Paul Krugman, whose mind appears to be permanently clouded by puerile partisan political punditry, attempted to refute the idea of libertarian limited (or eliminated) government philosophy… by demonstrating that politicians are crooked. Behold:

Thinking about BP and the Gulf: in this old interview, Milton Friedman says that there’s no need for product safety regulation, because corporations know that if they do harm they’ll be sued.

Interviewer: So tort law takes care of a lot of this ..

Friedman: Absolutely, absolutely.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

In the wake of last month’s catastrophic Gulf Coast oil spill, Sen. Lisa Murkowski blocked a bill that would have raised the maximum liability for oil companies after a spill from a paltry $75 million to $10 billion. The Republican lawmaker said the bill, introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), would have unfairly hurt smaller oil companies by raising the costs of oil production. The legislation is “not where we need to be right now” she said.

And don’t say that we just need better politicians. If libertarianism requires incorruptible politicians to work, it’s not serious.

It must be opposite day where up is down, day is night and libertarian philosophy relies on politicians to rule and regulate our world. Libertarians, like myself, believe neither in the ability of politicians to act in the public interest nor in the justification for taxpayer liability or financing of any private enterprise. Many libertarians don’t believe we should have any government at all.

So this makes Krugman’s conclusion that we require angel politicians quite bizarre.

Alex Tabarrok over at marginalrevolution demonstrates why even Krugman’s “facts” about the limits on BP’s cleanup costs are wrong, making this post by the nobel prize-winning economist a cornucopia of misunderstanding and misinformation.

It’s as if he’s intentionally trying to smear and misrepresent the ideas of Milton Friedman, a man who was known for asking progressives to “show him the angels” that will run our lives from on high. Well, why not let Milton speak for himself.

Does this sound like a man who’s philosophy requires politicians to be incorruptible? Does this sound like a man who believes that politicians are anything other than the most corrupt creatures on the face of the earth? Surely Krugman knows that an entire area of economics that supports libertarian principles is devoted to the ways that politicians are driven by self interest and not altruism: public choice economics. Surely Krugman is aware that the center of public choice economics, the economics of corrupt politicians, is the deeply libertarian George Mason University.

Paul Krugman is either losing him mind or he’s lost any shred of intellectual honesty he’s ever had. I’m pretty sure he’s a smart man in at least an academic sense, and he’s certainly an excellent writer, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he’s simply a shamefully dishonest hack…

…but what the hell do I know? 

p.s. apparently, opposite day is in full effect in the comments section of Krugman’s piece:

But if you support the War on Drugs, then in a perverse way, you do support libertarianism.

Since illegal drugs are, well, illegal, government regulations like labor or environmental or tax laws can’t easily be applied.

That’s why the profit margins are so huge. Huge enough to attract the most ruthless and violent people on the planet.

This is a form of libertarianism that the voters have chosen by deciding to keep illegal drugs illegal.

This form of libertarianism certainly does work. Look at how much money the government spends to eradicate illegal drugs, without producing any measurable impact on the overall drug economy.

That’s right. Never mind that libertarians are the single most consistent opponents to the so-called “war on drugs”, including and especially Milton Friedman. What is wrong with these people? Has someone put something in the water? They’re just nutty.