Here's a letter that I sent on Friday to the Gray Lady:
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 do 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 (or at least were indifferent to) Pinochet's
tyranny in Chile? Or the incessant refrain, from outlets such as The
Nation, that multinational corporations seek to 'impose' free trade as
a means of effectively 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
