Punkonomics (@DearBalak)

Krugman is out with a kind-of-sort-of attack on critics of economics. It’s not surprising because Krugman is a very kind-of-sort-of type of guy in many of his opinions. The language of his latest piece, however, is somewhat bizarre. He labels heterodox economists ‘Gentiles’, presumably making orthodox economists, what? God’s chosen people? It’s a metaphor made in light-hearted jest — but it speaks volumes.

Krugman knows that he is dealing with a group that has been marginalised for years. Indeed, there is much documentary evidence that Krugman has been on the front lines marginalising those very people. You can see this, for example, in his exchanges with James Galbraith in the mid-1990s. But recently it seems like the heterodox crowd have been getting a lot right: themes such as income inequality and stagnation are those that the heterodox literature deals with in detail. And the students are waking up…