We speak to Willem Buiter, Global Chief Economist at Citigroup (2010-2018). In contrast to our interview with Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver, Willem Buiter argues Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are essentially is an environmentally unfriendly, speculative fiat currency with no use countries trying to evade Western economic sanctions. He also disputes that it can be used as a currency and discusses why there won’t be mass-scale adoption.
Moreover, recall that Hayek’s argument is meant to show why tradition’s evolved rules are likely to produce better results than a wholesale constructivist rationalism. But this argument actually depends on people making use of critical reason, which is quite different. In effect, Jonah wants to say: Look what cultural evolution has produced—great, freeze it! But evolution works because of mutation, variation, and selection, and it’s still going on. A tradition that can’t accommodate that kind of variation is unlikely to stay adaptive for long.
Live by the shrill, die by the shrill, Jonah. I like Sullivan, and his writing has many virtues, but as I’m scarcely the first to note, the sense of doubt and fallibilism he’s now advocating as central to conservatism has not always been one of them. When he was a booster for this administration and the Iraq war, Andrew was (in print, if not in person) at least as willing to suppose that people who disagreed were moral dunces at best, a threat to civilization itself at worst. He hasn’t changed styles; he’s changed sides.
As for the main argument of the book, Goldberg has two main beefs. The first is that “evil is rarely defeated by people who are unsure they are right,” which Goldberg takes to mean that a “conservatism of doubt” will be too anemic to combat the enemies of liberal modernity: He mocks the idea of a “serious political movement” founded on the slogan “We’re not sure!” But I think this misapprehends one paradoxical aspect of the relationship between doubt and confidence. I know, for example, that science proceeds haltingly, that its conclusions are always open to revision, and indeed, that many of the scientific beliefs of the past have been either rejected or developed to accommodate new facts. And this is precisely why I can be so confident in the scientific enterprise in the aggregate: Because I know there are scores of intelligent and skeptical researchers constantly testing and refining its conclusions. I can be fanatical in my defense of liberal societies, not because (like Islamists) I’m sure they have discovered the One Best Way of Life, but because they embody a process that allows fallible people to seek continual improvement.
.. Moreover, recall that Hayek’s argument is meant to show why tradition’s evolved rules are likely to produce better results than a wholesale constructivist rationalism. But this argument actually depends on people making use of critical reason, which is quite different. In effect, Jonah wants to say: Look what cultural evolution has produced—great, freeze it! But evolution works because of mutation, variation, and selection, and it’s still going on. A tradition that can’t accommodate that kind of variation is unlikely to stay adaptive for long.
If There’s a Red Wave Election in 2018, This Will Be Why
Republicans have long criticized Democrats for dividing the country into competing grievance groups. Some now realize that the Republican analogue has been to divide the country into radically autonomous individuals based on a cartoonish misreading of libertarianism that replaces the free markets and free minds of Friedrich Hayek with the greed and hubris of Gordon Gekko. But that is changing quickly. There is a renewed emphasis on addressing America and Americans as a community characterized by fraternal bonds and mutual responsibility — what Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory.”
.. If Republicans really want to win, then their pronouns must be we, us and our, and they have to make sure that the people who hear them know that they are included in we, us and our.
Why Reinvent the Monetary Wheel?
Cryptocurrencies promise to realize Friedrich Hayek’s dream of a free market in money. But human societies have discovered no better way to keep the value of money roughly constant than by relying on central banks to exercise control over its issue.
.. Underlying this recurrence is the instinctive feeling that economic calamities must have monetary causes, and therefore monetary remedies... If monetary fluctuations are the main cause of economic fluctuations, and if one can ensure the right quantity of money to support normal business activity, there will be no need for government interference. This has been the main teaching of economists wedded to free markets... Few remember that quantitative easing (QE) marked the start of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. With the US on the gold standard, the Treasury purchased gold to lift its price and thus augment the buying power of heavily indebted farmers. FDR’s gold-buying spree, described at the time by John Maynard Keynes as “the gold standard on the booze,” has been generally dismissed as ineffective... In other words, there is no elasticity in the currency. This means that long before the mine is exhausted, the currency will run into the same problem as the gold standard: not providing enough money to support a growing economy and population. This would be exacerbated by any tendency to hoard bitcoins... At the same time, cryptocurrencies provide no security against inflation. Hayek thought that a competitive currency system would eventually lead to a monopoly of the one that kept its value best. But we have, of course, been through exactly this process of weeding out inflationary currencies throughout history, and we ended up with central banks. It is amazing that anyone should consider it necessary to retrace these steps, only to end up in the same place... The Hayekian diagnosis of the last crisis – excessive creation of credit by the banks – is correct as far as it goes. But one has only to ask why this happened to understand that there are no mechanical answers to the question or solutions to the problem. It’s not quite true to say, “Look after the economy and money will look after itself.” But it is nearer the truth than the belief that monetary reform on its own will cure the problems of a sick economy.