
Is The Economist left- or right-wing? - dmmalam
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/economist-explains-itself-0
======
cia_plant
The economist is further left than throwback traditionalist movements like
Islamism or the US Evangelical Right, on the rightward side of the consensus
liberal-democratic center, certainly right of socialist movements. It uses a
sort of high-handed pseudo-objective tone but is actually highly political and
opinionated.

~~~
dmazin
This is pretty much the best short description of The Economist's editorial
policy I've seen, though I don't think like you do that it has a pretense of
objective tone. For one, literally the entire article you just discussed
openly regards The Economist's editorial stance (i.e. bias).

~~~
dmerfield
The best description of The Economist's editorial position I've come across is
the one mentioned in the linked article: classically liberal. The preceding
comment about left-and-right clarifies nothing and is ironic given that the
original article rejects the left-right characterization.

Also, you only need to read a few articles in the Economist before coming
across the phrase 'this newspaper believes' which should eradicate any
suspicions of objectivity, pseudo or otherwise.

~~~
slurry
'Classically liberal' is a gesture of self-congratulation, not a useful
descriptor.

~~~
thomaspaine
How so? "Classically liberal" is a way of differentiating oneself from the
modern definition of liberal and is basically a friendly way of saying
"libertarian" without invoking images of Glen Beck.

~~~
nickff
'Classical liberal' evokes thoughts of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who have
little in common with the staff of 'The Economist'. 'The Economist' is not
alone in claiming this mantle, as Alan Wolfe has made similar statements
(though his claim may be on shakier ground), but it is speculative and
presumptive. The classical liberals did not envision many policies put forward
by this magazine, and it is doubtful that Smith and Ricardo would have
supported them.

~~~
legutierr
> ...and it is doubtful that Smith and Ricardo would have supported them.

Examples?

~~~
nickff
Well, the simplest evidence of the statement you quoted is that they did not
even agree with each other on many issues. A slightly less glib answer is that
many of the policies which "The Economist" endorses, including fiscal, and
monetary policy did not exist at the time, and/or were dismissed.[1][2][there
are many more possible citations]

If you want to understand Smith and Ricardo's views in full, I suggest that
you read "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" and
"On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation". There is simply no
evidence in either of those books that the classical economists would support
many policies outlined in "The Economist", other than free trade and free
markets. The books describe more limited roles for government than you will
find in the magazine.

It is equally obvious that the current classical, neoclassical, and Austrians
have not and do not agree with "The Economist"'s advocacy for activist
policies. Note: I view the Austrian school as the most evolved direct
descendant of the classical school.

[1] Adam Smith-“The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority
that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved
money.” [2]
[http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/bullion](http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/bullion)

------
auctiontheory
I've been reading The Economist for well over thirty years. In England I think
it's clearly identified as a paper of the right. (Correct me if I'm mistaken.)

The only reason it might not be seen as right wing in the US, is that the
right wing here is so batsh*t crazy: Banning abortion and birth control,
blaming gay people for earthquakes, carrying assault rifles around in public,
genuinely believing that the world is 6000 years old - these are not part of
educated discourse in the rest of the OECD.

~~~
altoz
> Correct me if I'm mistaken

Some corrections about the US:

\- Abortion is legal as is birth control.

\- A very few crazy people blame gay people for earthquakes but I'm sure such
people exist everywhere.

\- Very few people carry assault rifles around in public.

\- Very few people believe the world is 6000 years old. Again, I'm sure such
people exist everywhere.

Please, stop caricaturing.

~~~
jonmrodriguez
" Since 1982, between 40% and 50% of adults in the United States say they hold
the creationist view that 'God created humans in their present form at one
time within the last 10,000 years'. "

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism)

~~~
bhauer
I don't know a thing about religion or theology, so take this with a huge
grain of salt.

But I still don't really buy the accuracy of these numbers for the matter at
hand here. I suspect that when asked by a pollster, someone who answers
affirmative to this question is doing so because their religion has told them
to believe that.

The pollster probably doesn't ask a follow-up question of the form, "C'mon,
really?" I suspect the answer would often be, "Yeah, not really. But the
priest/minister/religion-dude/whatever says it a whole bunch, plus it's in
that book we are forced to read over and over."

People like to have their pet beliefs that they know to be factually
incorrect. I like to believe my taste in music is superior to just about
everyone else's. But it's not.

