David M. Kennedy of Stanford Makes His Play for the Stupidest Man Alive Crown

Stanford's David M. Kennedy reveals that he is a serious contender for the "Stupidest Man Alive" title. Let's roll the tape: the start of his review of Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal:

Malefactors of Megawealth: Paul Krugman is a justly renowned professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. His abundant accolades include the John Bates Clark Medal... a distinction... perhaps even more prestigious than... the Nobel.... [Y]et maybe Krugman is not really an economist — at least not according to the definition offered more than a century ago by Francis Amasa Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who wrote that laissez-faire “was... used to decide whether a man were an economist at all.” Most modern economists continue to celebrate Walker’s orthodoxy, and behind it, the classical doctrines of Adam Smith, whose fabled “invisible hand” regularly works wonders of production, distribution, innovation and efficiency, provided it is kept free of the meddlesome “nanny state.”... Krugman [is] the anti-economist...

David Kennedy thus demonstrates that he (a) has never read Adam Smith, and (b) has little acquaintance with modern American economists--who are (like Adam Smith) much more interested in prescribing how the nanny state should meddle to be effective than in protecting the naked market from interference.

Equally bizarre is the end of Kennedy's review:

Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced or to advance the national discussion of the important issues it addresses...

David Kennedy thus demonstrates his allegiance to those who have never had substantive arguments to make in reply to Paul Krugman's arguments, and hence have no move to make save the rhetorical one of dismissing him as "shrill." Because, of course, David Kennedy had just before admitted that Krugman is right on the substance:

That assorted wing nuts have pretty much managed to hijack the Republican Party in recent years is scarcely in doubt. That the market is at least occasionally fallible is also not at issue. Nor is it deniable that the New Deal rendered the lives of millions of Americans more secure, and that they have become markedly less so.... Krugman’s chapter on the imperative need for health care reform is the best in this book...

And Paul Krugman replies:

Continuing the tradition: Well, I’ve gotten a dismissive review in the NYT. It’s sort of a tradition. After all, The Great Unraveling received an equally dismissive review from Peter Beinart, in which he portrayed my conclusion that the Bush administration deliberately misled us into war as a crazy conspiracy theory, and contained this immortal pronouncement:

But most Americans do not consider the Bush administration corrupt, and Paul Krugman cannot convincingly prove it is.

I think David Kennedy’s review will hold up about as well as Peter Beinart’s. I presented facts on voting behavior, which point to the centrality of race — he ignores them. I presented polling evidence about the timing and role of the perception that Democrats are weak on national security; he just waves it away.

Oh, and when Kennedy says, to illustrate my alleged factual problems, that

Kansas, whatever its other crimes and misdemeanors, is not customarily regarded as the birthplace of Prohibition

you have to ask who’s got the factual problems. I don’t know what “customarily regarded” means, but Carrie Nation wielded her ax in Kansas - and Kansas was the first state to ban alcohol in its constitution.

Comments

[Kate G.]

Brad, reading that review was a low point in my day, but reading your all too brief commentary was a high point.

Kate G.

[Charles]

Historians are now deciding who can be an economist?

Maybe we should let professors of fine arts decide who can be a historian.

[matt]

It is shameful that david kennedy has authored the textbook in my us history course......

[Delicious Pundit]

I have often noted that the New York Times, in an effort to get itself thrown onto suburban driveways in Buckhead, GA and Hoover, AL and Sugar Land, TX, throws red-state red meat into its legendary pages.

But to frag its own columnists like this!

If I were Krugman's agent I'd call up FT -- what a coup to increase visibility it would be for them!

[Scott Martens]

"Kansas was the first state to ban alcohol in its constitution."

And, IIRC, the last to abolish it.

[Jonathan W.]

Once again seemingly smart people misquote Adam Smith to suit their own agendas. Smith was a pragmatic reformer, not an ideological purist. He wanted to know what worked to help the poor and forgotten, not what was politically correct for the rich. Smith argued that freer trade would break down the monopolies of the powerful. Krugman has Smith's spirit of concern for those at the bottom.

[Denis Drew]

The stupidest theory still alive -- now that communism is dead -- is that the unfettered free market reliably produces the mostest for the most; that the hidden hand is dependably even handed.

This outlook is worse than Pollyannish. The history of human civilization is the history of getting screwed or not getting screwed (for men of good will) and the common American expectation that flying elbows have little power to bump the hidden hand is nothing but magical thinking.

I am getting adamant about this while reading Pearlemen's book, Railroading Economics. From it I gather that the Chicago Boys brand of economists have built their own little (albeit mathematical) model of the world that (like communism's historical model) has not dippsy doo to do with the realities of human nature.

