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November 19, 2004
Free Minds and Nick Gillespie's Prejudices
What the hell?
There are so many things wrong with that article, I think I'm just going to list them:
Gillespie seems not to understand the difference between marginal and average. Cities like New York and Los Angeles have a lot of people mostly because they had a lot of people 10, 20, and 30 years ago. Most people like to stay near friends and family, and so migration rates tend to be pretty slow. So the fact that there are a lot of people in New Jersey tells you absolutely nothing about whether it's a desirable place to live. The thing to look at is what the marginal resident is doing-- that is, is the region growing or shrinking relative to other regions. He makes some half-hearted stabs in that direction, but he never gets around the examining the relevant evidence with any rigor.
He makes no attempt to distinguish causes and effects. Do cities have large populations because of or in spite of their high costs of living? Do they get high taxes because that's what their populations want, or because public choice effects make high taxes inevitable in high-wealth areas? Are there lurking variables, like crime, ideology, or weather, that explains demographic trends better than either economic freedom or cultural richness? It doesn't seem to occur to him to even ask such questions-- he just observes that high tax places have a lot of people in them, therefore high taxes must not deter people very much.
Everything is about Nick Gillespie. I get it-- he moved from a low-tax state to a high-tax state because it was more exciting. Did we really need to know about every place he's ever lived? This isn't unusual--early in his tenure, he seemed to lead off every issue of Reason with reflections on his adolescent drug habit. More to the point, he seems not to be able to distinguish between his personal prejudices and what the rest of the world thinks. He and his wife are both intellectuals. This, presumably, causes them to place a higher premium on the cultural advantages of big cities. Other people of a less intellectual bent might consider a bigger house, lower cost of living, and lots of open space to be more important than high culture and smart neighbors. Yet he makes no mention of demographic data or other evidence about whether his preferences are typical or anomalous.
Where's the data? Probably the most important demographic trend of the last couple of decades is the mass exodus to the sun belt. That trend would seem to contradict Gillespie's thesis. Yet he makes no effort to consider this trend in a rigorous way-- he just waves it off with a dismissive comparison to Los Angeles. Similarly, he notes that New York and Kansas's populations grew at about the same rate. Well, ok-- but which states grew the fastest? Which grew the slowest? Are there any correlations with economic freedom or population size? Apparently those questions weren't relevant.
What's the point? I get the observation that a lot of people prefer culture to a low cost of living. But so what? A lot of people have the opposite preference. Neither observation, by itself, seems worthy of a whole article. And he touches on, but doesn't really explore, lots of facets that could have added analytical depth to the article. He mentions the exodus to the sunbelt and the suburbs, but doesn't try to draw any interesting conclusions about it. Ultimately, his conclusion seems to be that Ohio and Texas are boring. Again, why does it take 1000 words to say that?
Under Gillespie's leadership, Reason has taken a "cultural" turn, attempting to broaden its focus to encompass issues only tangentially related to libertarianism as an ideology. This has produced a few gems, but frankly, the cultural commentary hasn't been anything special. And in the process, it's diluted the magazine's focus and lowered the average quality of content overall. I like the idea of trying to develop a "thicker" culture of liberty, but to do it right, I think, would require writers who actually know a lot about culture. Simply giving the policy wonks who happen to work there free rein to spout off on their cultural prejudices doesn't seem like a great idea.
If it were up to me, the magazine would go back to what it does best, which is the sort of policy wonkery and heterodox political analysis that was its focus under Gillespie's predecessor. The magazine was really good back then. And I can't remember her ever writing a lead editorial about her drug habit or her rental history.
Posted by Tim Lee at November 19, 2004 12:38 AM
Wow. Great points, Tim. I propose we add a new word to the blogospheric dictionary as a synonym to "Fisking," which is too much associated with the warbloggers for my taste. Gillespie has been NICKED! ... Yeah, probably won't take off.
One quibble is that many of the writers who have contributed to the mag on cultural issues are the genuine articles, at least judging from their bios: English, anthro, cultural studies profs, etc. And, of course, Charles Paul Freund. That doesn't diminish the thrust of your argument, which I generally agree with, but it is a factual misstatement I think.
Posted by: Kevin B. O'Reilly at November 19, 2004 12:51 AM
Yeah, Reason has had some good cultural coverage. Chuck Freund is excellent. Julian also generally writes solid stuff. I'm sure there are others who have interesting things to say about culture. I just don't think that, cultural criticism is the comparative advantage of the Reason staff taken as a whole.
One of the great things about Freund's work is that he generally manages to relate it back to libertarian (or at least political) themes. His work on the synergy between art and markets would be a case in point. He analyses commercial art in the service of a libertarian political point-- that choice and competition nurture, rather than stifle, creativity. In contrast, Gillespie's article here not only doesn't seem to have any clear point, but to the extent it does have a point, it's the blatantly anti-libertarian point that economic freedom isn't that important.
Posted by: Tim at November 19, 2004 1:11 AM
Don't hold back, Tim, how do you really feel? ;)
Posted by: Kaela at November 19, 2004 9:12 AM
