An image just crossed my mind, of Nathan Robinson reading the Parable of Talents and immediately having an aneurysm. "Oh my," he cries Nathan-Robinsonly, "neoliberal free market fundamentalism has corrupted even the holy scriptures!"
At this point, we have more than ample evidence that Current Affairs is a dishonest publication. Its editor does not ever seem to receive meaningful editorial pushback before publishing – he uses the magazine as his own mouthpiece.
I think that you’ve done valuable work with this post. But it may also be better for all of us just to ignore Current Affairs. It has the truthfulness standards of paid political spokespeople. I can take issue with many magazines on the left and the right, but I don’t know a single one of them that takes so many liberties with the truth.
Nathan lost my respect when it obvious he never took libertarian socialism seriously. His magazine had a chance to become a workers co-opt and he worked hard to make sure that did not come to pass. A fundamentally unserious man.
I just had someone share this by those same authors/interviewees, embarrassingly committing many (and more!) of the same egregious errors. It got published in Democracy Journal, which I’m quite sorry to say, has dramatically reduced my faith in that publication, wholesale.
Tibor writes “In 1968, the federal minimum wage reached $1.60, which today (adjusted for inflation) would stand in the mid-teens.“
You are trying to make an income comparison over a span of nearly sixty years trying to achieve some sort of equivalence by adjusting for inflation only. That isn’t really meaningful as I illustrate here:
A lot of lefties are economically illiterate, but lefties understand bargaining power better than righties. Libertarians, for example, are completely blind to bargaining power.
There are very easy ways to refute neoliberalism and neoclassical economics more broadly. You have to attack their foundations. For example, you can actually disprove Pareto Efficiency as a useful concept, and from there, neoclassical economics essentially collapses. The neoclassical objection to monopolies is also patently absurd. Because you can overcome their objection by giving the monopolist even MORE power.
I listened to Hanauer's podcast for a while, Pitchfork Economics. The talking points you mention come back quite a bit, although it's a 15 dollar minimum wage they often say they strive for, not 30. Hanauer himself is not thaver radical Anyway, he likes the hundreds of millions he has on his bank account, but some of the guests might be (e g. Ingrid Robeyns after writing Limitarianism). When he criticizes economics, the scientific discipline, he does something many critics of economics do; he conflates what politicians say that economics says with what economists actually believe. He also seems to think most of insights in 'mainstream' economics are derived from 'neoclassical' supply-demand modeling only. This is of course old critique, likely to be at least partially outdated. But I do believe it's also the responsibility of economics to better explain what is they actually do and believe about the economy.
I wish there were more intellectually honest political thinkers like you.
Too kind. :) But thanks!
I feel like the root issue is an essential absence of model-level understanding of economic systems as governed by sets of interrelated mechanics.
An image just crossed my mind, of Nathan Robinson reading the Parable of Talents and immediately having an aneurysm. "Oh my," he cries Nathan-Robinsonly, "neoliberal free market fundamentalism has corrupted even the holy scriptures!"
At this point, we have more than ample evidence that Current Affairs is a dishonest publication. Its editor does not ever seem to receive meaningful editorial pushback before publishing – he uses the magazine as his own mouthpiece.
I think that you’ve done valuable work with this post. But it may also be better for all of us just to ignore Current Affairs. It has the truthfulness standards of paid political spokespeople. I can take issue with many magazines on the left and the right, but I don’t know a single one of them that takes so many liberties with the truth.
The first few issues of Current Affairs were promising. Then it became just standard progressivism.
Neoliberalism is entirely economic illiteracy, from beginning to end.
Nathan lost my respect when it obvious he never took libertarian socialism seriously. His magazine had a chance to become a workers co-opt and he worked hard to make sure that did not come to pass. A fundamentally unserious man.
Excellent piece, Tibor.
The authors of that piece are "soldiers", not "scouts".... and yet they're the ones getting paid.
I just had someone share this by those same authors/interviewees, embarrassingly committing many (and more!) of the same egregious errors. It got published in Democracy Journal, which I’m quite sorry to say, has dramatically reduced my faith in that publication, wholesale.
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/81/market-humanism-a-new-paradigm-for-a-new-era/
This is a good comment. There should be reputation costs for putting out garbage like this, and for redistributing it uncritically.
(Which doesn’t say too much, since I had read only a smattering of their articles previously.)
Tibor writes “In 1968, the federal minimum wage reached $1.60, which today (adjusted for inflation) would stand in the mid-teens.“
You are trying to make an income comparison over a span of nearly sixty years trying to achieve some sort of equivalence by adjusting for inflation only. That isn’t really meaningful as I illustrate here:
https://substack.com/@mikebertalex/note/c-292181069
A lot of lefties are economically illiterate, but lefties understand bargaining power better than righties. Libertarians, for example, are completely blind to bargaining power.
There are very easy ways to refute neoliberalism and neoclassical economics more broadly. You have to attack their foundations. For example, you can actually disprove Pareto Efficiency as a useful concept, and from there, neoclassical economics essentially collapses. The neoclassical objection to monopolies is also patently absurd. Because you can overcome their objection by giving the monopolist even MORE power.
Economically illiterate verse not understanding bargaining power. Former definitely seems worse. So all encompassing
I listened to Hanauer's podcast for a while, Pitchfork Economics. The talking points you mention come back quite a bit, although it's a 15 dollar minimum wage they often say they strive for, not 30. Hanauer himself is not thaver radical Anyway, he likes the hundreds of millions he has on his bank account, but some of the guests might be (e g. Ingrid Robeyns after writing Limitarianism). When he criticizes economics, the scientific discipline, he does something many critics of economics do; he conflates what politicians say that economics says with what economists actually believe. He also seems to think most of insights in 'mainstream' economics are derived from 'neoclassical' supply-demand modeling only. This is of course old critique, likely to be at least partially outdated. But I do believe it's also the responsibility of economics to better explain what is they actually do and believe about the economy.