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Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Chyd3nius — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:53:18 GMT

Competition between local governments helped liberalize Europe. Each step toward centralization is a step backward.

Exactly. Even if EU proposes some pseudo-liberatizations, the whole idea of political centralization is first step towards socialization. It has already happened and is happening in EU, even since its formation. Euro was more stable than some super-inflationary national currency in some country but it has caused a lot of other damage. I suggest to read The Tragedy of Euro if one disagrees. We need the competition of small governments.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Marko — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:22:59 GMT

Joking aside, how many of you imagine The Economist's history went like that? Starts out as a Liberal Party paper. Then gives space to fellow dissidents among Liberals. Then includes Walter Bagehot, one of the first to recommend countercyclical policy and bailouts. Eventually tries to broaden its reader base by broadening its range of writers to non-Liberals. Then becomes a mixture of conservatives, social democrats, liberals, radicals,.etc giving their collective inputs for each article. However, all others working are requested that even with their broad discretion, they are try to stick to some loosely liberal paradigm. That's likely what happened.

Much the same way, the Huffington Post was supposed to be a pure progressive blogger's site, but then includes a few not so progressive writers writing against immigration (okay, I am having a hard time finding the right article, so don't believe me until I find it!), and then you have MSNBC regularly putting on Patrick Buchanan, who has some contrarian views on women being in the army and other things unimaginable to the regular viewing crowd.

The idea is that even with a particular bent, some heterodoxy is slowly brought in, so that the media outlet does not seem like the editor's own sounding board.

And jet, with all the rainbow coalition of opinion going on, there are some views that are never going to be given space in there.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Prateek Sanjay — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:37:16 GMT

Hmmm, you know, that reminds me. Economic Thought, Jonathan Catalan's blog, is going to expand to include some non-free-market and non-Austrian co-bloggers. Can't wait for the day when it becomes known as an activist government supporting blog! :D

Joking aside, how many of you imagine The Economist's history went like that? Starts out as a Liberal Party paper. Then gives space to fellow dissidents among Liberals. Then includes Walter Bagehot, one of the first to recommend countercyclical policy and bailouts. Eventually tries to broaden its reader base by broadening its range of writers to non-Liberals. Then becomes a mixture of conservatives, social democrats, liberals, radicals,.etc giving their collective inputs for each article. However, all others working are requested that even with their broad discretion, they are try to stick to some loosely liberal paradigm. That's likely what happened.

Much the same way, the Huffington Post was supposed to be a pure progressive blogger's site, but then includes a few not so progressive writers writing against immigration (okay, I am having a hard time finding the right article, so don't believe me until I find it!), and then you have MSNBC regularly putting on Patrick Buchanan, who has some contrarian views on women being in the army and other things unimaginable to the regular viewing crowd.

The idea is that even with a particular bent, some heterodoxy is slowly brought in, so that the media outlet does not seem like the editor's own sounding board.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

ulrichPf — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:25:07 GMT

The economist was interesting to read when they wrote about things like the Brazilian orange industry, or their famous Big Mac index. After their support of the bailouts, endorsing a big government president and support for a Carbon tax, I no longer subcribed and no longer visit their web page either. Even their witty style they used for some of their articles vanished with time. Its not the worst magazine out there, but not what it used to be, and not worth paying for.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

John James — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:43:27 GMT

James:
Reason and CATO are minarchist, Nico. Ron Paul is a minarchist.

While I agree with your refutation that The Economist is certainly not a minarchist newspaper, I wouldn't be so sure that Ron Paul is...[1] [2]

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

John James — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:40:19 GMT

LeeO:
So, what do you think fellow readers? Is this rag as bad as I make it out?

I pretty much completely agree with your assessment. I also found it well written. Enjoyed reading it. Kudos.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

LeeO — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:17:53 GMT

You people need to stop worrying about cosmopolitan government so much.

It is not particularly different from the supposedly more enlightened "local" government, which is capable of as many absurdities as any centralized government. Knowledge problem aside, the adverse incentive problems of governments don't change at any level.

The difference is size. A centralized government can impose its absurdities on more people, and reduces the alternatives. Competition between local governments helped liberalize Europe. Each step toward centralization is a step backward.

What you should have appreciated is that these cosmopolitan governments - in some respects - have reduced legislative control over certain sectors.

It's hard to appreciate a reduction is legislative control that is accompanied by a much larger increase in legislative control. The centralization of government is usually accompanied by vast increases in the government's power.

Inflation? Now that European governments have given up monetary sovereignty, they can not reduce their debt burden using inflation, and they have a harder time using banking priority sector laws to divert funds to their own government-based projects. It has forced these governments to economize and work with strained resources for the first time, instead of being encouraged to be uneconomical with the moral hazard that comes from low-interest lending.

This seems like a short term benefit. There is still a European central bank that can inflate at will and will undoubtedly wreak havoc in the future.

By dividing power between a cosmopolitan government and national government, various governments have found it harder to thump their feet and throw out an arbitrary legislation with possibly adverse unintended consequences - in some respects, while the new cosmopolitan government has no power when national governments refuse to accept their mandate. Interestingly, it has resulted in a beneficial situation in which governments can't do one thing or another thing. For the longest time, Greek government could neither devalue nor deliberately default nor be wastefully given bailout funds that encourage its fiscal imprudence. You think that's a bad thing?

