The cult of Austrian economics

Fine Austrian Whines

Paul Krugman's blog, NYT

Andrew Leonard:

There's a lockdown on the Wikipedia page for Austrian economics and wouldn't you know it, one or way or another, it all seems to be Paul Krugman's fault.
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For more detail, you can go, of course, to the Wikipedia page for Austrian economics. But until at least Feb. 28, if you do so, you will find that the page "is currently protected from editing." An "edit war" has been raging behind the scenes. Two factions were repeatedly deleting and replacing a section of text that had to do with a description of a critique of Austrian economics made by economist Paul Krugman.

Substance aside -- not that substance isn't important -- Austrian economics very much has the psychology of a cult. Its devotees believe that they have access to a truth that generations of mainstream economists have somehow failed to discern; they go wild at any suggestion that maybe they're the ones who have an intellectual blind spot. And as with all cults, the failure of prophecy -- in this case, the prophecy of soaring inflation from deficits and monetary expansion -- only strengthens the determination of the faithful to uphold the faith.

It would be sort of funny if it weren't for the fact that this cult has large influence within the GOP.