Apologies for my sacrilege here if you are religious.

~~~
jlgreco
> _The pollster probably doesn 't ask a follow-up question of the form,
> "C'mon, really?" I suspect the answer would often be, "Yeah, not really. But
> the priest/minister/religion-dude/whatever says it a whole bunch, plus it's
> in that book we are forced to read over and over."_

Yes, if the pollster started bullying people who answered one way, that would
probably warp the results... those polls are performed by polling
organizations that are well regarded because they _don 't_ try to warp their
polling results like that.

The mere fact that so many Americans would answer that way, even if they
didn't honestly believe it 6 days out of the week, is 1) notable, 2)
disturbing.

------
nickff
This editorial is self-serving in the extreme.

> _When The Economist opines on new ideas and policies, it does so on the
> basis of their merits, not of who supports or opposes them. Last October,
> for example, it outlined a programme of reforms to combat inequality._

Most people believe that they make judgments based on merits, but that does
not make it so. Even avoiding ad hominem arguments provides no guarantee of
objectivity. For example: this idea that inequality is a problem is completely
normative, and the ability of policymakers to solve it from the top down is
unproven, and still uncertain. In addition, making US presidential
endorsements (democratic for the last 3 elections) does not help them look
like an impartial spectator in the political game.

The proposals which "The Economist" proposes do not always align with any
specific political or interest group, but they are almost universally
(monetarily or fiscally) activist.

~~~
entangld
Who can guarantee objectivity? No one. That doesn't mean it is not possible to
pursue it or even gain a good measure of it. Do you really believe it makes
the Economist look partisan to support Democrats since 2004? What about before
that?

From 1996 - 2012 it was Dole, Bush, Kerry, Obama, Obama.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/us...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/us-
presidential-endorsements)

Isn't it possible to support certain ideals no matter which party they come
from? The fact that their proposals do not always align with specific interest
groups supports a claim of impartiality.

~~~
nickff
I agree with you that it is difficult, and perhaps impossible to measure or
achieve objectivity, but that is what they claim to have already done.

In addition, it is somewhat absurd to pretend that a magazine takes a
position, when it is really the editorial board that makes all the decisions.
If one wants to examine any potential biases, one should examine the record of
each editor or columnist, not the entire 100+ year history of a collection of
their works.

I also agree with you that they may not have any source-based bias, but their
claims are much broader:

> _The Economist has no permanent address on the left-right scale._

------
sybhn
Although I don't always agree with the Economist's position, e.g. right to
bear arms, it's always refreshing to read a media that is not pigeon holed
into the traditional left / right that we today are accustomed to. Liberal in
values, conservative in its economic views, while not being to the extreme of
today's libertarians. Total win imo ;)

~~~
steve19
What is their stance on the right to bear arms? Do you have a citation.

~~~
skwirl
They are a U.K. publication. As far as I know, there isn't much diversity of
opinion on the topic of gun control in the U.K.

They don't like guns, but they don't like impractical or pointless gun control
measures either.

------
vijayboyapati
The Economist paints itself as classically liberal, but this is something of a
farce. They criticized Mises, sometimes called the last knight of liberalism,
for his liberalism. And they have been consistently pro-war for the last
decade. What is classically liberal about that? Not to mention they favour all
kinds of economic interventionism - boosting demand by "stimulus" for
instance, is one of their go-to suggestions for an economy in depression.
Classical liberals of the 19th century would recoil in horror at the
Economist's current "classical liberalism"

~~~
dubfan
> Mises, sometimes called the last knight of liberalism

By whom?

~~~
npongratz
>> Mises, sometimes called the last knight of liberalism

>By whom?

Jörg Guido Hülsmann wrote a book titled _Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism_
(2007):

[https://mises.org/daily/6022/](https://mises.org/daily/6022/)

PDF and epub here:

[https://mises.org/document/3295/Mises-The-Last-Knight-of-
Lib...](https://mises.org/document/3295/Mises-The-Last-Knight-of-Liberalism)

------
reubensutton
I always admire The Economist's willingness to have political ideals, be
explicit and unapologetic about them and to be pragmatic about them. It's an
attitude that should be standard in the media.

