numbskulduggery

Krugman calls himself a Humean but has he studied and internalized the lessons from Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion?  Is it easy to imagine the current Krugman writing rich multi-voiced dialogues which extend both his points and those of his intellectual opponents?  Can you imagine the current Krugman writing something sufficiently multi-faceted that you might come away thinking — because of the piece itself — that the opposing point of view was the better one?

Krugman has shown a remarkable and impressive capacity to reinvent himself, more than once.  He could reinvent himself again — in a truly Humean direction — and become the most important American public intellectual — and perhaps intellectual — of his time.  Or he could keep his current status as a sharp and brilliant someone who has an enormous number of followers but relatively little influence over actual events, and perhaps, like most of us, won’t be read much fifty years from now.