[pgl]

When David Kennedy said "most modern economists", me thinks he was looking over at the National Review with utter confusion thinking that Don Luskin and Larry Kudlow represented the thinking of "most modern economists". Yes - this fellow is serious candidate for Stupidest Man Alive.

[Tomas]

Since noone has has said it:

The stupid! It burns!

[iris]

But why does Krugman repeat in interviews that the 50s were a "boom" decade when the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s through 2007 had notably stronger growth? Anyone can look this up. There has been more inequality over time but his general assertion about growth is misleading.

[anne]

"Brad, reading that review was a low point in my day, but reading your all too brief commentary was a high point."

Kate G.

[anne]

"But why does Krugman repeat in interviews that the 50s were a "boom" decade when the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s through 2007 had notably stronger growth? Anyone can look this up."

Then, show us precisely what the growth has been. Precisely; I wait excitedly.

[anne]

"But why does Krugman repeat in interviews that the 50s were a "boom" decade...."

Because, well, they were. Say what?

[ssdahle]

"But why does Krugman repeat in interviews that the 50s were a "boom" decade...."

Because the 50s had really high productivity growth while the growth after 1973 relied much more on increased inputs.

[Rob]

David Kennedy is just another of those liberal academics I hear so much about....

[hack]

History professors- lowest intellectual standards in academia save for law professors and femminist studies professors.

[Cal]

This is where Democrats lose the fight. The Prof. has just exposed Kennedy to be a hack. The next step should be for organization at Stanford to confront Kennedy about the bias and errors in his review. There should also be a concerted effort to have the New York Times ask Kennedy to respond to these points and defend them. This is what the Rightwing smear campaign would be doing -- and, appears that Kennedy is a happy water carrier for them. But this takes a lot of organization and time.

[Richard Green]

As for early AEA Presidents, Richard Ely was its 6th, and John R. Commons was president the year before Irving Fisher. Neither of them was remotely classicist or neo-classicist. A good historian might have picked that up.

[Roger Albin]

Kennedy's review is notable for its failure to engage virtually any of the serious issues raised by Krugman. Why did the NYT Book Review editors pick Kennedy as a reviewer? Presumably because he is the author of an awfully good survey of the FDR period - Freedom from Fear - one of several excellent volumes in the Oxford History of the United States. He also wrote an excellent book on WWI. Kennedy, however, is no more an expert on recent American history than any of the rest of us. As much as anything, this poor review reflects the incompetence of the NYT Book Review editorial staff.

Who could have been chosen? One obvious choice would be James T. Patterson, the author of the last 2 volumes of the Oxford series, which cover the last 50 years. The most recent of these books - Restless Giant - deals explicitly with the rise of the conservative movement. Another would be the political scientist Theodore Lowi, who wrote a famous book on the problems of liberalism and has written very intelligently about the rise of the conservative movement.

[nattybumpo]

"But why does Krugman repeat in interviews that the 50s were a "boom" decade when the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s through 2007 had notably stronger growth? Anyone can look this up."

I have looked it up. Annualized real GDP growth for each decade is as follows:

50's: 4.9%/yr
60's: 5.4%/yr
70's: 3.8%/yr
80's: 3.5%/yr
90's: 3.6%/yr
00's: 2.8%/yr

This is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdpchg.xls

[iris]

But economists like Paul Krugman would use GDP/capita:

50s: 1.8%/yr
60s: 3.4%/yr
70s: 2.4%/yr
80s: 2.5%/yr
90s: 2.6%/yr

[orionATL]

brad delong -

thanks for tackling david kennedy's dumb-assed review head on.

my initial reaction on reading that review this morning

was a very negative reaction to its "tone".

count the paragraphs with a sarcastic comment in them!

did this guy think he was writing for comedy central instead of the nytimes?

then there was kennedy's cutesy argument about whether or not paul krugman, an mit phd in economics, was an economist or not.

this clever bit of scholastic reasoning seemed to devolve from a quote (apparently a misquote, see b. delong "upstairs") from an ancient american economist.

irritated and questioning, i looked at the lower left hand corner of the page and,

would you have guessed it,

david kennedy is a scholar at john yoo university.

well,

that might explain a lot.

as my good wife reminded me when i complained to her about this,

john yoo U is the home of the hoover institute and soon to be the home of the new "george w. bush memorial library and document burial center".

ah hah.

now david kennedy's adolescent sarcasm comes into focus. perhaps he hopes to be the historian-curator of the new bush library when it comes to john yoo U.

[wood turtle]

"Laissez-faire." Is that anything like the State Fair?

I don't understand what it is people see about Paul Krugman either.