Moral Support...

Jonathan Schwarz links Greg Mankiw telling me I'm a coward for my anonymity, then cites "A Doubter's Companion" by John Ralston Saul: "In short, the people who cry loudest for a level playing field fall into two categories: those who own the goalposts and fools." Which category is Greg Mankiw in?

And then concludes:

The horrifying reality is that Greg Mankiw may actually believe that there's no reason for an economics graduate student to be worried about attaching their name to criticizing Larry Summers (and Greg Mankiw). How can anyone believe money and power have anything to do with what happens in academic economics? The only power that matters is the power of ideas. I mean, how else can you explain the fact that Greg Mankiw has an endowed chair at Harvard, one of the most left-wing institutions on the face of the earth?

Lol -- I've long argued that, by far, the most influential department at Harvard is the Economics Department. And look at how left-wing the Economics Department is -- Greg Mankiw, Robert Barro, Larry Summers (on temporary leave), Martin Feldstein, Edward Glaeser, Andrei Shleifer... Harvard has a large econ department and they aren't all conservatives, but still, overall, Harvard's liberal reputation is undeserved.