almost all of the most prominent economists in the public sphere — Paul Krugman, Summers, Thomas Piketty, and the rest — lean to the left, and lean significantly more to the left than in years past. Conservative economists are largely hiding out in academia, emerging only to write the occasional Wall Street Journal op-ed. That suggests that they are not optimistic about how their ideas would be received by the general public.
Pointer from Mark Thoma.
Actually, I cannot remember a time when conservative economists were important in the public sphere. Name another one apart from Milton Friedman. Are you thinking Greg Mankiw? Tell me what policy he influenced. Are you thinking Arthur Laffer? He influenced Reagan’s tax cut, but then he disappeared from the public sphere, leaving behind only one drawing on a napkin. Alfred Kahn? Very influential, did not disappear right away, but he was a Carter appointee. Alan Greenspan? I suppose a lot of lefties will say he was the prominent villain in creating the atmosphere of deregulation and outbreak of greed that they say caused the financial crisis. Trouble is, the substantive evidence is not really consistent with that narrative. And Greenspan, like Laffer, never had any academic cred.
Currently, I can name a number of policy areas where conservatives are more likely to be correct than liberals. Housing policy, obviously. Entitlements and the long-term budget. Education reform. Capital taxation policy. On those issues, the prominent economists in the public sphere are largely silent.
Instead, the prominent economists focus on macroeconomics and inequality. Those are two areas where one can smugly advocate policies on the basis of the intention heuristic, comfortably protected from any evidence of efficacy.
My bottom line is that Smith is correct that the battle for mainstream media prominence has been won by the left. One possibility is that they have earned it. But there are other possibilities.
Perhaps its just so simple as the difference in those who believe intellect can develop means to improve, direct, perfect human conduct to some “desired” conditions; and others, who want to use intellect to understand how human conduct produces differing conditions, and by that understanding avoid conduct that produces detrimental condition.
To be “effective” the first set needs to have political (public) influence, which they seem motivated to seek aggressively.
The second set seems limited in motivation to making their understandings available, but not enforceable.
I have often wondered why The Pope is always Catholic. Perhaps Smith can propose an answer?
The media are story-tellers, and the left has a better story. It is the active “do good now” vs. the passive “do no harm”; cash-in-the-hand vs. the invisible hand;
the seen vs. the unseen.
“One possibility is that they have earned it.” This, honestly, never occurred to me.
There are two kinds of tribal competition.
The right is good at inter-tribal competition. In extreme, they’re irrationally suspicious of outsiders, and fearful of being persecuted and subjugated by other tribes. They like to form righteous armies to defend against and attack foreign terrorism and barbarism.
The left is good at intra-tribal competition. In extreme forms, they’re irrationally suspicious of insiders, and fearful of being persecuted and subjugated by high status members of their own tribe. They like to form rag-tag coalitions of the “oppressed” to overturn the existing power structures.
This is why we always observe far-left movements “eating their own”. When they successfully overturn power structures, it isn’t long before their strong intra-tribal instincts kick in again and the cycle begins anew.
Interesting, while we have the word ‘xenophobia’ to describe extreme inter-tribal competitiveness, there is no technical counterpart for extreme intra-tribal competitiveness. The word ‘autophobia’ is already taken for another meaning. Normally, the left-wing counterpart to xenophobia is celebrated as healthy scepticism of authority, at least in academic contexts.
Oops, I forgot to add how my last comment was related to the opening post.
Basically, in times of relative peace and prosperity, the media is the realm of the intra-tribal competition.
Lee
Very good comment.
-Ross
The term that you seek is oikophpbia, “oikophobia is fear of the familiar: “the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ‘ours.’ ” British philosopher Roger Scruton”
Scruton’s use is a modern conservative spin on the meaning of the word: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oikophobia
I think the notion Lee Kelly is trying to capture in a word actually IS leftism. Meaning: if you go back to movements for popular sovereignty or opposition to monarchy which comprised the original left wing their political positions don’t map well to our current left-right US political spectra, but they do kind of make sense if you reduce leftism to universalist egalitarian distaste for and opposition to one’s inherited culture and institutions.
Should economics be “popular”?
“Actually, I cannot remember a time when conservative economists were important in the public sphere.”
Wasn’t there a period, roughly from the recovery in the early 80s until the late 90s, when generally free market arguments, by economists aligned with both parties (including, as I recall, Summers and Krugman), held the upper hand in public debate? In the late 90s, as I recall, the “center” of public economic discourse shifted to the left, and Democrat-aligned economists (such as the aforementioned grandees) shifted with it. By some coincidence, the “center” seems to have shifted to the left continuously since the late 90s on just about every contentious public issue (with a post-9/11 detour on national security, of course, now long over).