Economics Nobel Prize winners and text-book authors, against Trump(ism)

Paul Krugman and Jonathan Gruber had a very interesting video conversation a few weeks ago, about the (officially) so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Krugman won an Economics Nobel Prize and is the co-author of a famous textbook on introductory economics. Jonathan Gruber participated in the design of Obama’s health care reform and is the author of an excellent undergraduate textbook on public economics. Paul Krugman’s Substack is one of the best resources of the resistance. I strongly recommend it.

The Nobel Prize Joseph Stiglitz has also written numerous op-eds criticizing the Trump adminstration and his attemps to erode democracy in the USA. He was one of seven Economics Nobel Prize winners co-authoring an article in French newspaper Le Monde arguing in favor of a wealth tax, a taboo for those supporting Trump and his tax-cutting policies. Other signatories included Daron Acemoglu (also author of an introductory economics textbook), Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee.

I could listen in person to the almost desperate criticisms of Banerjee to Trump on occasion of a recent visit of his to Barcelona.

Justin Wolfers is one of the economists that has been more active in the traditional and social media denouncing the policies of the current US administration. He is also the author of another introductory economics textbook.

All these textbooks are mainstream, traditional economics textbooks. Of course, if you use more innovative materials such as those in CORE, with its focus on fairness (in addition of efficiency), climate change, inequality and other big global challenges of our time, you would not find any reason to support the crazy policies of Trump and what is left of the Republican Party.

This trend has to be put in the context of science, in this case social science, necessarily being used to resist policies that defy reason. It is true that 22 Nobel Prize winners endorsed Kamala Harris and that was of little use.

Economists have moved to the left and the right has moved further to the right (or to the autocratic and xenophobic wilderness), because reality has a well-known liberal (progressive, in Europe) bias, as Paul Krugman says.

How to connect this scientific mobilization with grassroots and political mobilization is a challenge that cannot be postponed. Climate change, tariffs, immigration… all these are areas where there is a scientific consensus in economics that defies the policies of the Trump administration (and the trumpists beyond the USA) and that aligns with the interests of the vast majority of citizens.

Strictly economic damage is not the main reason to oppose Trump, although there is a scientific consensus on the economic damage that his economic policies will cause. But good economists are not only concerned about purely economic or financial indicators, they are also concerned about wellbeing and freedom. These are lessons that one can learn from other Economics Nobel Prize winners such as Amartya Sen or Kenneth Arrow. Their ideas are today the new orthodoxy and are more important than ever.

What does it mean to be Catalan today?

The BBC program “The Travel Show” is this week-end devoted to Catalonia. The main message is that behind the touristic façade, there is a strong cultural identity.

The narrative of the program is simple: four features symbolize the Catalan identity today, the football club FC Barcelona (Barça), the human towers (castells), a food tradition (calçots), and a political desire for Independence.

Reality is more complex and richer than that. I don’t have much to say about castells and calçots except that they are great.

About Barça, I recommend that anyone interested reads the book “Barça” by Simon Kuper, especially the chapter connecting the complex political reality of Catalonia with the history of the club. It is true that there is a connection between Barça and the resistance to Francoism, although some Barça officials (as many members of the Catalan bourgeoisie and upper classes) supported General Franco’s dictatorship.

Not all football fans in Catalonia are Barça fans (I am). And not all Barça fans have the same political preferences. Barça also has many fans in the rest of Spain (and increasingly in the rest of the world).

On the desire for Independence, things are much more complex than the simplistic narrative of the program suggests. Unfortunately, the only local expert and politician to talk in The Travel Show is Rafael Ribó, a controversial politician that as regional ombudsman, failed to prevent or criticize the erosion of institutions that characterized the Independence drive between 2014 and 2017 (the years of the Scottish referendum, the Brexit referendum and the first Trump victory).

Catalonia is much more diverse than suggested in the program. The regional official statistical office (Idescat) has an excellent document called “Catalonia in figures.” It explains that our community has gained 2 million inhabitants in the last 25 years. Its today more than 8 million inhabitants include 18% of foreign people, many children of foreign people, and many people that descend from families born in other Spainsh regions. The most mentioned as “first language” is Spanish, although 80% of the population are at least bilingual (Catalan and Spanish, with an increasing proportion of people knowing English and many people speaking other languages, such as Arabic).

Another official body, the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió, in charge of sociological studies, in its last barometer, says that 38% of the population are in favor of Independence, and 54% against. If several options are offered in addition to Independence (such as federalism, or centralism), support for Independence drops to 28%.

It’s not true, as the presenter says in the progam, that on 2017 a majority of Catalans voted in favour of Independence. There was an illegal referendum (organized by the pro-independence parties), where those against Independence largely refused to participate. This kind of referendums are illegal in all developed countries with a written Constitution. Although there was no neutral official body in charge of counting the votes, everybody accepts that participation was less than 50%.

Catalonia is a plural, diverse society. In addition to castells and calçots (and beaches, the Ramblas, Gaudí, Dalí, and many famous authors writing in Spanish such as Cercas, Mendoza or Vila-Matas), we have an open community that shares many of the problems of a developed region or country today.

I believe that a great majority are in favour of a tolerant society that wants to preserve its language (shared with other regions) in the context of an increasingly multilingual, multi-ethnic, and well connected and interdependent community. The most famous Barça players of yesterday and today (Messi, Lamine Yamal) are immigrants or children of immigrants that reflect better the complexity of our society than travel shows on TV.

The program says that Independence today has taken a back seat. This is true.

So, what does it mean to be Catalan today? As the democratically elected current President of the Catalan government, the socialist and federalist Salvador Illa said, a Catalan is anyone that lives here and wants to improve Catalonia.