Shocking New York Times Piece
So. Were the editors of the New York Times dead drunk when they allowed this Virginia Postrel piece to be published? Was it a lark? Or did Postrel sneak in at night and insert it into the galleys when no one was looking?
Well, however she managed to get it in there, she's spot on right. Paul Krugman must have had a fit when he saw it.
No, I don't think anyone snuck anything into the galleys in the dead of night.
I do think Postrel makes an attempt to stitch together the two seemingly incongruent world views of pro- and anti-globalization when she says this:
If I recall correctly, people have been pointing this out for at least 20 years...I recall Margaret Thatcher saying something similar when she was Prime Minister.Makes sense to me.
Er, Postrel's article is a standard supply-side, lassez-faire, free trade argument. It's the argument that economic progressives like Hayek, Hazlitt, Friedman, etc. have been saying for decades. It has been popularized by politicians like Thatcher, Reagan, and Kemp.
It's very standard classical liberal stuff. I would have expected to find it in Reason, or the National Review, or possibly the Wall Street Journal, but not the NYT.
I hope they do it more often.
Truely tremendous blog!