Paul Krugman

New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman could have chosen a better title for his new book than The Conscience of a Liberal, which he cribbed from the late Senator Paul Wellstone. (Wellstone himself was riffing off Barry Goldwater’s 1964 book, The Conscience of a Conservative.)Krugman’s book is less a manifesto of liberal ethics than it is adiscourse on practical economics. He takes for granted Wellstone’smoral arguments for socioeconomic equality and concentrates on anempirical defense of liberal policy. Like Wellstone’s book, Krugman’sis unlikely to change conservative minds. But Krugman’s shrewd andaccessible arguments give liberal readers a tool set for arguing pointsthemselves. If you agreed with Wellstone but didn’t quite know why,read Krugman and you will.

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