True Confessions
Lately I've spent a lot of my online persona arguing two main things: On LRC I've been questioning the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy in biology, while on Mises.org I've been defending the free trade / globalization orthodoxy in economics.
To be honest, I have indeed experienced some cognitive dissonance. Don't get me wrong, I still think the ID critics are on to something while the trade critics are misguided; I wouldn't keep writing these respective articles if I thought otherwise. But I can certainly appreciate the structural/rhetorical (for lack of a better term) similarity between some of my own defenses of free trade and the mainstream biologists' defense of evolution.
The one thing in particular that worries me is this: It is possible that the hysterical warnings of people like Paul Craig Roberts (who says the US will be a Third World economy by 2024) are right, but that the cause of this catastrophe is something other than "free trade." In that case, my own critiques of PCR et al. would still be valid, but they would be largely a waste of time. It would be akin to people warning on Sept. 1 2001 that Al Queda was going to attack airplanes with armed men, and the CIA or somebody confidently assuring everyone, "Don't worry, we are quite certain that no Al Queda can get on our airplanes with loaded guns."
To be honest, I have indeed experienced some cognitive dissonance. Don't get me wrong, I still think the ID critics are on to something while the trade critics are misguided; I wouldn't keep writing these respective articles if I thought otherwise. But I can certainly appreciate the structural/rhetorical (for lack of a better term) similarity between some of my own defenses of free trade and the mainstream biologists' defense of evolution.
The one thing in particular that worries me is this: It is possible that the hysterical warnings of people like Paul Craig Roberts (who says the US will be a Third World economy by 2024) are right, but that the cause of this catastrophe is something other than "free trade." In that case, my own critiques of PCR et al. would still be valid, but they would be largely a waste of time. It would be akin to people warning on Sept. 1 2001 that Al Queda was going to attack airplanes with armed men, and the CIA or somebody confidently assuring everyone, "Don't worry, we are quite certain that no Al Queda can get on our airplanes with loaded guns."
Who's been arguing against free trade on LRC?!!! On what basis?
ReplyDeleteSorry, meant Mises.
ReplyDeleteSomebody should, if just to prove that diversity isn't highly valued.
ReplyDeleteJulius,
ReplyDeleteI've been tackling Paul Craig Roberts, primarily. But Mises.org doesn't run the anti-free traders, it just runs my critiques of them.
Great article! Thanks.
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