Reihan: Hurray for Dani Rodrik!

I say that as a general matter about the "heterodox" economist, who has done a tremendous amount to usefully complicate our thinking about trade barriers, capital flows, import substitution, the welfare state, and other issues falling under the rubric of globalization. His weblog is a delight.

I particularly like him for the reason I like his frequent interlocutor Tyler Cowen: I think Rodrik suffers from the some of the same cognitive biases that I do, in favor of the interesting answer and the interesting outcome. This leads me, and I think Rodrik, to sometimes underemphasize some obvious yet important truths.

But this specific "hurray" is for this short post, or at least the principle behind it. My hope is that the generation of lefty intellectuals represented by Chris Hayes, Brad Plumer, Dan Kurtz-Phelan, and Sasha Polakow-Suransky, and of course the Stakhanovites Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein, will displace books like The Shock Doctrine. That, alas, will take a while.

P.S.- From a reliably smart friend:

I'm fairly certain that the Naomi Klein review that Rodrik links to is written by someone who didn't read the book.