~~~
arjunnarayan
It is standard in British media.

~~~
001sky
I always wondered if that was because the British media are full of students
of _English_ , while the US is stuck with students of _journalism_ (eg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity)).
The latter seems to correlate with a _delusion of grandeur_.

------
scrollbar
I cancelled my Economist subscription recently due to finding myself
frustrated with their political bias. It seems they often assert controversial
opinions as accepted truth. I would much prefer that any statements of policy
preference were backed up by references, data, or at least given with a nod to
opposing viewpoints. Although, that would probably make publishing on a weekly
schedule more difficult.

~~~
Angostura
> due to finding myself frustrated with their political bias.

... in which direction?

~~~
scrollbar
Echoing what they said in the linked article, it doesn't fit into a left/right
paradigm, so "direction" might not be the right word. Instead I'd elaborate:
editors there have opinions about political matters, and they frame their own
political opinions as fact.

------
nchuhoai
IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social
and rightie in economic questions. To me the biggest challenge/question is how
we can escape the current "local optimum" we are in in which you have to
effectively choose between social and economic values (at least in the US).

It seems highly unlikely that we will see the emergence of a third party, so I
wonder when either the Democrats or Republicans realize the potential of being
a true centralist majority party. I tend to think that Democrats are better
positioned, but thought that in the 2012 Elections, the Republicans had a
great shot with Huntsman.

~~~
dragonwriter
> IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social
> and rightie in economic questions.

I think that, to the extent the economic half of that is true, its only on the
very high level, where almost everyone holds what is generally held out as the
economically conservative view of "government should expend resources only on
those things which are essential government functions".

What distinguishes people rather radically is what they see as essential
functions of government.

> To me the biggest challenge/question is how we can escape the current "local
> optimum" we are in in which you have to effectively choose between social
> and economic values (at least in the US).

Its not really all that difficult: having an electoral system that produces
more proportional representation results in more than two viable parties and
more than one main axis of political variation. This is well demonstrated
among developed democracies.

> so I wonder when either the Democrats or Republicans realize the potential
> of being a true centralist majority party.

There is no advantage to that if you have actual policy preferences that are
not centralist.

And there's a big disadvantage to it if political views tend to be bimodally
distributed rather than normally distributed.

~~~
pyoung
That's not necessarily true. Proportional representation often has the
undesirable side effect of dramatically increasing the power of small minority
parties. The reason is that in order to gain majority control of the
government larger parties often have to make significant concessions to a
smaller minority party to get the votes. Also, you can end up with a lot of
gridlock if no coalition can reach majority.

Two party systems have it's flaws, but what we are seeing now is more typical
of a proportional system. Due to overly effective gerrymandering, the
Republican hold on many congressional districts is so secure that the only
real threat to those seats is from party extremists. Under our normal two
party system with less polarized districts, extremist politicians couldn't win
in general elections, but now that so many Republican districts are so secure,
the party has essentially been captured by extremists (it's not a stretch to
call the Tea Party a third party). In the past, the two party system worked by
consensus, the more moderate members of each party would work together to
carve out solutions to a problem, and keep in mind, the more moderate party
members were typically from contested districts, so they needed to demonstrate
leadership and good results to get re-elected. The end result was that the
party that demonstrated the best leadership would get re-elected.

The Republican 'take no prisoners' strategy can probably be traced back to
Gingrich. We are now seeing a culmination of that strategy, and I think most
would agree that it has backfired. If I was in the business of making bold
predictions, I think I would bet that the Republican party might get replaced
by a new, more moderate party in the next 20 years. More realistically, they
are going to shift back to the middle. Two party systems won't work otherwise,
and our government isn't really designed to allow multiple parties.

~~~
dragonwriter
> That's not necessarily true.

What's not necessarily true?

> Proportional representation often has the undesirable side effect of
> dramatically increasing the power of small minority parties. The reason is
> that in order to gain majority control of the government larger parties
> often have to make significant concessions to a smaller minority party to
> get the votes.

To the extent that's an effect of PR, its mostly an effect of PR _in a
parliamentary system_ , where one needs a stable majority in the main house of
the national legislature to establish a government administration.

If you keep the structure of the US government but change the electoral system
for the Congress to one which produces more proportional responses, you don't
have the same degree of incentive for disproportionate concessions to a minor
party to form an administration.

> Two party systems have it's flaws, but what we are seeing now is more
> typical of a proportional system.

Er, no, dysfunction caused by extremism in the activist base which has
disproportionate influence over one or both of the major parties is pretty
typical of a two-party system, not a proportional system, as in a system which
structurally can support more competitive parties, such extremism will more
quickly drive moderates into other (existing or new) parties, and is thereby
limited.

