Difference between revisions of "Reviews of "The Great Stagnation""
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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[[Category:Tyler Cowen]] | [[Category:Tyler Cowen]] | ||
{{DES | des = [[Tyler Cowen]]'s short, digital-only book is a non-academic attempt to divert attention from growing inequality. It does so by lying with statistics.}} | {{DES | des = [[Tyler Cowen]]'s short, digital-only book is a non-academic attempt to divert attention from growing inequality. It does so by lying with statistics.}} | ||
| − | "The Great Stagnation" is a classic example | + | Conservatives (including libertarians) require a constant flow of crisis stories to justify their preferred policies. Books like "The Road To Serfdom", "The Bell Curve" and now "The Great Stagnation" follow a long tradition of scare mongering. They are pseudo-academic: they have no peer review, they are addressed to the general public, and their foundations in data and modeling range from lacking to pathetic. They are designed to permit the worst sorts of confirmation bias: supporters of the book position can see commies in every woodpile. And a few years after publication, nobody takes them seriously. |
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| + | "The Great Stagnation" is a classic example that employs lying with statistics. [[Tyler Cowen]] claims that our innovation is stagnating because median GDP/capita is not increasing the way it used to. But mean GDP/capita has been increasing steadily. The difference is because increases in GDP over the past 30 years have gone almost exclusively to the rich. | ||
It is disgusting that Tyler relies on a trick that we teach students about in grade school (the difference between mean, median, and mode), and even more disgusting that so many people have considered his claims seriously instead of denouncing the trick. Why would he do this? Simple class warfare tactics: if you convince people that wealth is not there, instead of being redistributed to the rich, they will not be able to fight back. | It is disgusting that Tyler relies on a trick that we teach students about in grade school (the difference between mean, median, and mode), and even more disgusting that so many people have considered his claims seriously instead of denouncing the trick. Why would he do this? Simple class warfare tactics: if you convince people that wealth is not there, instead of being redistributed to the rich, they will not be able to fight back. | ||
