The blogosphere doesn't lack for good commentary on this article that appeared in yesterday's New York Times -- an article that suggests that (1) the vast majority of economists are advocates of laissez faire, and that (2) those few economists who dissent from this dogmatic position are treated as scum by the rest of the benighted profession.
Alex at Marginal Revolution hits this nonsensical nail square on the head, and Greg Mankiw makes some important points.
I weigh in here only to express my on-going problem with Dani Rodrik's complaint (also featured prominently in the NYT article) that most economists have a "faith" in free trade -- a faith that keeps us from looking at arguments and evidence on trade with open eyes and minds. Because Rodrik isn't blinded by any such faith, he (he implies) is a more objective scholar.
But my problem with Rodrik's position runs even more deeply. If it's true that theory and evidence in favor of protectionism are sufficiently strong to warrant economists abandoning their conclusion that free-trade policy is generally sound, then why shouldn't economists -- led by Dani Rodrik -- also start exploring the potential benefits of intra-national protectionism? Surely a scholar not benighted with the free-trade "faith" ought to take seriously the possibility that, say, Tennesseeans could be made wealthier if their government in Nashville restricts their ability to trade with people in Kentucky, Texas, Rhode Island, and other states?
Read the whole thing.
1 comment:
It's interesting that the NYTimes complains of some sort of bias in a segment of the academic community, namely in this case economists.
Yet the NYTimes has no problem with academics ostracizing other academics if they depart from their orthodoxy on global warming, or if they are religious, for instance.
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