# Paul Krugman's Latest Idiotic Column

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-krugmans-latest-idiotic-column/447759>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [May 2, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-krugmans-latest-idiotic-column/447759 "2008-05-02T15:31:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-krugmans-latest-idiotic-column/447759/21 "2008-05-06T05:45:27Z")

</div>

I found an article that touched upon the political economy of tradable emission permits, from Resources for the Future. It is written by an expert on instrument choice, Wallace Oates:

PDF! [http://search.rff.org/custom/cs.html?charset=iso-8859-1&url=http%3A//www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-Resources-137-40years.pdf&qt=tradeable+emission+permits&col=mainsite&n=8&la=en](http://search.rff.org/custom/cs.html?charset=iso-8859-1&url=http%3A//www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-Resources-137-40years.pdf&qt=tradeable+emission+permits&col=mainsite&n=8&la=en) PDF!

It mentions the role of Thatcherism, Reaganism and a growing faith in market forces. But mostly it’s a story of how textbook economics came to be applied to environmental protection, once a few economists started to both master the politics of the problem and specialize in the environmental field. There was also a historical accident, when Congress in 1977 approved a provision for “Pollution offsets”. These are conceptually similar in some ways to tradable permits, except that “trades” can only occur within a single plant or firm. The success of this program made it easier to extend it to a cross-plant context.

Separately, Stewart’s coauthor of the 1985 law piece, Bruce Ackerman, doesn’t seem especially conservative to me. Then again, [Social Justice in the Liberal State](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Justice_in_the_Liberal_State) doesn’t seem to be a call to arms either.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-krugmans-latest-idiotic-column/447759/22 "2008-05-06T05:59:39Z")

</div>

That article seems pretty consistent with the one I cited earlier. Which confirms that we’re not disagreeing on the history as much as we are on the standard by which we can call something a conservative idea.

> [@Measure for Measure](#):
>
> Separately, Stewart’s coauthor of the 1985 law piece, Bruce Ackerman, doesn’t seem especially conservative to me. Then again, [Social Justice in the Liberal State](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Justice_in_the_Liberal_State) doesn’t seem to be a call to arms either.

I would not call Ackerman a conservative. But his political orientation is pretty difficult to pin down. He advocates, among other things, an “Emergency Constitution” so that key civil liberties can be suspended in wartime.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-krugmans-latest-idiotic-column/447759.md?page=1)