> Due to overly effective gerrymandering, the Republican hold on many
> congressional districts is so secure that the only real threat to those
> seats is from party extremists.

That's not due to "overly effective gerrymandering" (the fact that Republicans
have substantially greater share of House seats than their vote share may be,
but there is pretty much no way to divide up single-member, FPTP districts in
the US that _isn 't_ going to result in lots of safe seats for both parties --
heck, a lot of Senate seats are similarly safe seats, and they _can 't_ be
gerrymandered.)

And, in any case, _gerrymandering itself_ is a high-stakes operation that can
seriously effect representation only in single-member, FPTP districts, so
insofar as the current problem is a result of gerrymandering, it is a direct
result of the structure of the electoral system.

> Under our normal two party system with less polarized districts, extremist
> politicians couldn't win in general elections, but now that so many
> Republican districts are so secure, the party has essentially been captured
> by extremists (it's not a stretch to call the Tea Party a third party).

If you look at the history of the US, a national two-party system with
extremely polarized districts and often a large number of states each
effectively dominated by a single one of the two major parties is the norm,
not an exceptional state. Your idea of "our normal two party system" is
unconnected to reality.

And, yes, its a stretch to call the Tea Party a third party; since shortly
after it became visible on the national stage its support has usually been
about equal to that of the Republican Party (sometimes a bit more, and
sometimes a bit less) and, more to the point, almost entirely overlapped with
that of the Republican Party. The Tea Party is just a new branding for the
activist base of the Republican Party.

> In the past, the two party system worked by consensus, the more moderate
> members of each party would work together to carve out solutions to a
> problem, and keep in mind, the more moderate party members were typically
> from contested districts, so they needed to demonstrate leadership and good
> results to get re-elected.

In the past, the two major parties largely represented different _regional_
interests, but represent the same kind of elites, to the extent that their
platforms differed it was more driven by difference in the interests of the
capitalist class is different regions rather than ideological differences;
this started to break down in the New Deal era in a major ideological
realignment of the parties, which wasn't really complete until Clinton's first
term. The main drivers for this were probably the labor movement and the
reaction against it and the development of mass media which facilitated the
development of national ideological communities.

> The Republican 'take no prisoners' strategy can probably be traced back to
> Gingrich.

Sure, the 1994 Contract with America was a watershed moment of the solidiying
ideological alignment of America's two parties.

> We are now seeing a culmination of that strategy, and I think most would
> agree that it has backfired.

That's what people said after Gingrich did the same thing and "failed". The
thing is, it hasn't really failed -- that is, done any worse than _not_ doing
it -- either for the interests it served, or for the people who executed it
who, even if they lose elected office, will end up in well-paid sinecures in
the network of corporate, media, and propaganda/think-tank operations that
support the ideological Right. Which is why the "defeats" suffered by Gingrich
_isn 't_ seen as a defeat -- its only a defeat from a perspective which keeps
score by political offices held, not substantive influence exercised.

> If I was in the business of making bold predictions, I think I would bet
> that the Republican party might get replaced by a new, more moderate party
> in the next 20 years. More realistically, they are going to shift back to
> the middle.

Sure, what I'd say that's the most likely case: what we are seeing right now
is an extended rear-guard action by a faction that maintains disproportionate
influence on government despite its shrinking support; if it doesn't turn
around support for its ideology, its either going to be replaced as the
dominant faction of a major party, have the major party it is the dominant
faction of replaced, or establish a non-democratic regime, and the latter
seems like the least likely alternative by far.

