In the current issue of The Freeman, Arthur Foulkes contributes an “It Just Ain’t So!” column in which he attacks Paul Krugman. What has the scurrilous Krugman said now? He charged that the late Milton Friedman is to blame for a “food safety crisis” because he opposed governmental regulations on food safety. Krugman wrote that Friedman supported a “sickening ideology.”
Count on Krugman to play dirty when it comes to his advocacy of statist policies. Friedman was a thoroughly non-ideological scholar who drew his conclusions based on evidence, not on ideology. He had looked at the results of government food safety policies and agencies and concluded that they were less effective than the combination of carrots and sticks the free market has to ensure safe food. Neither works perfectly, but Friedman concluded that we’d get superior results by not relying on government.
But if Krugman had to confront Friedman’s analysis, that would make for a column that would scarcely interest his readers. It might even backfire, causing a few to want to see what Friedman had actually said. So much easier just to label Friedman as an ideologue and move on. Rather the same way Marx would label anyone who dissented from his views as a “class enemy” not worth listening to.
What’s truly sickening is that this snide pseudo-economist is treated as someone important.
