Re: In defence of Krugman and against Alexander Cockburn: choice of targets

[Eubulides <paraconsistent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>

> The "broader progressive movement" is lacking in political clarity
> when it comes to the FTAA and free trade, because it is a very
> politically mixed bag, a dominant component of which in the USA has
> been protectionist officials of organized labor.  If Krugman is not
> advancing any kind of radical vision of change, neither are
> "anti-globalization" activists and advocates of industrial policy and
> strategic trade in the USA, whom Krugman criticizes.
> --
> Yoshie

================

This, imo, has something to do with the fact that Beltway NGO's have
pretty much refused to listen to many US activists once they left the
environs of Seattle.

Please define protectionist in a manner that doesn't concede too much to
the discourse of neoclassical economics :->

Krugman, of course, being one of the first to adumbrate that strategic
trade under oligopolistic competition might, under certain conditions, be
a justified departure from international, Ricardian, laissez-faire.

"Global Keynesianism Versus the New Mercantilism: International Economics
after Joan Robinson"
 by Robert Blecker, American University

http://www.joanrobinsonconference.net/image/blecker-adobe.pdf
A B S T R A C T

This paper reviews the ideas of Joan Robinson on international economics,
from
her earliest work on exchange rates, the trade balance, and employment,
through
her mid-career critique of the theories of international adjustment and
comparative
advantage, to her later writings on the "new mercantilism" and uneven
development.
An emergent theme in her work was a rejection of the conventional
bifurcation of
international economics into separate trade (micro) and finance
(macro/monetary)
parts, which rests on the classical assumption of monetary neutrality.
Many of her
arguments are based on interactions between the trade and finance sides
that are
ignored in conventional theories. The paper concludes by discussing new
developments
in international economics that have responded to her criticisms as well
as the relevance
of her ideas to contemporary international policy issues.