But the kind of extended rear-guard action it is fighting is only possible
because it this faction is both the activist and funding base of a major party
in a two-party system. In a proportional system, it wouldn't be possible.

~~~
pyoung
I was making some very large generalizations in my original comment for the
sake of brevity and argument. Thank you for taking the time to pick them
apart;)

> If you keep the structure of the US government but change the electoral
> system for the Congress to one which produces more proportional responses,
> you don't have the same degree of incentive for disproportionate concessions
> to a minor party to form an administration.

My original point was that the Tea Party has essentially shown that a more
proportional system of government isn't any more functional or effective than
a two party system. The Tea Party has essentially captured the Republican
Party, not too dissimilar to how a minority party would make out-sized
concessions of a coalition government in a parliamentary system. Both cases
result in gridlock (or something that closely resembles it).

------
antics
Almost a year ago to the day, The Economist ran a leader ([1], also cited at
the bottom of the OP) that described itself as "radical centerist", blatantly
"stealing" ideas from both right and left. The surprisingly poor article
posted here not only fails to clarify or improve this position, but actually
muddies the waters of discourse, because it fails to spell out what it means
when it uses terms like "left-wing" and "conservative". These definitions are
particular and subtle, and it is worth explaining what The Economist
_actually_ means in this article. This is especially true given the
international audience of the paper (and HN), where these terms sometimes
appear to mean contradictory things.

I won't pretend to be a master political theoretician, so corrections are
welcome, but at a high level here is what is going on.

In most of political theory, the spectrum breaks down roughly into two huge
types of political party (and yes this is a massive generalization):

* those on the right wing, which are typically _fiscally liberal_ and _socially conservative_ , that is, they believe that companies should behave as they like, but people need to be told how to behave even in their private lives, and

* those on the left wing, which are mainly _socially liberal_ , that is, they believe that the government should tax and regulate more heavily, but that people should be able to do what they like privately.

Across the globe what it means to be "a liberal" is different. In the US, the
"liberal" signifier refers to the fact that the person believes that the
government should not regulate personal decisions like gay marriage. In
France, it is the opposite: the "liberal" signifer refers to the fact that
they like less regulation on the markets.

The Economist, simply put, is liberal in the sense that it tends to favor less
regulation on _both_ these fronts: it favors legalization of drugs and gay
marriage, but also less regulation for markets.

There are of course exceptions (it favors gun regulation for example), but
this is basically the position that it has come to call "radical centerism".
The magazine is often called libertarian, but only conveniently so -- the gun
control exception in particular casts this supposition into doubt, and rather
than accept this branding, the editorial staff has evidently decided to pick
this new title.

This is probably the right move. For all its flaws, this is something that the
article did get right.

[1]
[http://www.economist.com/node/21564556](http://www.economist.com/node/21564556)

~~~
Perceval
> _In most of political theory, the spectrum breaks down roughly into two…_

As a Ph.D. candidate in a top tier political science program, let me just stop
you here and assure you that whatever follows is almost certainly
categorically incorrect. Political theory is so wildly diverse that one
strains to appreciate the relevance of large chunks of it, but it, without a
doubt, does not generally/roughly/approximately break down into the positions
of the U.S.'s two major parties.

> _I won 't pretend to be a master political theoretician, but…_

This is kinda like when someone starts a sentence, "I don't want to be an
asshole, but…" or "I'm not a racist, but…" or "I don't want to interrupt,
but…".

Please don't pretend to be a political theorist.

~~~
antics
Thanks for the spirited reply, Perceval, but I don't see a place where you
justify a disagreement with the substance of my position. What I _do_ see is
you bragging about your acceptance to a nice school. Not to belabor the
obvious, but lording your supposed superiority over opponents is not a good
way to conduct a discussion.

Maybe the first part is going in the direction of a productive discussion --
are you complaining that the split between "right wing" and "left wing" is so
general as to lose all salience to the discussion at hand? I assume that can't
be your position, because that's pretty obviously wrong.

~~~
Perceval
> lording your supposed superiority over opponents is not a good way to
> conduct a discussion.

It wasn't really an invitation to discussion.

> the split between "right wing" and "left wing" is so general as to lose all
> salience

No, the left–right split is just fine for talking about U.S. politics. It
becomes more problematic when you begin to include other countries whose
political divisions split along different issues.

But it becomes almost totally useless if you try to shoehorn "most of
political theory" into two categories based on only two criteria (social,
fiscal) that, gosh, just happen to match up with the two present day U.S.
political parties.

------
stfu
A cynic could probably describe this position also as pseudo-intellectual
populism, i.e. catering to the last bastion of print magazine buyers?

~~~
dmazin
The Economist has held its editorial stance for over a century. Your language
thus suggests that the print magazine was on its last stand even in the late
19th century.

------
voyou
Excellent illustration of the fact that anyone who claims to be neither left
nor right wing, is actually right wing.

~~~
testrun
And what is your definition of right wing?

------
dmazin
Honestly, I'm a little confused about this article. It's probably one of a few
fun little fluff pieces commemorating the anniversary.

I don't even read it much and I've always understood, and think most readers
understand, that The Economist has a somewhat undogmatic mixed left/right
stance endorsing both liberals and the occasional Neo Fascist, at once backing
universal healthcare (which they acknowledge in this article) and destructive
warfare (which they do not).

