I suspect that Crook’s main beef with Krugman isn’t with polarization, but with the particulars of Krugman’s suggestion that the case for free trade is a qualified rather than an absolute one. Crook more or less accuses Krugman of being a dishonest partisan hack for saying this. However, from my limited understanding, Krugman is making claims that are reasonable ones within the internal debate among economists. Certainly, Crook doesn’t provide any contrary evidence. Thus, I suspect that Krugman’s perceived crime was to express these qualifications in the agora rather than in closed session. Which is to say that the ‘consensus’ that Krugman is setting aside so ‘carelessly’ is a political one – the shibboleth that free trade is an Unqualified Good Thing – rather than a seamless consensus that emerges from the underlying academic debates...Ok, we should not the the EVIL Krugman made the GOD HATING APOSTASY of noting:
[ cf In Which Clive Crook Succumbs to the High Broderism, I Think ]
Don’t say that any theory which has good things to say about protectionism must be wrong: that’s theology, not economics.SEE!!!!
(op cit)
He is evil!
Clearly once you abandon the theological underpinning of market fundamentalism, it is a fast track to loading up the white christian americans and shipping them off to death camps, rather than outsourcing that process to the Free Market which would be able to do that at whole sale costs...
