When I listened to the interview, I soon formed the impression that the problem wasn't that Noah is wrong, he was not even wrong. There was no sign that he had grasped the argument you made in your earlier post, yet he was completely (over-)confident that he could run intellectual circles around it. Which I suppose goes back to Mercier & Sperber's theory that the evolutionary function of reason is persuasion, not finding the right answer. Self-persuasion in this instance, of course.
But I do hope they get Bret Devereaux on the podcast, that would be very cool.
All the mentions of Power remind me of (my second hand knowledge of) Foucault and how thinkers like him get caricatured as purveyors of spurious logic and "anything goes" discourse, where anything you want can be true. Lately I have been thinking how this characterization is not only a pretty bad representation of, for lack of a better term, post modernist thought, but also how if your goal was to actually setup an anything goes, anything can be true, there are no certainties type of discourse, the one intellectual ecosystem that's certain to get you there is the so called "Marketplace of Ideas", at least if we're giving the word marketplace the same meaning that defenders of free market economics do. I can't see how the outcome would be anything other than everyone believing what's more convenient to them.
Interesting - Last time I engaged with Acemoglu and Johnson, it was for Why Nations Fail, and I thought that was pretty underwhelming book, given such credentialed authors (I appreciate that this is a minority view, but it is mine). You make a decent argument that time may have come to give them another look.
I think Noah should have to spend some time experiencing the world as woman, especially a black woman, and then discuss how well the marketplace of ideas works.
Noah may be a good guy but I think j this is an example of him at his worst: glib and Twitter-brained, unable or unwilling to engage in anything that runs more than a couple of hundred characters.
Noah Smith might spend some time reading the Original Smith's (Adam), Theory of Moral Sentiments, to at least get an initial grasp on what Acemoglu and Johnson "appear" to be arguing (since I've not read their book yet). Then to completely blow his mind, explore Veblen's various contributions on invidious distinction that plays an integral role in creating and cementing power structures in society until they too are are displaced. (Veblen was likely influenced in part by Smith's analysis). But, of course, to many contemporary economists past ideas are mostly dead ideas so they need not be bothered by them. That is, except for the occasional reinvention of the wheel that sees a past idea claimed as a new one that may even turn out to be an opportunity to secure a Nobel prize.
These kinds of analyses about where success comes from resemble analysing the outcome of biological evolution, in which case the observations have no actual predictive value, have thus little use, and — following Uncle Ludwig — thus aren't very meaningful.
This is a common problem with economists. They seem almost blind to power, its presence, its application, its origins, its consequences. It's almost eerie. I gave up on Noah Smith a while back. He wasn't as bad way back before his Bloomberg gig, but he's gotten worse over the years. As the French say, il faut manger.
Joan Robinson was an interesting exception. She argued that economic theory flowed from the power structure. She was a woman.
The horrible thing is that I am a techno-optimist, but I also have read a bit of history. History is anything but optimistic about technology. It is full of violence and repression and the fruits of optimism being doled out stingily. Power is front and center with technology and economics as supporting players.
Thanks for this piece. I might check out the book yet.
When I listened to the interview, I soon formed the impression that the problem wasn't that Noah is wrong, he was not even wrong. There was no sign that he had grasped the argument you made in your earlier post, yet he was completely (over-)confident that he could run intellectual circles around it. Which I suppose goes back to Mercier & Sperber's theory that the evolutionary function of reason is persuasion, not finding the right answer. Self-persuasion in this instance, of course.
But I do hope they get Bret Devereaux on the podcast, that would be very cool.
All the mentions of Power remind me of (my second hand knowledge of) Foucault and how thinkers like him get caricatured as purveyors of spurious logic and "anything goes" discourse, where anything you want can be true. Lately I have been thinking how this characterization is not only a pretty bad representation of, for lack of a better term, post modernist thought, but also how if your goal was to actually setup an anything goes, anything can be true, there are no certainties type of discourse, the one intellectual ecosystem that's certain to get you there is the so called "Marketplace of Ideas", at least if we're giving the word marketplace the same meaning that defenders of free market economics do. I can't see how the outcome would be anything other than everyone believing what's more convenient to them.
Interesting - Last time I engaged with Acemoglu and Johnson, it was for Why Nations Fail, and I thought that was pretty underwhelming book, given such credentialed authors (I appreciate that this is a minority view, but it is mine). You make a decent argument that time may have come to give them another look.
I think Noah should have to spend some time experiencing the world as woman, especially a black woman, and then discuss how well the marketplace of ideas works.
Noah may be a good guy but I think j this is an example of him at his worst: glib and Twitter-brained, unable or unwilling to engage in anything that runs more than a couple of hundred characters.
Noah Smith might spend some time reading the Original Smith's (Adam), Theory of Moral Sentiments, to at least get an initial grasp on what Acemoglu and Johnson "appear" to be arguing (since I've not read their book yet). Then to completely blow his mind, explore Veblen's various contributions on invidious distinction that plays an integral role in creating and cementing power structures in society until they too are are displaced. (Veblen was likely influenced in part by Smith's analysis). But, of course, to many contemporary economists past ideas are mostly dead ideas so they need not be bothered by them. That is, except for the occasional reinvention of the wheel that sees a past idea claimed as a new one that may even turn out to be an opportunity to secure a Nobel prize.
Perhaps the best use of a Vince McMahon meme in a public intellectual setting ever.
These kinds of analyses about where success comes from resemble analysing the outcome of biological evolution, in which case the observations have no actual predictive value, have thus little use, and — following Uncle Ludwig — thus aren't very meaningful.
"That might seem like a rather strong hypothesis"
Or so vague as to be irrefutable. :)
This is a common problem with economists. They seem almost blind to power, its presence, its application, its origins, its consequences. It's almost eerie. I gave up on Noah Smith a while back. He wasn't as bad way back before his Bloomberg gig, but he's gotten worse over the years. As the French say, il faut manger.
Joan Robinson was an interesting exception. She argued that economic theory flowed from the power structure. She was a woman.
The horrible thing is that I am a techno-optimist, but I also have read a bit of history. History is anything but optimistic about technology. It is full of violence and repression and the fruits of optimism being doled out stingily. Power is front and center with technology and economics as supporting players.
Thanks for this piece. I might check out the book yet.