Thursday, December 30, 2004
(1:55 PM) | Anonymous:
What's With "The Economist"?
I confess: I enjoy reading The Economist. Its articles are invariably well-written, I find its style engaging, and it provides a breadth of coverage that's hard to find--where else could I learn about the odd policies of the King of Swaziland, the Japanese banking industry, and the collapse of phosphate mining in Nauru, possibly all in the same issue? I even agree with their editorial stance much of the time--pro-gay marriage, anti-Don Rumsfeld, they even endorsed John Kerry (albeit so grudgingly that they might as well have endorsed no one). And their website today has an excellent article on exploding inequality in the US, one that basically dismisses the idea of meritocracy in the US as a myth.But on economic issues, they're still stridently neoliberal (or simply liberal, for our European readers)--deeply suspicious of government intervention in the economy, dismissive of continental European social welfare states (and skeptical about the EU), and apparently still convinced that the only thing developing countries really need is lots more free trade and a lot less government intervention. Frankly, the Economist's editorial staff wouldn't be out of place in the US Democratic Party--proof of how far we've fallen when the closest thing we have to a left party would be considered conservative in Europe.
I know many of this site's readers and contributors would say this sort of hand-wringing is pointless--The Economist is no great friend to the left and never has been. But I think it's indicative of how completely neoliberal economic views have been absorbed into our thinking. The Economist, the Democratic Party both pay lip service to progressive social policies, but their economic views are, at best, moderate versions of the most extreme ideas of the Republican Party. Any talk of the unpleasant (and unpleasant) consequences of free-market capitalism as it's currently envisioned has been relegated to the fringes.
This won't work. Progressive social policies and progressive economic policies can't be separated. It's not possible to combine economic equality and equal protection under the law for all with an economic program that thrives on upheaval and seeks maximum freedom for corporations, which at their core are inherently amoral (not exactly evil, perhaps, but not remotely driven by moral considerations). A society with an every-man-for-himself economic policy is one inherently atomised and divided.
Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. The landscape's certainly different in Europe, and I'm only drawing on examples from the US and Britain. It's just very irritating to read articles I often agree with in a magazine whose principles I find so contradictory. Likewise, it's deeply depressing to know I voted for a party operating on the same contradiction. One which shows no signs of being discussed any time soon.
