Finally, Mr. Krugman cottons to what's growing in the Republican professional fields; it's not integrity, it's not honest disagreement about ideas, and it's not "learned helplessness."
It's obeisance to power and political reality. If you're an economist who wants to work on the Republican side, to get your career in gear you get your mouth in line.
The Professor (my emphasis):
I think the rejection of a Nobel laureate for a seat at the Fed is tied, in a fundamental way, to the willingness of economists with decent professional reputations to sign on to the increasingly crazy proclamations issued by Republican politicians. Whether they are honest with themselves or not, what they’ve realized is that they face a loyalty test — or maybe that’s an apparatchik test; if they have any ambitions of serving in a policy position, they have to prove themselves willing to follow the party line wherever it goes.Occam's Switchblade: They're acting like political operatives because they are political operatives.
There’s nothing comparable on the other side. For one thing, you don’t find people like Christy Romer or, well, me taking positions on policy issues that are directly at odds with what they’ve said in their professional writings; whereas you see that a lot on the Republican side.
This is as close as we've gotten yet to a mainstream economist admitting that Movement Conservative "intellectuals" are just party operatives in professional's clothing. You can't fight an army if you can't spot the soldiers.
The state of the Krugman is clear-eyed, at least today. Thank you, sir.
GP
