Economist-bashing
has long been a popular pastime among intellectuals right and left. Economists
themselves, however, are not supposed to bash back. So when I decided to
break that rule, I fully expected retribution. Surprisingly, until now
all of the really personal attacks on me have come from the right, from
the likes of Alan Reynolds and Judy Shelton (it will be news to them that
I bear a special animus toward the left). But something like Robert Kuttner's
essay in the September-October issue of The American Prospect ["Peddling
Krugman"] was bound to appear sooner or later.