Remember This The Next Time...

...a Keynesian argues that the thinking of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek should be ignored because they are so 20th century, or even more to be ignored is the 19th century writing of Carl Menger.

Keynesian Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman writes:

I’m pretty sure Roger Farmer is subtweeting me here, when he says

There are still a number of self-professed Keynesian bloggers out there who see the world through the lens of 1950s theory.

And it’s true! In fact, quite a lot of what I use is 1930s economic theory, via Hicks. And I should be deeply ashamed. I am, however, not the worst offender. After all, there are plenty of physicists who still use Newtonian dynamics, which means that they’re seeing the world through the lens of 17th-century theory. Fools!...

I’m all for new ideas, indeed for radical heterodoxy, if it solves some problem. Attacking ideas that seem to work pretty well simply because they’ve been around for a while, not so much.

Is this something Austrian school economists must be on guard against? Who would slyly imply that Austrian school economics has more to do with ancient history than current day America?

Here's Krugman in the debate he lost against Ron Paul:

You can’t leave the government out of monetary policy. If you think we’re going to let it set itself, it doesn’t happen. If you think you can avoid the government from setting monetary policy, you’re living in the world that was 150 years ago.... 

I’m not a defender of the economic policies of the Emperor Diocletion, let’s make that clear.

I’m a defender of the economic policies that we followed after World War II...

  -RW