A load of crystal balls but I like it and who am I to talk?
I was cloyingly complimentary about The Economist a few posts back, but need to put the record straight by sneering at the article by ‘editor-in-chief’ John Micklethwait in ‘The World in 2009.’ His sententious advice to Barack Obama uncharacteristically reeks of transatlantic cant. He observes that Obama will find it difficult to please the left wing of the Democrats and will need to work hard to combat impatience for change. Then he urges Obama to try not not to change too much at all. His assumption that continuing to wage war in Afghanistan and staying in Iraq are non-negotiable options is redolent of the specious neo-Liberal fence-sitting that allowed the last administration to wage war and wreak havoc at will. Obama needs to effect radical change to achieve escape velocity from the powerful dark gravity of the status quo. The first 90 days will shape the rest of his term. Hillary Clinton may represent reactionary interests. Maybe Barack walks that road too, under which circumstances John M. is right. But while the majority of Economist revenues and the largest group of subscribers are in North America, its editor, an expert on the US – see The Right Nation – does not have to try quite so hard, quite so soon, to appease its disgruntled conservatives, unless he is one himself, of course.
On the other hand, Ann Wroe writes a playful obituary of the Presidency of George W Bush in the endpages of the same Brainiac’s Annual, which also contains an excellent section on the environment, a very good piece by John Peet about Europe’s unresolved conflicts and an unmissable piece by Laza Kekic: ‘Twenty years of capitalism: was it worth it?’ which debates whether former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe have necessarily progressed since the Berlin Wall came down.
My late and much-missed brother-in-law, FT writer Peter Martin invented The World in . . . series when running The Economist Intelligence Unit 23 years ago. Daniel Franklin has done his memory proud with this edition in particular. I disagree with much of it, especially Kissinger’s witterings (let’s whack Iran), but it takes all sorts and . . there I go again, liking The Economist. Tell me I’m not a Tory. Or a neocon. Or an economist.
One Comment
Your brother-in-law may have invented ‘The World In…’ but its cheap efforts at predictive journalism devalue the Economist brand. For a good laugh, try reading its predictions the Easter after it comes out. Perhaps ‘cheap’ was the wrong word, since the thing costs £5.50,or £9.09 by post if your newsagent is sensible enough not to stock it.