John Quiggin has some fun with an economist named Stephen Williamson who attacks his work from a position of robust ignorance; Noah Smith has even more fun.
I’ll pass the specific arguments by, and note another feature of this “debate” that has struck me a lot during recent economic controversies: the way Williamson tries to settle the argument by pulling rank, portraying Quiggin as some kind of obscure and unqualified guy.
It’s funny in this case, because Quiggin is in fact a prominent economist, Williamson not so much. But even if this weren’t true, that’s no way to argue. Which is why it has been so sad to see how common this kind of argument has been in recent years.
I don’t have time right now to track down all the examples, but if you look at how many freshwater macroeconomists have responded to Keynesian arguments in this crisis, you find over and over again that they resort to assertions of privilege — basically, I am a famous macroeconomic expert and you aren’t — rather than really addressing the issues. And this is so ingrained a response, apparently, that they use it in situations where it’s truly ridiculous: Lucas accusing Christy Romer of not understanding basic macro, then demonstrating that he doesn’t understand Ricardian equivalence; Barro belittling the credentials of yours truly, just after forgetting that there was rationing and investment controls during World War II.
But in any case, this is never an appropriate way to argue — least of all at a time like this, when events have strongly suggested that a lot of work in economics these past few decades, very much including the work on which these guys’ reputations are based, was on the wrong track.
Do I do this myself? Probably on occasion, when I don’t catch myself. But I try not to. I would say that commenters who begin with “I can’t believe that a Nobel prize winner doesn’t understand that …” might want to think a bit harder; mostly, though not always, I have actually thought whatever you’re saying through, and the obvious fallacy you think you’ve found, isn’t. But “Me big famous economist, you nobody” is not a valid argument.
