Unfairly Unbalanced
12 June 2009
Editor, The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Paul Krugman is angry that media such as Fox News and the Washington Times often make unsubstantiated, over-the-top claims about Democrats and left-liberal causes ("The Big Hate," June 12).
Prof. Krugman should chill. These media - no less than the likes of CBS and your own paper - are in business not to inform but to entertain. And presumably the fictions that so irritate Mr. Krugman entertain their intended audiences - entertain these audiences no less than do the fictions that are routinely emitted by 'progressive' media entertain THEIR intended audiences.
How else, for example, to explain the routine accusation that members of the Chicago school of economics applauded Pinochet's tyranny in Chile? Or the incessant refrain, from outlets such as The Nation, that multinational corporations (and many economists) seek to 'impose' free trade as a means of enslaving workers? Or the common assertion that persons who endorse free markets are really just mean-spirited mercenaries paid in some coin to protect the privileges of the rich with cynical arguments that confuse and confound ordinary folk?
Aren't these arguments just as incendiary and unsubstantiated as are those that Mr. Krugman attacks?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Editor, The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Paul Krugman is angry that media such as Fox News and the Washington Times often make unsubstantiated, over-the-top claims about Democrats and left-liberal causes ("The Big Hate," June 12).
Prof. Krugman should chill. These media - no less than the likes of CBS and your own paper - are in business not to inform but to entertain. And presumably the fictions that so irritate Mr. Krugman entertain their intended audiences - entertain these audiences no less than do the fictions that are routinely emitted by 'progressive' media entertain THEIR intended audiences.
How else, for example, to explain the routine accusation that members of the Chicago school of economics applauded Pinochet's tyranny in Chile? Or the incessant refrain, from outlets such as The Nation, that multinational corporations (and many economists) seek to 'impose' free trade as a means of enslaving workers? Or the common assertion that persons who endorse free markets are really just mean-spirited mercenaries paid in some coin to protect the privileges of the rich with cynical arguments that confuse and confound ordinary folk?
Aren't these arguments just as incendiary and unsubstantiated as are those that Mr. Krugman attacks?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Wednesday October 28, 2009 at 9:34am