Paul Krugman: Conquest Is for Losers

[Ad Orientem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opini ... pe=article

It's rare when I can say I agree with anything Krugman writes. But even stopped clocks are right twice a day.

[Benko]

I ain't a neocon, so I can't put myself in their place, but I gotta wonder: are the people who argue for the agressive end of the foreign policy spectrum really interested in conquest, or is he just attacking straw men?  Reminds me of those who said we were in Iraq "for the oil".

[Ad Orientem]

Reminds me of those who said we were in Iraq "for the oil".

I find that more plausible than Iraq's alleged connection to 9/11 or their plan to attack us with weapons of mass destruction (which they do not seem to have possessed in any militarily significant quantity).

[madbean]

It's also rare when I agree with Krugman but this sentence is almost right on....

"The point is that there is a still-powerful political faction in America committed to the view that conquest pays, and that in general the way to be strong is to act tough and make other people afraid."

I say "almost" because I don't think those who hold the view he is talking about view themselves as conquerors. I think they view themselves as being on the side of the angels as policemen of the world which makes it right and proper for us to act tough and make people afraid of us. I think that describes most of the Republican Party which is why I will probably never vote for them again unless they change although I did for many years.

[MachineGhost]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opini ... pe=article

It's rare when I can say I agree with anything Krugman writes. But even stopped clocks are right twice a day.

This guy still has a media mouthpiece despite being disgraced out of Princeton?  Shocking.  Who takes him seriously anymore other than nonthlinking leftwing liberal loonies?

[Ad Orientem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opini ... pe=article

It's rare when I can say I agree with anything Krugman writes. But even stopped clocks are right twice a day.

This guy still has a media mouthpiece despite being disgraced out of Princeton?  Shocking.

Interesting. What is the story on Princeton? All I heard is that he is retiring at the end of the current academic year (he is in his 60's) and has agreed to take a position at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, as a professor in the Ph.D. program in economics. and will also become a distinguished scholar at the Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center. He says he wants to slow down a bit with less commuting and stay closer to New York. I gather you heard something else?

[MachineGhost]

Interesting. What is the story on Princeton? All I heard is that he is retiring at the end of the current academic year (he is in his 60's) and has agreed to take a position at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, as a professor in the Ph.D. program in economics. and will also become a distinguished scholar at the Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center. He says he wants to slow down a bit with less commuting and stay closer to New York. I gather you heard something else?

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ot ... #msg105973

P.S.  We're all waiting for your post over at the Merry Xmas thread!

[Benko]

The other thing that needs to be said here, is that there is a broad spectrum between:

Conquest  and [hyperbole alert]

The leftist default i.e. lets get rid of our guns, disarm, treat our enemies nice, bear our throats and they will ignore us in return.

[Ad Orientem]

The other thing that needs to be said here, is that there is a broad spectrum between:

Conquest  and [hyperbole alert]

The leftist default i.e. lets get rid of our guns, disarm, treat our enemies nice, bear our throats and they will ignore us in return.

+1

[stone]

I thought that "Conquest is for losers" article was spot on.
I guess I'm probably even more of a wacky liberal than Krugman but I rarely read a Krugman post without profoundly disagreeing with him.
However Naill Fergurson is an utter pratt IMO. I love the many Noah Smith articles that rip Naill up (even though I seldom agree with Noah either ).
as an example:
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... -what.html

Labeling Asian Americans as "non-Western" gives away the game completely. By "Western," Niall Ferguson is not referring to a geographic region, a political system, an economic system, or a religion. He is not even referring to a specific set of countries. He is referring to a set of people; people who have pale pinkish skin, fine wavy hair, and prominent eye ridges. By "Western," Niall Ferguson means "white people." Asian Americans may have American passports, Ferguson thinks, but civilizationally speaking they are permanent foreigners. This interpretation is basically confirmed a couple paragraphs later:
Social scientist Charles Murray calls for a “civic great awakening”?—a return to the original values of the American republic. He’s got a point.
When you admit to taking your cues from America's most prominent academic racist, you've pretty much laid your cards on the table.

This makes me sick, and not just because of the racism. It's because Ferguson's offhand exclusion of non-whites from the "Western" world is, in fact, what I believe to be the biggest threat to our civilization.

You see, I believe that the United States of America has another "killer app" in addition to the ones Ferguson lists. That killer app is meritocratic diversity. Where other countries cling to blood-and-soil tribalism, America absorbs and employs the energy and talent of a vast array of peoples. All those American Nobel Prize winners? A huge chunk are immigrants or children thereof. Ditto for Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial heroes. Our above-average fertility rates? Largely thanks to immigration.

Imagine if this were 1911, and Ferguson had instead lamented: "And you don’t have to spend too long at any major U.S. university to know which students really drive themselves: the Jewish-Americans." He might have held this up as a harbinger of Western decline - after all, Jews were not at the time considered white. But he'd have been pooh-poohing the future contributions of Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman, not to mention Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, and probably a bunch of other Jewish Americans whom I don't know off the top of my head. The contribution of the Asian Americans whom Ferguson now dismisses are growing at a similar, if not faster rate.

In fact, Niall Ferguson pines for the days of Anglo-Saxon empire, but in fact, many historians believe that race-blind meritocracy is the key to all successful hegemons. Empires of the past have been successful when, like modern America, they didn't limit their talent pool to people with the right genes.......

......Basically, this is one of the laziest, sloppiest, most pernicious columns that I have ever read. I am simply physically, biologically incapable of sticking to my self-enforced blogging hiatus when something this awful crosses my screen.

[Lang]

Abraham Lincoln once said "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends". Five years later, some guy shot him in the back while he was watching a play.

[Pointedstick]

Abraham Lincoln once said "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends". Five years later, some guy shot him in the back while he was watching a play.

Ah yes, Abraham Lincoln, truly one of the great friend-makers.

[Libertarian666]

Abraham Lincoln once said "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends". Five years later, some guy shot him in the back while he was watching a play.

Ah yes, Abraham Lincoln, truly one of the great friend-makers.

No, I think when he said "when", he meant "simultaneously", not "one following as a result of the other". IOW, once they were destroyed they were his friends.