# Quote — Paul R. Krugman, Pop Internationalism

> That's a hard answer to accept, especially for those American policy intellectuals who recoil from the dreary task of reducing deficits and raising the national savings rate. But economics is not a dismal science because the economists like it that way; it is because in the end we must submit to the tyranny not just of the numbers, but of the logic they express.

- Author: [Paul R. Krugman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman.md)
- Book: [Pop Internationalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/pop-internationalism.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman#Pop_Internationalism_(1996)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/pop-internationalism/thats-a-hard

## More from this book

> So let's start telling the truth: competitiveness is a meaningless word when applied to national economies. And the obsession with competitiveness is both wrong and dangerous.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/pop-internationalism/so-lets-start.md)

> If growth in East Asia is indeed running into diminishing returns, however, the conventional wisdom about an Asian-centered world economy needs some rethinking.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/pop-internationalism/if-growth-in-east.md)

> This article makes three points. First, it argues that concerns about competitiveness are, as an empirical matter, almost completely unfounded. Second, it tries to explain why defining the economic problem as one of international competition is nonetheless so attractive to so many people. Finally, it argues that the obsession with competitiveness is not only wrong but dangerous, skewing domestic policies and threatening the international economic system.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/pop-internationalism/this-article-makes.md)