------
dec0dedab0de
I really like the idea of a "radical centre" even though it could mean almost
anything.

------
dimitar
I think while it likes to present itself to be above the fray it actually has
an editorial policy to favour and endorse candidates according to a proximity
model:

1\. sort politicians by perceived direction of views - PV, 0 being the most
right, 100 the most left.

2\. Their preferred PV* is something like 45.

3\. Proximity to that number is favoured, not the actual positions.

This of course is pretty easy to do and that may be the reason why editors are
anonymous. You can pay relatively little to make endorsements using an
algorithm.

This is of course a horrible way to choose a candidate or a policy, but does
it really matter? The readers seem to like it.

------
jotm
Thank you Economist for saying this!

I really hate when people shove others into right or left categories - that's
as dumb as it gets. Like it's impossible to have different opinions on
different things, or what?

------
dbbolton
>We like free enterprise and tend to favour deregulation and privatisation.
But we also like gay marriage, want to legalise drugs and disapprove of
monarchy.

Sounds like they're libertarian.

------
RachelF
Most party-based political systems seem to stabilize in the form two parties.
Which ideas these parties support is often pretty random and is often not
self-consistent.

------
mmanfrin
'People on the left paint us as right, but we are actually liberal in the
classical sense of the term' is not a refutation of being right-wing.

------
batemanesque
the best summation of the Economist's editorial viewpoint is that it's aimed
at rich businessmen, & consequently combines tacit support for economic
inequality w/ choice morsels of liberalism - viz. healthcare & gun control -
in order to differentiate itself from "unsophisticated" paleoconservatives

~~~
parasubvert
I think it's a bit cynical to read it that way: there's good reason to be
anti-inequality but also skeptical of naive wealth redistribution as the
solution to it.

What we are left with is the European social-democratic welfare state, which
seems to work well enough if you have a base of natural resources to work
from. I notice the Economiat generally isn't too critical of most European tax
rates (a typical cry of rich businessmen) but rather is critical of countries
that have widespread and systematic structural barriers to economic freedom -
the UK, pre-Thatcher, and modern France, for example.

France represents a fun eternal potshot game: they keep claiming doom yet
France keeps chugging along with its massive civil service, huge employment
regs, and longest vacations on Earth...

~~~
batemanesque
"naive wealth redistribution" seems to be a bit of a strawman to me. re:
European tax rates, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the
Economist as supporting the current economic status quo. besides, while Europe
does have a much stronger safety net, it's almost as unequal as the US - it's
not like the well-off are any less hegemonic there.

~~~
parasubvert
Admittedly it is a bit of a strawman, because we haven't really defined
"smart" wealth distribution in this thread :)

Re: inequality [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/the-
inco...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/the-income-
inequality-boom-its-real-and-its-everywhere/249561/)

So you have a point that the status quo isn't actually all that great except
in the one country that The Economist always yells at.... France and Belgium.
Though the Scandinavian countries also seem to do well (lots of natural
resources help).

------
hugh4life
The best way to describe The Economist is "liberal communist". They serve
Samuel Huntington's Davos Man, Christopher Lasch's Revolting Elite.

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n07/slavoj-zizek/nobody-has-to-
be-v...](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n07/slavoj-zizek/nobody-has-to-be-vile)

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rosser
This is one of those cases where the inadequacy of trying to describe our
politics on a simple, single left-vs-right axis shines through so starkly. If
we used a two-axis system, where one axis is economic and the other social,
The Economist would (mostly) fall in the socially-liberal, economically-
conservative quadrant.

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angularly
"We like free enterprise and tend to favour deregulation and privatisation.
But we also like gay marriage, want to legalise drugs and disapprove of
monarchy. So is the newspaper right-wing or left-wing?"

Eh what? All those stances are almost text book libertarian... so how could
anyone be in doubt.

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fnordfnordfnord
Bypass this if you dislike jokes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M)

I have to post this clip from "Yes Minister" every time there is a discussion
about political bias in the media.

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ry0ohki
Hooray, as someone who feels similar, we don't all have to "pick a team".

~~~
markost
[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdown...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdown_relate_t.html)

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fixxer
So the Economist is like... me!

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eighteyes
Does anyone remember when the media used to pride itself on objectivity?

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batemanesque
in other words: "bipartisanship"!

