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globollocks
Milton Friedman probably does deserve to have an institute named after him – he was one of the really big figures of 20th century economics, and even if he was much less of a principled libertarian thinker than his hagiographers like to pretend, it’s rather silly for the faculty of the University of Chicago to start acting like they’ve only just noticed that their university is famous for a particular school of economic thought that was founded by Milton Friedman. But I can’t help noticing that John Cochrane’s open letter[1] in response to the petition against founding a Milton Friedman Institute contains one of the canonical claims of Globollocks:
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This unashamed mash note from Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist presents a class of a triple-distilled tincture of the prevailing globollocks on Sarkozy’s victory in France. You don’t need to read the actual column to get the gist; just the Pavlovian dinner-bell talking points that it strings together.
France … paralyzed by powerful interest groups … political elite … beholden … or … afraid … takes a brave outsider … precisely Sarkozy’s appeal … Reagan or a Thatcher … A “rupture” is what France needs … showing that his country is not doomed to decline … cadres of highly globalized managers … etc … etc[click to continue…]
It takes a long, long apprenticeship laboring the Augean stables of Globollocks to write a sentence like this:
The walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened, making the world much flatter than it had ever been—but the age of seamless global communication had not yet dawned.
Amazing. Tom Friedman is a God. No, not a God so much as a moustachioed force of nature, pumped up on the steroids of globalization, a canary in the coalmine of an interconnected era whose tentacles are spreading over the face of a New Economy savannah where old lions are left standing at their waterholes, unaware that the young Turks—and Indians—have both hands on the wheel of fortune favors the brave face the music to their ears to the, uh, ground.
Yup, Thomas “Airmiles” Friedman is off on one again. Globollocks back in full effect, this time reminding us of the War For Innovation going on in his head. He’s got a book of this stuff out, apparently, bless.
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I realise that this is about the fourth time I’ve had a hit-and-run shot at an Airmiles column, while crying off doing the proper Globollocks analysis for lack of time. I am a bit short of time at the moment, but the real reason is thatit’s so dispiriting; the general miasma of Globollocks overwhelms any specific instance. Check out today’s example.
Friedman believes that it would be a danger to the USA on a par with global terrorism if someone in India working for a US-owned firm were to invent something useful. Think I’m joking? Read the bugger. He actually uses the phrase “war for innovation”.
Apparently the USA isn’t bringing through enough research scientists. What’s the solution? Presumably the rush to global competition of the free market. Nope, sorry, wrong, the solution is massive amounts of government money. In the Airmiles world, agricultural subsidies are terrible, awful anticompetitive, protectionist. But massive subsidies to the science industry are imperative, because of globalisation or something.
Wretched analysis. Someone has told Airmiles that “basic research” is a phrase meaning “science that it’s OK to want a subsidy for”. And he’s taken it as the intellectual equivalent of a Sapphire Class Admiral’s Club pass to support the contention that we need to incentivise domestic private research to keep its facilities onshore. What about “Susie Smith at the pillow factory?”, who would also presumably like a say in how this tax-funded largesse is to be distributed? Scrwe her, apparently; her role in Friedman’s weightless globalised world is a source of funds and a punchline to jokes. What a piece of work.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has another attractively barking column up (potted summary: There’s nothing wrong with Mexico that couldn’t be cured with a combination of “real leadership” and vast amounts of money from America. Well I suppose it worked for Chile). But once more, he salts the sauce with plenty of good old Globollocks. Due to time constraints, I haven’t been able to carry out a full Globollocks analysis. But I picked up this gem, which will serve as an indicator of the sort of thing the New York Times will print these days.
Oh bloody hell he’s annoying me now. In the course of an insanely annoying piece of Globollocks (summary: Mexico went through hell to get ready for NAFTA and ended up hardly benefiting, so now what it needs is more neo-liberalism and what a shame it is that they aren’t able to impose it from above like the Chinese!), Thomas “Airmiles” Friedman[1] manages to come up with this gem.
“While China and India each send tens of thousands of students to be educated abroad every year in science and engineering, particularly in the U.S., Mexico sends just 10,000”
Could anyone tell me why this might be the case? Anyone? Bueller?
On the other wing…
Matt Welch once wrote a pretty good column about liberal pieties at alternative weeklies. I think I’ve found Exhibit A. I’d like to distance myself from this article before Lileks or somebody finds it.
