The Economist

[exostrike]

I'm wondering about people's options on the magazine The Economist.

The Economist is a weekly current affairs magazine written (unsurprisingly) by economists and has a major international reputation and readership.

Given that it made up of oxbridge economist graduates it is unsurprising that overall it economic attitude is strongly pro-free market economics, however it combines this with a equal strong liberal view on social and poltical issues.

Outside the editorials, which often use slighly warped logic to support their particular view, the free market biases is much less noticable since the magazine sits down to do what its most read for, in-depth anaylsis of economic/poltical and social events and issues around the world. The articles are divided into areas , Britian (it is british after all), Europe, the United States, The Americas, Middle East and Africa, Asia, China and Business, among others. Its probadly one of view high standard current affairs magazines around and so is read by people across the poltical spectrum.

So is it a balanced work that reflects the economic consensus of the time or neo-classical propaganda?

[visualizer]

Having not read from every section of the Economist, I can't judge the entire thing. However, I did read and analyze a number of articles from their sections on business and finance in the U.S. as part of a university course. I really liked their articles, mostly because they always explained the issues and didn't try to hide any information like many U.S. media sources do. They also provided very useful insight on how to run a business both profitably, efficiently, and legally.

So, from what I've read personally, I can say that the quality was top notch. It's not a source of unexplained speculation, fear-mongering, or propaganda.

[Tsyal Makto]

By "neo-classical" do you mean "neo-liberal" ( as in supply-side policies, deregulation, regressive tax rates, etc)? Just wondering. As for the Economist, I don't really read economic magazines, I'm more into science mags. Though when it comes to my personal economic views, I guess you could call me a Keynesian. I think we need demand-side policies at the moment and a more progressive tax policy, as well as better regulations to prevent what happened in 2008 from happening again. If the Economist is just as open to these views as right-of-center neo-liberalism, maybe it's worth a read on my part (though my interests will likely never go further than armchair punditry).

[exostrike]

Your right, I should haave said neo-liberal.

The economist has a strange relationship with its overall poltical ideology, as all of the articles are anonymous the importance of free market economics and deregulation varies from article to article. While it does criticise many developing economies for not liberalising enough and using state planning, it doesn't argue for total deregulation, more an streamlining of existing and unweildy regulation. It does seem to go out of its way to avoid making an ideological statement, instead saying that such deregulation in developing economies would boast productivity and growth (along with GDP per capita).

On environmental issues, its very centre (as not to piss off its diverse readership) but it does seem to realise that a major problem exists and that regulation is necessary, it just doesn't say how much. As so you won't find much criticism of environmental measures, unless they benefit one area of the US by forceing another to pay for their emissions for example, much you won't find that many call for environmental regulation either.