Dunce Of The Week

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William Greider And America's Truth Deficit

Dunce Of The Week

Paul Krugman: French Family Values

Rich Karlgaard, 08.05.05, 6:30 PM ET

This week, our dunce's cap gets passed to Paul Krugman. What is it about The New York Times columnist that boils our blood? There is no shortage of left-of-center economists. Yet none spikes our blood pressure as Krugman does. Is it his constant bashing of President George W. Bush in his Times column? Or maybe his refusal to see any good in the U.S. economy, now in its fourth year of expansion?

Actually, I finally figured it out! We loathe Krugman because...he disrespects us.

Here, Krugman compares the French lifestyle and health care system to America's, and decides for the French. But to come to this conclusion, he has to caricaturize America.

In Krugman's America, people work like demons chasing the middle class dream. As a result, Americans achieve a higher standard of living, but at the cost of leisure and health. In France, people take vacations, eat well and live long. Krugman applauds the French for their smarter societal choices.

Here is what Krugman doesn't tell you:

-- An individual Frenchman has little choice in his lifestyle. Society has made the choices for him. In America, one has a far greater menu of choice. Americans can choose to live a "French" lifestyle—say, as a musician, professor or artist—with low stress and low rewards. Or, Americans can choose to live an "American" lifestyle—as salesmen or stockbrokers—with high stress and high rewards.

-- Supersized Cokes or a mellow Burgundy? America leaves this choice to the individual.

Individual economic choice is what America is about. Paul Krugman, I suspect, thinks Americans are too dim to choose wisely. He disrespects us. So we dislike him.

Each week our Digital Rules columnist Rich Karlgaard skewers a piece of economic illiteracy he comes across in the public prints.

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