It’s the end of an era, as Paul Krugman walks away from his prestigious gig at the New York Times for the freedom to say exactly what he thinks on a new Substack. He leaves us with his take on the “grim place” America is in. Via Newser:
After nearly a quarter century, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has decided to wrap up his opinion column in the New York Times, with a final one dropping on Tuesday—and he’s using it as “a good occasion to reflect on what has changed over these past 25 years.” The most drastic change, in Krugman’s eyes: a move away from the optimism and high satisfaction Americans enjoyed in the late ’90s and early aughts, although even back then, there were ominous signs of the domestic and financial strife to come. Behind that shift, according to Krugman, was “a collapse of trust in elites: The public no longer has faith that the people running things know what they’re doing, or that we can assume that they’re being honest.”
And it’s not just the government that people are suspicious of—Krugman notes that banks are now looked at much more suspiciously, as are wealthy tech pioneers like Elon Musk. In fact, Krugman writes that “some of the most resentful people in America right now seem to be angry billionaires,” those “who used to bask in public approval and are now discovering that all the money in the world can’t buy you love.” So how do we escape from this “grim place” we’re in, as Krugman puts it? For one, he doesn’t think Americans will be fooled forever by elites with empty promises. “While resentment can put bad people in power, in the long run it can’t keep them there,” he writes. By rebuffing the emerging “kakistocracy,” he adds, “we may eventually find our way back to a better world.” The full column is here.
