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How do you define "left-leaning"? In my view, The Economist is actually quite centrist, and to some extent right-leaning. For example, both the Democratic Party

How do you define "left-leaning"? In my view, The Economist is actually quite centrist, and to some extent right-leaning. For example, both the Democratic Party (US) and the Labour Party (UK) are left of The Economist on economic issues. I also don't believe that most people reading the magazine could ever get the impression that The Economist claims (or appears) to be non-partisan. Every article reads like - and, in fact, more or less is - an editorial.

calpaterson 14y ago
It depends who you call centrist and who you call right and left. Quite a lot of people who read the economic section of the economist think that it represents consensus economic opinion, as opposed to the political sections, which are pretty well known to be faintly libertarian. Even if you exclude socialists the economic section is putting forward a strongly Keynesian point of view and while Keynesianism is popular it is not a consensus. In that the Economist generally supports fiat currencies and central banking, the economic section is "left wing".
- gknoy 14y ago
  > the economic section is putting forward a strongly Keynesian point of view... not a consensus. I think part of the reason for the confusion is that many people (including me) do not know enough about economics to know what it means to be Keynesian (vs Austrian or other schools, I believe?), in much the same way that most non-programmers have no idea what we mean when we are talking about object-oriented vs functional. It doesn't help that most economic schools seem to be like religions: All the other guys are wrong, and ours is the only one that's right. Sure, you can look that up on Wikipedia, but if you don't know enough about the domain it's easy to not realize that there are alternatives (or what they are).
  - calpaterson 14y ago
    The same is really true of a lot of fields. Is C better than Haskell or Python? What Bayesianism and the Frequentists? Analytic philosophy or continental? Everyone seems to disagree a lot. You just have to dive in and start reading I'm afraid. Pick a few books that oppose and compare the views for yourself.
- brianchu 14y ago
  On the contrary, for economics in the context of academia (i.e. economists, rather than politicians) Keynesianism is the consensus view. Though the consensus is not as ironclad, as, say, evolution is for biologists. Even monetarists (i.e. Milton Friedman) support central banking in the abstract (though they would oppose some of the policies of the current Fed).
  - calpaterson 14y ago
    > On the contrary, for economics in the context of academia (i.e. economists, rather than politicians) Keynesianism is the consensus view. Wikipedia claims that it's been consensus among academics only since 2008, and before 2008 the consensus was the exact opposite: New Classicism and friends. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2008%E2%80%932009_Keynesian_resurgence&oldid=535117157#In_academia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2008%E2%80%932009_... But anyway, the Economist is not aimed solely at academics and my memory of the Keynesianism there goes back further than 2008. Plus I don't know that I'd call monetarists Keynesians, per se.
    - brianchu 14y ago
      Keynesianism used to be the consensus after WWII. Keynesian economists did, though, lose influence in the 70s due to economic stagflation. The crisis of 2008 and its response didn't necessarily cause Keynesianism to "switch over" into the mainstream; in fact the reason that the US response to the crisis was to have a stimulus package and quantitative easing was because Keynesianism is and was part of the mainstream. Keynesianism certainly did become more prominent after the crisis. Ben Bernanke, believe it or not, is a monetarist [1]. Monetarist ideas and Keynesian ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive. [1] http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/01/friedman-economics/ http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/01/friedman-economics/

calpaterson 14y ago

It depends who you call centrist and who you call right and left. Quite a lot of people who read the economic section of the economist think that it represents consensus economic opinion, as opposed to the political sections, which are pretty well known to be faintly libertarian. Even if you exclude socialists the economic section is putting forward a strongly Keynesian point of view and while Keynesianism is popular it is not a consensus. In that the Economist generally supports fiat currencies and central banking, the economic section is "left wing".

gknoy 14y ago
> the economic section is putting forward a strongly Keynesian point of view... not a consensus. I think part of the reason for the confusion is that many people (including me) do not know enough about economics to know what it means to be Keynesian (vs Austrian or other schools, I believe?), in much the same way that most non-programmers have no idea what we mean when we are talking about object-oriented vs functional. It doesn't help that most economic schools seem to be like religions: All the other guys are wrong, and ours is the only one that's right. Sure, you can look that up on Wikipedia, but if you don't know enough about the domain it's easy to not realize that there are alternatives (or what they are).
- calpaterson 14y ago
  The same is really true of a lot of fields. Is C better than Haskell or Python? What Bayesianism and the Frequentists? Analytic philosophy or continental? Everyone seems to disagree a lot. You just have to dive in and start reading I'm afraid. Pick a few books that oppose and compare the views for yourself.
brianchu 14y ago
On the contrary, for economics in the context of academia (i.e. economists, rather than politicians) Keynesianism is the consensus view. Though the consensus is not as ironclad, as, say, evolution is for biologists. Even monetarists (i.e. Milton Friedman) support central banking in the abstract (though they would oppose some of the policies of the current Fed).
- calpaterson 14y ago
  > On the contrary, for economics in the context of academia (i.e. economists, rather than politicians) Keynesianism is the consensus view. Wikipedia claims that it's been consensus among academics only since 2008, and before 2008 the consensus was the exact opposite: New Classicism and friends. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2008%E2%80%932009_Keynesian_resurgence&oldid=535117157#In_academia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2008%E2%80%932009_... But anyway, the Economist is not aimed solely at academics and my memory of the Keynesianism there goes back further than 2008. Plus I don't know that I'd call monetarists Keynesians, per se.
  - brianchu 14y ago
    Keynesianism used to be the consensus after WWII. Keynesian economists did, though, lose influence in the 70s due to economic stagflation. The crisis of 2008 and its response didn't necessarily cause Keynesianism to "switch over" into the mainstream; in fact the reason that the US response to the crisis was to have a stimulus package and quantitative easing was because Keynesianism is and was part of the mainstream. Keynesianism certainly did become more prominent after the crisis. Ben Bernanke, believe it or not, is a monetarist [1]. Monetarist ideas and Keynesian ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive. [1] http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/01/friedman-economics/ http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/01/friedman-economics/