OT- trade, Krugman, Greider, etc.
Have followed this exchange with some interest. I'm a U. Chicago doctoral candidate in philosophy who specializes in applied ethics, especially the morality of public policy. I'm no economist, but in this capacity I'm a pretty well read amateur.
I've assigned Krugman's well written The Age of Diminished Expectations for a class in "Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy." I think highly of much of his work. I do find it unfortunate, however, that he can be so reactionary towards intelligent non-economists who often have something meaningful to contribute to the discussion. (Notable prominent examples of such folk include Bob Reich, former labor secretary, and Bill Greider, author and Rolling Stone.)
Z, I have 2 books to recommend that you and others might be interested in. The first is by an accomplished economist who wrote a book about rhetoric and persuasion within the field of economics. His often stinging critique is certainly consistent with my experience with the field at Chicago and elsewhere. See amazon.com .
Second is by Greider, written about global trade. amazon.com . I have not read it, but may if I can find the time. Even so, I find much of what I take his thesis to be quite plausible. (I come down in favor of NAFTA and GATT, and generally consider myself a free trader, but the economics profession has done a poor job, IMHO, of looking at the costs of the current trade regime and trying to confront them.) Anyhow, regardless of this book's merits, the comments on the Amazon writeup are instructive. Economists don't generally carefully critique books like this--instead, they go ballistic. Unfortunate.
A last remark. In his reply to you, Lawrence suggests that it's better to have people designing web pages and trading stocks than making textiles. And, he has a point. But of course, there's no way that we can reasonably expect the typical laid off 40-something textile worker to turn around and found a small internet business. So what do we do to ease the transition? I have my own ideas, but won't take this discussion any more OT. Suffice to say that when we don't even consider this question. (Indeed, it is one that few readers of this thread will have to worry about, since we are Bob Reich's "Symbolic Analysts" who largely benefit from all this change.)
'nuff said for now. I do hope that more fruitful exchanges can take place between the pros and the amateurs in economics. |
