In 2009, UC Berkeley Economics Professor and former Clinton adviser Brad DeLong took a potshot at David Harvey on his blog. Headlined “Department of ‘Huh?’,” and beginning “Why neoclassical economics is an absolutely wonderful thing,” the post quotes eleven straight paragraphs from a Harvey essay, which DeLong proceeds to ridicule.

For DeLong, the essay is contentless waffle. It strings together economic concepts without making an economic argument. He would call it “intellectual masturbation,” except it “does not feel good at all.” Only in the eleventh paragraph does he find “the suggestion of a shadow of an argument.” Here Harvey argues that the US stimulus package is bound to fail because the deficit needs to be financed by foreign powers, and the amount of Treasury bonds it will be able to sell to the likes of the Chinese central bank will not fund a big enough stimulus. DeLong responds that this is a question that requires a theory of the bond market and interest rates, which Harvey does not provide: “The question is thus not can government deficit spending be financed . . . the question is at what interest rate will financial markets finance that deficit spending.”

Harvey responded with some anger at “the arrogance of the neoclassical economists”: