Roger’s Rules

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October 13th, 2008 6:32 am

What a way to celebrate Columbus Day, or Stockholm takes leave of its senses

Columbus Day is supposed to be a day in which we celebrate America. But our friends on the Nobel Prize committee for economics just cast a large pall over the day.

Think of all the preposterous Nobel Prize winners. Tony Morrison, Pearl S. Buck, Elfriede Jelinek, the Communist José Saramago–sure there are some goodies in the bunch, but what an unreliable guage of literary talent! Literary quality has almost nothing to do with the Prize. The operative criterion is politics, or, rather, political correctness, galvanized by literary noises. Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Prize, as much as acknowledged this a few weeks ago when he announced a couple of weeks ago that “the US is too isolated” and doesn’t “participate in the big dialogue of literature.”

Unlike Sweden, Horace?

As I said when asked about Mr. Engdahl’s statement, his performance reminded me of the story Uganda’s bravado under Idi Amin: Like the Untied States, they had an Apollo space program, only the rockets were made of balsa wood. Engdahl’s statement, I said,

strikes me as a kind of publicity stunt for a prize that in recent years has demonstrated its fatuousness and political complexion with one political laureate after the next punctuated now and then by a VS Naipaul just to lend a patina of credibility.

And let’s not forget the Nobel Peace, which permanently discredited itself when it awarded the palm to the Palestinian and pedophile Yasser Arafat in 1994.

But today we have yet another illustration of Marx’s revision of Hegel’s version of the progress of history: things happen as it were twice: first as tragedy (Arafat) then as farce–witness this year’s Nobel Laureate for economics: Paul Krugman.

Yes, that Paul Krugman, laughing stock (well, one of them) of The New York Times’s editorial: the anti-capitalist, anti-American town crier whose hysterical maunderings about the economy and American society were embarrassing before they went entirely off the reservation and became merely part of the ambient left-wing static emanating from The New York Times. Krugman is not just a left-wing academic economist. He is a hard-left activist whose only claim on our attention is as a bellwether of a certain species of anti-American demagoguery.

Well, one must laugh to keep from crying. Meanwhile, Krugman will be $1.4 million richer–unless, of course, Barack Obama should be elected and start nosing around that “windfall” profit. That is not–not by a long shot–enough to make me wish for an Obama presidency, but it would be a pleasing consolation prize.

[UPDATE: It occurs to me on reflection that it would have been much more appropriate had the Nobel Prize Committee, since they were determined to honor a fantasist like Krugman, awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature. I mean, he work is not more unreadable than many recent Nobel Laureates in literature, and it is just as untruthful.]

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13 Comments

1. Roger’s Rules » The Krugman Tax:

[...] my post earlier today about Paul Krugman’s winning the Nobel Prize for Literature–I mean, for [...]

Oct 13, 2008 - 8:18 am 2. Evil European Socialist:

Ha ha.

Oct 13, 2008 - 8:50 am 3. mtraven:

Oh my, those grapes are sour, aren’t they?

Krugman has been basically right about everything for the last seven years. You have been wrong. Pretty much anybody with two neurons to rub together has realized it by now.

Oct 13, 2008 - 11:19 am 4. rortybomb:

This column makes you look like you are out of your depth. What about Krugman’s academic work do you disagree with? And what other Nobel prize-winning economists’ work would you characterize as “preposterous”?

Oct 13, 2008 - 1:28 pm 5. Steve Skubinna:

You mean Paul Krugman, Enron advisor? The guy who predicted nine of the last none recessions?

Oct 13, 2008 - 3:01 pm 6. gaetano catelli:

ref: “What about Krugman’s academic work do you disagree with?”

i’m sure Roger is more than capable of addressing your query without my assistance. but, fwiw, i’ll have a response of my own in the coming days.

Oct 13, 2008 - 9:54 pm 7. Andrew:

You’re way out of your depth here, and it shows in the way you’re flinging about schoolyard insults. You’ve just shown yourself incapable of one of the cultural critic’s primary obligations: separating a public intellectual’s political stands from his scholarly or literary achievements.

Instead of simply shrieking insults at Krugman and hyperventilating about the motivations of the Nobel Committee, we’d all appreciate it if you could deliver an informed and cogent critique of Krugman’s theories on international trade — you know, the work for which he was actually given the prize, and which economists who don’t share Krugman’s political views agree are highly influential.

If you’re not in a position to do so (and something tells me you’re not), then perhaps you might wish to dial down the rhetoric. It’s unbecoming.

Oct 14, 2008 - 1:09 am 8. The Third Policeman:

Of course, Krugman’s Nobel has nothing to do with his NY Times column. But then, how would Roger Kimball know that? He doesn’t know very much of anything, after all.

And when it comes to the columns, Kimball is completely right! Kimball all along has been pointing out that there was no housing bubble and that prices will continue to rise eternally, he’s on record saying that! And Kimball has always been clear that the US is NOT A COMMUNIST STATE, that there is no public ownership of resources, capital or the means of production! That’s Kimball for ya’! He’s a public in-tee-leck-chew-al! You can tell by the bow-tie.

Oct 14, 2008 - 11:34 am 9. Mike:

Roger, Looks like the Daily Koz has linked to your site. Sorry, you are in for a slime attack for questioning their gods .

Oct 14, 2008 - 1:29 pm 10. Kansas City:

Toni Morrison, not Tony Morrison. While her award was premature and likely given for the wrong reason, I wonder if Mr. Kimball’s flippant error belies an ignorance of her work.

Oct 15, 2008 - 1:54 pm 11. Tom G.:

Listen you tools! mtraven is trying to school you with the TROOTH!! For gosh sakes, ACHTUNG mein freunden!!

KC: “Toney” Morrison? A Morrison rose, by any other name still stinks, you macaca…(-*

Oct 15, 2008 - 4:47 pm 12. lmk:

I didn’t think it was possible to write a post of this nature without referencing the achievement that merited the award. Apparently it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Trade_Theory

Oct 16, 2008 - 12:14 pm 13. James:

“He is a hard-left activist whose only claim on our attention is as a bellwether of a certain species of anti-American demagoguery.”

Do you know the meaning of the word “demagoguery” Mr Kimball?

From Wikipedia “(Ancient Greek δημαγωγία, from δῆμος dēmos “people” and ἄγειν agein “to lead”) refers to a political strategy for obtaining and gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist or populist themes.”

Doesn’t seem to describe Paul Krugman’s prose too well does it? It does however describe your own rather hysterical prose style, and more importantly the mix of patriotism and fear that drives the Republican politics, and especially the so called “war” on terror. To look on the bright side, you still have a journey to make if you want to eclipse the all time champion demagogue, a Mr A. Hitler of Germany, but I dare say with your famous American can do spirit you may in time get there!

Or perhaps just wake up and smell the coffee. The events of the last couple of months have destroyed the myth of right wing economic competence, so perhaps a little humility in the face of ideas that contradict yours might be in order.

Oct 17, 2008 - 4:54 am