What is Paul Krugman afraid of? This is a question that the libertarian crowd has been asking, publicly, for years. So far, Mr. Krugman has brushed off the droves of Austrian school adherents looking to see him take on Austrian Business Cycle Theory in debate; but with this latest gambit, the New Keynesian may find himself up for an offer his conscience can scarcely refuse. Tom Woods sums it up pretty well:
Many Austrians have tried to get Krugman to debate business cycle theory. He’s too busy and too sophisticated to debate an Austrian, of course. Until now.
Economist Robert Murphy has come up with a clever way to make this happen. Through a website called The Point, people can pledge an amount of money to make the debate happen. Not one cent is charged to them until it does happen. The money will go to a charity for the hungry in New York. So if it hits, say, $100,000, Krugman will have to explain why getting $100,000 to New York’s hungry isn’t worth one hour of his time. Brilliant. I’ve already pledged. Bob is up to around $5,000 already.
Woods wrote that in October. I just went by the site to make a $30.00 donation and at the time of this posting, $57,335 have been pledged by 919 donors.
I’m anxious to see Mr. Krugman’s response. With so many charity donations on the table, it will be difficult for him to back down on the grounds that he has more worthy undertakings vying for his attention, so most observers will likely associate his potential refusal with a suspect reluctance to engage the opposition. So which will it be, PK? Will you let professional egotism trump your liberal conscience? Or will we finally see you defend your ideas against their strongest assailants in the public forum? I can already tell this is going to be fun…
(Here’s the complete story as described by economist Robert Murphy, the Austrolibertarian who thought this up and is on deck to debate the Krug.)
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