Fail Economics & You

article: http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13176890

Gets owned badly by the first comment:

"You write: "Too ready, perhaps: what if the price of greater equality is lower growth?"

I can hear your voice ringing down the ages: What if the price of environmental protection is lower growth? What if the price of civil rights for blacks is lower growth? What if the price of women's suffrage is lower growth? What if the price of the abolition of slavery is lower growth? What if the price of overthrowing a dictatorial monarchy is lower growth? What if the price of religious freedom is lower growth? If we had listened to your voice over the centuries, we would still be serfs in medieval kingdoms, lorded over by a rich overclass that enjoys the benefits of "growth".

Your mantra is growth without regard for who benefits from it. Appropriate, I suppose, for a magazine with economics as its focus. Fortunately for us, most of the world believes that there are values that are more important than economic ones, prime among which is the creation of a society that is just and which, for that reason alone, will not perish from this earth."

I've come to dislike The Economist alot. It forever bashes Japan despite Japanese socio-economic development being at a much higher level than the rest of the world. Here are two other comments on another article that really rang true for me:

article: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13061521

"I wouldn't trust anything The Economist writes about Japan as its editorial staff seem to have had a visceral dislike of the place for years which taints its views.

Diversification in itself is not proof of bad management. If importing Italian tomatoes is profitable, then that's good, and diversification of business lines can spread risk. This is trite economics.

Japanese companies are not perfect, but they are hardly as badly managed as The Economist seems to think. If The Economist's ideal is the Anglo-Saxon maximising shareholders' returns to the detriment of all other stakeholders, then we already have the answer to what the result is: GM, Chrysler, RBS, , the ghastly South-West Trains, Lloyds Bank etc. that awful company BA...

Japanese management may not be perfect, but at least they don't pay themsleves obscene sums of money for poor performance. Give me bumbling Sony any day!"

"To economists who measure everything by return on capital, the japanese model is deemed "inefficient". That is because the japanese put social stability, cohesion, preservation of culture, etc higher up their scale of priorities. They don't subordinate everything to the pursuit of money.Sure, Japan is not perfect and can benefit from some fundamental reform. But the resilience of japanese society despite the bursting of their credit bubble in the early 90s gives food for thought. Measured over the half-century since the end of WWII, they have produced a more equitable society than the rest of the G7, not to mention world-beating industrial companies that are still eating America's breakfast during their "lost decade", while America bankers were preoccupied with "creating value" from flogging their IOUs to China and teaching the heathen how to do business before the roof caved in on their elaborate Ponzi schemes.There are more ways to live than "growth = accumulation of material wealth"."

While I used to think quite highly of it, more and more I think The Economist has completely missed the "meaning" of everything. As in, they do not seem to be willing to see that Japan's economic system has built a far superior society than the USA or the UK, which can be plainly seen in less crime, less social problems, low income inequality, a vibrant culture that has actually thrives despite being constantly merged with new technology, no socially oppressive religion and a people famed for their politeness and so universally principled that all manner of objects can be laid unsecured and in public and will not be abused or stolen by a random person as would happen in the USA or the UK.  The cost of this is indeed paid for by less return to shareholders and less opportunities for individualists to become hugely rich. But even with that trade Japan maintains a similar per capita income of other fully developed countries (including some Scandinavian countries which also make fantastic counterexamples to the anglo-saxon way, though these countries are also quite different to Japan).

I see no hard logical rigour in The Economist's writings, only an endless cawing of ideological positions that are embarrassing failures in reality.