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“To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income.”
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Five podcasts from Chris Salewicz, author of a recent biography of Strummer.
links for 2007-06-25
25-Jun-07
My new favourite economist
24-Jun-07
Matthew Kahn, for his particular brand of sagacious trivia:
Last Wednesday morning I left Los Angeles to fly up to Vancouver. The flight was easy but when I was in the Vancouver airport trying to pass through customs I got stuck in a 2000 person line. Apparently, it is cruise ship season and every person trying to take the Love Boat to Alaska was there with me. How did I respond to this congestion? I called my wife and asked her to read me my email over the phone. She was more than happy to do this because I think she was looking for an opportunity (and my password) to see what silly stuff I receive in the mail. Unfortunately for her, she found my inbox filled with boring stuff. Fortunately for me, the crowd of people waiting to clear customs was getting angry like a crazy mob. Finally, they added many more customs agents and I got through.
links for 2007-06-22
22-Jun-07
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Excellent blog from an Engineers Without Borders volunteer in Ghana. Beautifully written too: “As I sleep, I know I’ll be hot. I’ll rotate throughout the night, trying to expose each part of my body to the night’s air, feeling like a pig on a spit”.
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Does exactly what it says on the tin.
links for 2007-06-19
19-Jun-07
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The news of 09/06/07 as it might have been reported in the Manchester Guardian of 1907. The style actually reads a bit like today’s New York Times. I like the treatment of the Paris Hilton story: “HEIRESS RETURNS TO GAOL.”
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Chris Morris recorded (surreptitiously) discussing his work in front of a bunch of very lucky students in Bournemouth.
links for 2007-06-16
16-Jun-07
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“Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray - a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate.” Chinua Achebe’s essay on Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Myth of the Useful Economist
14-Jun-07
Like the rational consumer I am, I see no reason to buy Bryan Caplan’s new book The Myth of the Rational Voter when there are skimmable summaries available for free online. As I understand it, Caplan’s thesis is that decisions about economic policy are too important to be left to ordinary people, because they are generally too stupid to understand what’s good for them. So democracies should have less influence over economics, and the size of government should be reduced according to the sagacious prescriptions of wise economists such as the author himself, who should perhaps be given some sort of ceremonial robes to wear (okay, I made up the last bit).
Caplan’s prime example is trade. People are too protectionist for their own good, he says, and this is due to what he calls ‘anti-foreign bias’. But Dani Rodrik has pointed out that the views of individuals on trade are usually quite rational, because they’re based not on the probable outcomes for themselves rather than society in the aggregate: in other words, “the evidence that people understand how trade will work out for their own pocketbook is strikingly strong”.
For the kind of people most likely to lose out through increased trade or immigration, what Caplan calls ‘anti-foreign’ bias may be more accurately described as ‘pro-self bias’. When he complains that some individuals are protectionist despite evidence that free trade brings aggregate benefits, Caplan is saying that he doesn’t see why people put their own interests ahead of the greater good. But isn’t that a perfectly rational thing to do?
For similar reasons, I’ve said in the past that free-traders should at the very least support more redistribution if they want people to actually support free trade. And this view is echoed from a political economy perspective in David Wessel’s recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, excerpted on Mark Thoma’s blog:
The Case for Taxing Globalization’s Big Winners, by David Wessel, Commentary, WSJ (free): A new argument is emerging among the pro-globalization crowd in the U.S…: Tax the rich more heavily to thwart an economically crippling political backlash against trade prompted by workers who see themselves — with some justification — as losers from globalization.
Unfortunately, Caplan doesn’t agree with redistribution, and thinks that the poor are poor because they are lazy as well as stupid - oh, and don’t forget probably violent drug-addicts to boot.
(To digress for a moment, I wonder whether this hostility stems from an emotional attachment to his idea of himself as someone so naturally brilliant he could have climbed to his current status out of the poorest of backgrounds - something we’ll have to take his word on, since he was instead unlucky enough to be raised in the comparatively undemanding milieu of the intellectual upper-middle class. The idea that free-market economists are a persecuted and cruelly misunderstood bunch seems to be a theme of his, so it’s possible that mythic struggle and valour are central to his identity or something.)
Anyway, the bottom line is that Caplan offers potential losers from economic changes absolutely nothing to cushion the blow - in fact, he seems to favour removing what little safety net there already is. You begin to see why he doesn’t have much faith in democracy to carry through his reforms.
Caplan is undoubtedly smart, and he has much to say that is of interest, but I think this self-confessed elitist’s lack of insight into others - and his lack of awareness of this flaw in himself - is his undoing. Ultimately, his inability to understand why ordinary people don’t embrace his cheery message of “Fuck You, Retards” marks him out as the irrational one.
links for 2007-06-12
12-Jun-07
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Best thing I read today, in several ways.
links for 2007-06-09
09-Jun-07
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“neoclassical economics, in both macro and micro forms, nearly invariably works on the basis of models in which there are no profits”. Discuss
links for 2007-06-08
08-Jun-07
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A well-deserved prize for a brilliant author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Half of a Yellow Sun is unforgettable, even if it might not be quite as good as her first novel.