Climate change soup Nazis

Most people are aware of the Seinfeld episode where the soup Nazi bans anyone who doesn’t comply with his rules of etiquette in his soup kitchen.  You want soup?  Play by the rules.

Similarly, when it comes to academic postings, there is the same kind of culture: You want tenure?  Play by my rules.  This mindset becomes so ingrained, when academics venture out into the real world, they often bring their academic power-games with them.

You want to be treated seriously?  Bow down to climate change science or be banished from the blogsphere.

Exhibit A in the soup Nazi approach to the climate change debate is Keynesian economist (and part-time climate change “scientist”) John Quiggin.   Having made a few innocuous comments on his blog, he immediately deleted my comments and banned me from his blog for a week.

For the historical record, a summary of my comments appears below:

Keynesian John Quiggin is duplicitous in attacking Austrians on being sceptical of climate science because:

(a) Keynesians were screaming for continuing the forced overconsumption of the world’s precious limited resources only a few months ago here.

But on the other hand they are now screaming the world is ending and we need to regulate business even more heavily here.

Can anyone see the OBVIOUS inconsistency in these positions? I agree the world is ending, but because of insane debt-created overconsumption, not because of the evils of the market. The market has existed since civilization began. A purely fiat currency system has existed only since Aug 15, 1971. Since then we have had the biggest pollution and economic problems we have ever seen in the history of man. Whether this is caused by fiat, debt, or over-population (or all three) I can’t say. However these are the facts. Make your own interpretation up.

(b) The only common denominator is that govt intervention is the solution in both cases, according to JQ.

(c) I found it ironic that JQ (an economist) was using a scientific hypothesis (climate change) as a litmus test to determine whether Austrians were “serious” economists. JQ (1) assumes he knows about climate science (he doesn’t) (2) assumes anyone who questions climate science is mad (they may not be) (3) thinks anyone who questions the govt’s solutions to the “problem” is also mad (even if you accept the science, govt may not be the answer – raising interest rates to their ‘natural’ level and a simple “depression” in consumption may be a simpler solution) (4) isn’t allowing an open debate (he keeps censoring me for some bizarre reason) and (5) to top it off accuses Austrians of being part-time scientists – when he is the King of Part Time Amateur Science (I could also accuse him of being King of Part Time Amateur Economics but that would be a cheap shot).

To think someone who censors an (open-minded!) Austrian is really interested in a fair intellectual fight on this issue is naive.