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The Economist's Decline
I wasn't surprised because like Shikaki, The Economist has become a font of CW [Conventional Wisdom]. And that's too bad because I think that since the magazine emerged in the 1990's as the leading organ of the ruling political and business elites of the Global Economy, a Davos Weekly, it has been starting to lose some of its pizzazz and has become kind of predictable (which is the worst thing that you could say about a weekly magazine). That means that what I'm now getting in The Economist is a concise summary of what's I've been reading all week in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times plus some nuggets from the Weekly Standard and The New Republic (all of which have referred to Shikaki as a "respected Palestinian pollster"). And, yes, as departing editor Bill Emmott notes in the new issue, the magazine's decision to support the American invasion of Iraq has been "the most controversial decision" of his editorship. Moreover, the British magazine continues to insist that America should "stay the course" in Iraq and seems to assume that America has the obligation to use its military power to spread democracy in the Middle East and worldwide. I do hope that the magazine whose classical liberal orientation I share will get a little bit more exciting, more original, more provocative under the new editor, John Micklethwait. He could start by refraining from carrying the CW of that "respected Palestinian pollster." ~Leon Hadar
There was already a marked decline in the quality of The Economist's reporting starting around 1995 or 1996 after a change in editors. Its leaders were always a nauseating mishmash of PC and the typical "wet"--not crunchy--liberalism that it had espoused for years, but they became even worse and more conventionally center-left (as suited the readers of a Davos Weekly). Young, ignorant and libertarian, much of its view of the world seemed to make a lot of sense. Ironically, the one area where I disagreed with them consistently in the early days was in their criticism of Netanyahu and Likud, as I had imbibed reflexive extreme Zionism from all the conventional conservative sources and believed that Bibi was a great man--it is embarrassing to think back on how astonishingly ignorant I used to be.
There was just enough of a sense of history and perspective in their reporting to make you think that you had really found the inside scoop on whatever was happening in Guinea-Bissau or Madagascar this week. There was a certain nerdy glamour in knowing what was happening in Tajikstan or being able to discuss with at least some minimal competence the internal politics of Yemen, but as the magazine become more overtly politicised in its reporting the less you could actually learn from the articles except for what the official Western view of government X or policy Y was going to be. Early on, their correspondents were usually very well informed and appropriately skeptical of the latest political fads--theirs was usually a pleasant British distaste for the bombastic rhetoric of idealists, but already in the Balkans wars it fell into the astonishingly ignorant groupthink of the Western press and, because it was one of my chief sources of information growing up, I was fed the Serbophobic nonsense they regularly dished out. As I came to learn more, the Economist leaders on the Balkans ceased making any sense and seemed motivated by the same sort of petty spite that causes them to hound Silvio Berlusconi with regularity and engage in a running vendetta with the ruler of Singapore. However, until a few years ago it was unmistakably the best world news magazine available, at least in English, and then its news department began to fall under the influence of what Mr. Hadar calls CW.
The vapid optimism and confusion infecting its leaders had finally bled over into its regular news coverage, not only of the Balkans, but of every land where "democracy" was on the march. Few publications were more openly dishonest in their treatment of the Ukrainian election debacle and the so-called "Orange Revolution." An obsessive Russophobia and anti-Putinism have characterised Economist views of eastern European affairs for roughly ten years now. Of course, the all together too democratic Chavistas and the supporters of Evo Morales did not figure in as forces for good in the neoliberal order the Economist would like to see--"democracy" means having sufficiently pro-Western governments that will agree to the Doha round of trade talks and submit to what Pat Buchanan calls "Davos World."
I cancelled my longtime subscription after the idiotic reporting on the "Cedar Revolution," which was nothing if not blind to the realities of what "greater democracy" would mean for the poor Lebanese. The cover title was something like, "Democracy spreads in the Middle East." Yeah, empowering Hizbullah is the harbinger of democracy. And I'm Shirley Temple.
Of course, its reflexive support for invading Iraq was offensive, but it was hardly a new attitude in foreign policy--even before its enthusiasm for bombing Kosovo, it had been making arguments for "humanitarian" interventions or harder policies against this or that despotic regime for the entirety of the '90s. But, in typical Economist, "wet" fashion, however, it was coy enough about supporting Mr. Bush's policies and was probably one of the only major pro-war publications to make a serious issue out of the Abu Ghraib tortures, which prompted it to issue a call for Rumsfeld's resignation.
It occurred to me a few months ago that this was what had always characterised the Economist's reporting on anything--they would accept 9/10 of the prevailing conventional wisdom (the war was fine, the occupation was fine, democratisation was great), but then come up with some "clever" twist for the last 1/10 (torture may be questionable). People bought the magazine for that 1/10 of cleverness, which was so sorely lacking everywhere else in the "mainstream" press, but this has now disappeared along with the intelligent correspondents. This is a pity, as it ensures that the uninformed policymakers who read that magazine, and who otherwise live inside their hermetically sealed bubbles, will have even fewer occasions to be shaken from their lazy assumptions by honest reporting of realities on the ground.
Daniel Larison | April 04, 2006
Comments
I ceased to take the Economist seriously sometime back in 1997 or 1998, having been a subscriber through much of that awful decade. The issue which shocked me to an awareness of the bankruptcy of the publication bore on its cover the image of a woman's leg, somewhat shadowed, as she pulled on a stocking. A satisfied male customer sat in the background, admiring the form of the receptacle he had purchased for the evening. The cover feature addressed the sex trade, and argued for its international legalization.
I need not pay their subscription fee to expose myself to such morally retrograde nonsense; libertarian blogs are free. Whenever I find myself tempted to resubscribe to that magazine, I remember that issue and disabuse myself of the foolish conceit that such would be a wise investment.
Maximos | 04/04/06 14:29
I share your dismay at the shameful pillorying of Silvio Berlusconi and your analysis of the Economist's worth.
As for the Cedar Revolution, one can either allow "Hizbullah's constituents to vote", or one can let Hizbullah's patrons in Damascus run the show. Letting them vote, repeatedly over time is a darn sight better than stasis.
prosandcons | 04/04/06 17:09
Thanks to you both for your comments. Yes, the obsession with Berlusconi is just plain strange. He must be just about the only businessman in politics they don't like.
Somehow I don't see how giving Hizbullah majoritarian domination and an odds-on chance to start another civil war, where before the other factions in Lebanon at least had some security because of the "stasis," is an improvement on the old situation. But then I don't see how an Iraqi civil war is an improvement over the previous arrangement, either.
Daniel Larison | 04/05/06 00:42
I too subscribed for a short time to The Economist, but was quickly turned off by its militantly globalist/materialistic worldview. Certain words recur with telling frequency; "progress", "efficiency", "consumption". That being said, it certainly is a comprehensive survey of trade and politics, providing those with the motivation and/or connections with a keen and digestible analysis of investment opportunities & strategies. The Economist also happens to be a propaganda tool, promoting globalization in the (false) belief that material comforts will eventually result in worldwide "harmonization". In this we should not be surprised; the magazine (founded, I believe, in 1843) has its motto imprinted at the bottom corner of the masthead: "[to take part in a] severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress". Clearly, the appellation "conservative" (itself a term rapidly becoming meaningless) does not belong to a magazine which espouses the doctrine of J.S. Mill. The Economist is most profitably read by 'players' in the big government/big business paradigm currently running the world or, perhaps, by those who wish to understand how the aforementioned paradigm effects the surface phenomenon of our lives.
Ian | 04/06/06 17:10
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