Meta-Op-eds (Phoning It In)

April 25, 2014
Posted by Jay Livingston

It’s not much of a coincidence, these two columns today from the Times’s regular Friday guys.  Besides, the headline writer may have been doing it deliberately. (Why do they put Brooks on the left of the page and Krugman on the right? That’s just confusing.)

The larger coincidence is that neither of these columns is about Piketty or Capital in the Twenty-First Century. They are the columnists reactions to reactions to the book. Very meta. 

Krugman’s main point is that “conservatives are terrified” and do not have any data to refute Piketty’s thesis about inequality and capital accumulation.  Instead, says Krugman, they resort to name-calling, as though calling Piketty a Marxist meant that we should all ignore everything he said.  (Krugman, to be fair, has written columns and blog posts about the substance of the Piketty book. )

As for Brooks,  he lays down his usual psycho-cultural snark on liberal intellectuals – their envy and resentment.

 It really doesn’t help that you have to spend your days kissing up to the oligarchs and their foundations to finance your research, exhibition or favorite cause. . . .
Well, of course, this book is going to set off a fervor that some have likened to Beatlemania.

A 700-page work of economics and economic history as the equivalent of “Love Me Do.”

The Times pays, I would guess, at least $2500 for these 800-word columns.  And I’m sure that columnists, like all of us, have their off days when they’re too busy or uninspired to write something of substance.  But for my $2.50 on Friday, I’d like more than just a challenging crossword puzzle.  Yes, I know that these are “opinion” pieces, but opinion without evidence doesn’t go very far.  (And please, don’t bother making any comments about Maureen Dowd. I already agree.)