Gridlock is great, but eventually someone will win the power struggle. My bet is on Brussels. I recommend you read this article by Anthony de Jasay on the matter of the European Union: part 1, part 2

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Praetyre — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:10:04 GMT

I personally loathe ideological puritanism, but even I draw the line of actual classical liberalism at globalist cheerleading (not to mention AGWism) and support for "stimulus spending".There are many mainstream conservatives who oppose the EU, let alone classical liberals. Same goes for global warmingism. I've even seen many Tea Party folks criticise the porkulus. If even these people are opposed to these things (though some admittedly pay them only lip service), I don't see how that makes the Economist anything more than a centrist magazine with internationalist leanings regarding free trade and globalization. And even Paul Krugman is generally good on these issues.

Obviously, this doesn't make everything the magazine says wrong or invalid, but let's call a spade a spade here. I'm all for a big tent policy, but I draw the line of that "tent" roughly at a Reason/Cato level minus the federalism.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

LeeO — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:49:30 GMT

You can take the best out of this magazine and LEAVE THE REST.

You're right - that is an intelligent and reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately, I have fallen prey to the seemingly universal human need to complain.

It deals with how every issue more complicated than people claim - how both sides are often wrong, off topic, and not even dealing what something is about at all.

But that's exactly how I feel about the content provided by the Mises Institute. It explains how the current political debate consists mainly of mindless, distracting rhetoric and provides an alternative that appreciates the complexity of human action and the free market. The Economist merely regurgitates mainstream talking points and takes a middle-of-the-road approach. All the details about cocoa prices and whatnot serve to engage an intelligent reader, but that reader is still imprisoned by the false paradigm of left and right. Or as Tom Woods would say, confined between Mitt Romney and Hilary Clinton.

At least it is not a magazine for five-year-olds, such as Time Magazine.

Time magazine creates stupid drones. The Economist creates smart drones who will become bureaucrats. The smart drones are much more dangerous.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

James — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:01:20 GMT

Because it pretends to be liberal, and a non-liberal writer is only worth reading if he doesn't pretend to be a liberal? It's a business decision - this magazine was founded by the Liberal Party, and they have to at least keep a semblance of their ancient reputation.

A non-liberal writer who admits as much is simply mistaken A non-liberal writer who pretends to be liberal is both mistaken and a liar.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

EconomistInTraining — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:39:42 GMT

First of all, props to Prateek Sanjay, I've been meaning to mention that you're one of the most reasonable and informed posters on these forums for a while now, never got around to it.

As for The Economist, there was an article somewhere about its targetted audience. I don't remember exactly where it was, I found it through MR, but the jist of the article was the throughout the years The Economist has tried to market itself as the magazine for educated individuals. Presumably for them being a somewhat efficient way of signalling their intelligence, and that moreover this strategy has largely worked and indeed, the readers are definitely way to the right of the intelligence/ education distributions.

Tangent aside, The Economist is generally a very sensible publication, way ahead of Time. Sure, it's a little more pro-government than most libertarians would feel comfortable, both in terms of economic analysis and value judgements. But... a lot of what fills the pages of The Economist, is pretty sound economics that few people besides left wing nuts should have a problem with it. When it goes into macro issues things become a little less clear, in any case though, its less in favour of big government than the mainstream of political discourse in almost any society I can think of, meanwhile meaning to stay relatively free from ideological blinders and crankiness (which Cato often falls into).

And for libertarians that should be a good thing, all the more so given the lack of any other alternatives.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Nico — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:49:20 GMT

The type of analysis those groups do is not so far removed from that of the Economist, barring certain traits specific to American conservatism (eg isolationism) and the fact that they are more polemic whereas the Economist focuses mostly on factual reporting. I don't see where you get the "ministry in Washington or Brussels" vibe from as they are generally staunch defenders of private property and freedom of speech.

That said, maybe you are right in the sense that "minarchism" is not such an appropriate term. At any rate, the Economist belongs to the European classical liberal tradition in most aspects, though I will grant that its slide towards acceptance of certain Keynesian precepts is worrying.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

James — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:45:12 GMT

Reason and CATO are minarchist, Nico. Ron Paul is a minarchist.

Do you think "minarchist" means anyone who isn't a complete totalitarian? If you think there's one little aspect about life that shouldn't be up to a ministry in Washington or Brussels to regulate and control, does that make you a libertarian? :p

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Nico — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:52:42 GMT

It is far from perfect, but it is the best mainstream "classical liberal" magazine. I reached my highest point of loathing when they approved of stimulus spending in 2008, but IMO it remains very valuable for anyone who wants to see liberal and economic ideas spread further.

You do have to understand that it is a classical liberal (minarchist) magazine, not an anarcho-capitalist one. So yes, they do believe that government must be reformed rather than eliminated, that international integration (like the EU) is a good thing, etc.

Re: Reflections on reading The Economist

Andris Birkmanis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:04:01 GMT

I agree with BlackNumero on this one.

how many Marxist "debunkings" of the socialist economic calculation problem can one person read before going insane?

The way I've chosen to keep my (presumed) sanity is to subscribe to the Economist on Facebook, and share links to its articles with my FB friends - with a short commentary (of a "Well, actually that would do blah blah blah blah" kind).