The cover story of Houston’s alt-weekly, the Houston Press, is about a talented young boxer named Benjamin Flores. Flores was born in Mexico and came to the United States when he was eleven. Although he came here illegally, he has a work permit (but not permanent residency or citizenship.) The work permit doesn’t give him to the right to re-enter the country.
He’s beaten the No. 1 amateur featherweight fighter in the United States and the No. 1 from Mexico. But that means nothing, because Benjamin Flores belongs neither here nor there. He can’t fight for the United States because he’s not a citizen. He could fight for Mexico, but there’s no guarantee the U.S. would let him back in this country once he crossed the border.He is a fighter without a country—a pugilist caught in the gears of globalization.
Tonight, as he takes his first step into the professional ranks at the International Ballroom, he will also take home a modest cash prize. The money will seal him off from ever competing on an Olympic stage.
I guess that this is where the infinite flood of compassion is supposed to kick in, but it’s not happening. Flores isn’t doing too badly; he’s got a work permit and a promising career ahead of him. It’s entirely reasonable to restrict a country’s Olympic athletes to its citizens- it prevents rich countries from athlete-shopping all over the world. It’s isn’t Flores’ fault that his birthplace disqualifies him from boxing for the U.S. But it isn’t my fault that I hit like a ten-year old, either. If he had been one or two years younger, he probably wouldn’t have waited until 2008 to start his pro career. Plenty of successful boxers have gone to the Olympics, but plenty haven’t, including Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson, and Matthew Saad Muhammad.
Also, it’s really Daniel’s gig, but I call “globollocks” on “a pugilist caught in the gears of globalization,” for reasons that should be obvious.
Flores comes across as a decent guy; my perception is that the wheedling tone comes from the reporter. Wouldn’t be the first time.
From Thomas “Even More Airmiles” Friedman’s column today:
“Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo remarked to me: “I don’t think I would have been successful in political reform without the decent economic growth we had [spurred by Nafta] from 1996 to 2000. Those five years, we had average growth of 5 percent.”
Who can tell me what might be considered by harsh judges to be perhaps a leetle bit misleading about this quotation?
Answer below the fold.
Thanks very much to Michael Pollak, whose comments on the last Globollocks piece spurred me to make a few changes to this rather tiresome feature. Below, I score this piece by Nicholas “Airmiles” Kristof in the New York Times. The new scoring system is fairly self-explanatory; it’s based on the original Globollocks list, but it’s a bit more subjective rather than box-ticking, and you can now win points back for writing things that aren’t Globollocks.
One more in our occasional ill-tempered and extremely unfair series keeping track of breathless and/or mendacious “Globalisation” commentary from neoliberal commentators. This time, we take a look at an interview in Reason magazine with Johan Norberg, a Scandinavian who “used to be part of the left but then saw the light and is now back with a book explaining it all” (where have we heard that before). I realise that some will call “no fair” on using a Reason interview, because it’s a bit of a libertarian house mag, but Norberg is unlikely to confine himself to the specialist media going forward, and I thought I’d get my retaliation in first. Besides, as a piece of Globollocks, this one is off the scale.
Time for another “Globollocks Watch piece, surveying Doug Henwood’s piece in The Nation, which appears to have been taken by some among the neoliberal axis as evidence of a climbdown by a once-proud supporter of the Seattle rioters
Full disclosure: Although DH and I have never met, we’ve corresponded for quite a while and I consider him a mate. For this reason, I’ve decided that integrity requires me to be extra harsh in applying the patent Crooked Timber “Globollocks Scale”. I repeat my earlier point that the Globollocks ratings apply to individual pieces, not to entire ouevres and certainly not to people. The purpose of the scale is at least partly to point out how difficult it is for anyone, no matter how solid their command of the issues, to write anything short about neoliberal policy which doesn’t end up materially oversimplifying. Since I’ve never knowingly lit a candle while cursing the darkness was an option, don’t expect me to subject any of my own work to this scale any time soon.
Starting a new occasional series, I’ll be keeping a look out for particularly egregious examples of breathless and/or mendacious “Globalisation” pieces from neo-liberal commentators. This isn’t to say that the antiglobo side doesn’t also talk a load of bollocks; it often does. But there’s already a cottage industry going keeping tabs on them, and immanent criticism of the neoliberal agenda is more up my alley.