paper money. Krugman refuses to speak to any other thought in that speech, attempting to convince his readers, while also pointing out the speech is 23 paragraphs long, that it is a speech that is nothing more than the dismissal of paper currency.
I don't know what the "conscience" of a liberal is, but it is fairly clear what the conscience of Paul Krugman is and that conscience lies in deceit, falsehoods, fabrications, lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
It reads to me that the main point is that money has to have a consistent value so that trade not force may be used between people in agreements and trades so as to asses value for value in the trade.
Where does the coin come in to the picture in this speech? http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/fr...
"Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce."
It is always the same with Rand detractors. They cannot effectively argue against any argument so they invent or so ridiculously reduce an argument so as to have the effect of inventing an argument they feel comfortable in arguing.
The same thing is readily apparent with a blog that has been linked in a post in this site called "The Simplistic Flaw in Ayn Rand's Philosophy". Here the blogger links an article by Paul Kidder and then parrots Kidder's sentiments which are all predicated on a single line John Galt utters in Atlas Shrugged: "Get the hell out of the way." This single line becomes the entire basis for a straw man argument pretending to refute Rand's philosophy. The irony is, of course, in the title. The "simplistic flaw" lies with Kidder's argument, not Rand's.