A Little More on Krugman

In a column last week I criticized Paul Krugman's apparent belief that people who disagree with him -- let's say about half the country -- are knaves, fools or sociopaths. I said his disdain was not just absurd but also politically counterproductive. Krugman responded to my "screed," as he called it. His main point was that the disagreement over fiscal stimulus isn't really a political disagreement at all. On one side, you have people who accept some simple, uncontested facts; and on the other, you have people too knavish, stupid or sociopathic to understand when those facts are patiently explained to them.

In particular, he argued, the debate over the fiscal stimulus has nothing to do with the proper scale and scope of government -- an issue on which he seems to concede (somewhat to my surprise) that reasonable people may disagree. Whatever you think about the proper scale and scope of government, he says, you should be willing to go for a big fiscal stimulus when interest rates are at zero and demand is lacking. This has nothing to do with values or ideologies.