Re: Krugman's Love Letter to Markets, not to Enron

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tooooo many economists take the forms of corporate governance that are
the result of jurisprudence rather than legislation for granted in doing
micro and macroeconomic analysis. If Krugman and others actually did
some economic anthropology by working in those institutions 'outside
their role' as 'economist' and then returned to the writing life, they'd
be far more effective in understanding and communicating the concerns of
citizens who are adversely impacted by the plenum of policies and laws
that constitute our political economy. Then maybe we'd make some headway
in figuring out how to reduce the inequalities of wealth and power that
are a blight on our species. Economists seem to have forgotten about the
need for detailed and empirical analysis of actual workplaces.

Ian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Clifford Poirot" <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: Krugman's Love Letter to Markets, not to Enron


> I think the important thing about Krugman is to criticize him for what
he
> deserves to be criticized for. For some strange reason he has emerged
as the
> whipping boy of the right. Perhaps because of his pseudo-Keynesianism
and
> identification with Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Lawrence Summers.
>
> If you actually read most of his work, it is clear that by and large,
he is
> a fairly conventional mainstream economist, who occasionally says
something
> interesting or non-mainstream, and tries to tie it to Keynes.
>
> Galbraith he is not. Not even close.
>
> But he has succeeded in making a sort of luke warm centrism
intellectually
> attractive, selling the idea that government policy can be effective.
From
> the perspective of the right, that is the unpardonable sin.
>
> From the perspective of Post-Keynesians, Krugman's "sin" was not in
taking
> money from large corporation, but in praising the entire system of
> deregulation.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Murray [mailto:seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 12:29 AM
> To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Krugman's Love Letter to Markets, not to Enron
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> > THE ASCENT OF E-MAN
> > By Paul Krugman
> > SYNOPSIS: The failure of big industry and the success of Information
> was
> > never predictable
> >
> [snip]
> > What happened to the man in the gray flannel suit? No doubt he was
> > partly a victim of sex (er, I mean gender) and drugs and rock &
roll-
> > -that is, of social change. He was also a victim of information
> > technology, which ended up deconstructing instead of reinforcing the
> > corporation.
> ================
>
> This is pure bunk. IT has made life a living hell for millions of
workers
> and led to lots of top heavy firms that David Gordon's "Fat & Mean"
talks
> about. Just ask the drivers of UPS or FedEx trucks. The clothing may
have
> changed, but the jerks in love with hierarchy, authority and power are
> still everywhere. That they come from business schools in "liberal
arts"
> universities and colleges is part of the tragedy of education under
> capitalism.
>
> Ian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> But probably the biggest force has been a change in
> > ideology, the shift to pro-market policies. It's not that government
> has
> > vanished from the marketplace. It's still a good guess that in a
> > completely unregulated phone market, long-distance companies would
buy
> > up local-access companies and deny their customers the right to
connect
> > to rivals, and that the evil empire--or at least monopoly
> > capitalism--would rise again. However, what we have instead in a
> growing
> > number of markets -- phones, gas, electricity today, probably
computer
> > operating systems and high-speed Net access tomorrow -- is a
> combination
> > of deregulation that lets new competitors enter and "common carrier"
> > regulation that prevents middlemen from playing favorites, making
> > freewheeling markets possible.
> >
> > Who would have thunk it? The millennial economy turns out to look
more
> > like Adam Smith's vision--or better yet, that of the Victorian
> economist
> > Alfred Marshall--than the corporatist future predicted by
generations
> of
> > corporate pundits. Get those old textbooks out of the attic: they're
> > more relevant than ever.
> >
> > ME AND ENRON
> >
> > SYNOPSIS: Krugman responds to an erroneous personal attack by
> > conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan
> >
> > Some people have accused me of an ethical lapse because I served
> briefly
> > on an Enron advisory board in 1999 - even though I disclosed that
> > relationship the only time I wrote about the company (rather
favorably)
> > for Fortune, back in May1999, and again the first time I wrote about
> the
> > company (in a highly critical article) for the New York Times, which
I
> > did in January 2001. Since then I've been pretty hard on Enron, to
say
> > the least: I criticized the firm's role in the California energy
> crisis,
> > and have not been kind as the firm's own problems have surfaced.
> >
> > By the way, here's the  piece I wrote in Fortune. It looks a bit
naive
> > now,  but it's a love letter to markets, not to Enron.
> > http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/eman.html
> >
> > So what was my relationship with Enron?  I was offered a $50,000 fee
> for
> > a year's participation in the advisory board, which would entail
> > attending and presenting at two meetings, each of which would extend
> > over two days. The year I was on the board only one meeting took
place;
> > the other was canceled because of weather.
> >
> > These meetings were not about Enron business, nor were they about
> policy
> > in areas closely related to Enron business; basically they were
> seminars
> > on world affairs. From my point of view this was much like a paid
> > speaking engagement, of the kind that is common for academic
> economists,
> > at least those who work on issues that bear on matters of business
> > interest, like the state of the world economy. The only difference
was
> > that in effect I had agreed to deliver several talks, and join in an
> > extended discussion of other peoples' talks.
> >
> > At the one meeting I attended, I talked about the Asian financial
> > crisis, then still in full swing.
> >
> > My critics seem to think that there was something odd about Enron's
> > willingness to pay a mere college professor that much money. But
such
> > sums are not unusual for academic economists whose expertise is
> relevant
> > to current events. And there were other academics, such as the
Harvard
> > Business School's Pankaj Ghemawat, on the panel; presumably they had
> the
> > same arrangement.
> >
> > Remember that this was 1999: Asia was in crisis, the world was a
mess.
> > And justifiably or not, I was regarded as an authority on that mess.
I
> > invented currency crises as an academic field, way back in 1979;
anyone
> > who wants a sense of my academic credentials should look at the
> Handbook
> > of International Economics, vol. 3, and check the index. Here's my
> > current  cv .
> > http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/cv.html
> >
> > And I wasn't an ivory-tower academic. In 1994 I had published an
> article
> > in Foreign Affairs, "The myth of Asia's miracle", which was
skeptical
> > about the region's economic prospects, and seemed vindicated by the
> > crisis. In August 1998 I had advocated temporary capital controls as
a
> > way to deal with the crisis, just days before Mahathir put them into
> > effect in Malaysia. Also in 1998 I had taken on the Japanese
situation,
> > with a series of papers that introduced the idea of inflation
targeting
> > as a way out of the trap; "It's baack: Japan's slump and the return
of
> > the liquidity trap" was published in Brookings Papers in late 1998.
> >
> > Because of my role in the debates of the time, I was asked to advise
> > various Asian and Latin American countries (offers which still come
> in),
> > but declined.
> >
> > I mention all this not as a matter of self-puffery, but to point out
> > that I was not an unknown college professor. On the contrary, I was
> very
> > much in demand as a speaker to business audiences: I was routinely
> > offered as much as $50,000 to speak to investment banks and
consulting
> > firms.
> >
> > When I accepted the position at the New York Times, I severed the
Enron
> > connection, and also dropped any paid speaking and consulting that
> might
> > violate the strict Times conflict-of-interest rules.
> >
> > My critics, ignoring the fact that I have been extremely tough on
> Enron,
> > seem desperate to find something unethical in all of this. Sorry:
> > there's nothing there.
> >
> >
> >