A level Economics: How Chicago school economists reshaped American justice

From The Economist

In recent years the antitrust division of America’s Department of Justice has gone on a crusade against corporate mergers, filing a record number of complaints in an attempt to stop the biggest businesses from getting even bigger. With few exceptions, these efforts have been thwarted by the courts. That it is so hard to get a judge to intervene in business reflects the work of an institution known more for its free-market influence on economics than the law: the University of Chicago.

Fifty years ago this autumn Richard Posner, a federal judge and Chicago scholar, published his “Economic Analysis of Law”. Now in its 9th edition, the book set off an avalanche of ideas from Chicago school economists, including Gary Becker, Ronald Coase and Milton Friedman, which passed into the folios of America’s judges and lawyers. The “law-and-economics” movement made the courts more reasoned and rigorous. It also changed the verdicts judges handed out. Research has found that those exposed to its ideas are more opposed to regulators and less likely to enforce antitrust laws, and tend to impose prison terms more often and for longer.

Links between economics and the law have long been studied. In “Leviathan”, published in 1651, Thomas Hobbes wrote that secure property rights, which are needed for a system of economic exchange, are a legal fiction that emerged only with the modern state. By the late 19th century, legal fields that overlapped with economics, such as matters of taxation, were being analysed by economists.

With the arrival of the law-and-economics movement, every legal question was suddenly addressed in the context of the incentives of actors and the changes these produced. In “Crime and punishment: an economic approach” (1968), Becker argued that, rather than being a balancing-act between punishment and the opportunity for reform, sentences act mainly as a deterrent: the literal “price of crime”. Harsh sentences, he argued, reduce criminal activity in much the same way as high prices cut demand. With the caveat that a greater chance of arrest is a better deterrent than longer prison sentences, Becker’s theorising has since been borne out by decades of empirical evidence.

Too steep?

In the movement’s early days, “the legal academy paid little attention to our work”, recalls Guido Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School and another of the field’s founding fathers. Two things changed this. The first was Mr Posner’s bestselling textbook, in which he wrote that “it may be possible to deduce the basic formal characteristics of law itself from economic theory.” Mr Posner was a jurist, who wrote in a language familiar to other jurists. Yet he was also steeped in the economic insights of the Chicago school. His book successfully thrust the law-and-economics movement into the legal mainstream.

The second factor was a two-week programme called the Manne Economics Institute for Federal Judges, which ran from 1976 until 1998. This was funded by businesses and conservative foundations, and involved an all-expenses-paid stay at a beachside hotel in Miami. It was no holiday, however, even if those who went nicknamed the conference “Pareto in the Palms”. The curriculum was extremely demanding, taught by economists including Friedman and Paul Samuelson, both of whom had won Nobel prizes.

image: the economist

By the early 1990s nearly half the federal judiciary had spent a few weeks in Miami. Those who attended included two future justices on the Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas (an arch conservative) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (his liberal counterpart). Ginsburg would later surprise colleagues by voting with the conservative majority on antitrust cases, applying the so-called “consumer welfare standard” championed by the Manne programme. This states that a corporate merger is anticompetitive only if it raises the price or reduces the quality of goods or services. Ginsburg wrote that the instruction she received in Miami “was far more intense than the Florida sun”.

In a paper under review by the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Elliot Ash of eth Zurich, Daniel Chen of Princeton University and Suresh Naidu of Columbia University treat the Manne programme as a natural experiment, comparing the decisions of every alumnus before and after their attendance at the conference. They then use an artificial-intelligence approach called “word embedding” to assess the language in judges’ opinions in more than a million circuit- and district- court cases.

The researchers find that federal judges were more likely to use terms such as “efficiency” and “market”, and less likely to use those such as “discharged” and “revoke”, after time spent in Miami. Manne alumni took what the authors characterised as the “conservative” stance on antitrust and other economic cases 30% more often in the years after attending. They also imposed prison sentences 5% more frequently and of 25% greater length. The effect became stronger still after 2005, when a Supreme Court decision gave federal judges greater discretion over sentencing.

That researchers are turning the unforgiving lens of economic analysis on law and economics itself is a promising trend. The dismal science has come a long way since the heyday of the Chicago school. Thanks in large part to the empiricism of behavioural economics, it is less wedded to abstractions like the perfectly rational actor. This has softened some of the Chicago school’s harsher edges. But it will nevertheless take time for judges to modify their approach. As Mr Ash notes: “The Chicago school economists may all be retired or dead, but Manne alumni continue to be active members of the judiciary.” In courtrooms across America, Mr Posner’s influence will live on for decades to come.

A level Economics: How to Improve Economic Forecasting

 Nicholas Gruen in The FT 

Today’s four-day weather forecasts are as accurate as one-day forecasts were 30 years ago. Economic forecasts, on the other hand, aren’t noticeably better. Former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke should ponder this in his forthcoming review of the Bank of England’s forecasting. 

There’s growing evidence that we can improve. But myopia and complacency get in the way. Myopia is an issue because economists think technical expertise is the essence of good forecasting when, actually, two things matter more: forecasters’ understanding of the limits of their expertise and their judgment in handling those limits. 

Enter Philip Tetlock, whose 2005 book on geopolitical forecasting showed how little experts added to forecasting done by informed non-experts. To compare forecasts between the two groups, he forced participants to drop their vague weasel words — “probably”, “can’t be ruled out” — and specify exactly what they were forecasting and with what probability.  

That started sorting the sheep from the goats. The simple “point forecasts” provided by economists — such as “growth will be 3.0 per cent” — are doubly unhelpful in this regard. They’re silent about what success looks like. If I have forecast 3.0 per cent growth and actual growth comes in at 3.2 per cent — did I succeed or fail? Such predictions also don’t tell us how confident the forecaster is. 

By contrast, “a 70 per cent chance of rain” specifies a clear event with a precise estimation of the weather forecaster’s confidence. Having rigorously specified the rules of the game, Tetlock has since shown how what he calls “superforecasting” is possible and how diverse teams of superforecasters do even better.  

What qualities does Tetlock see in superforecasters? As well as mastering necessary formal techniques, they’re open-minded, careful, curious and self-critical — in other words, they’re not complacent. Aware, like Socrates, of how little they know, they’re constantly seeking to learn — from unfolding events and from colleagues. 

Superforecasters actively resist the pull to groupthink, which is never far away in most organisations — or indeed, in the profession of economics as a whole, as practitioners compensate for their ignorance by keeping close to the herd. The global financial crisis is just one example of an event that economists collectively failed to warn the world about. 

There are just five pages referencing superforecasting on the entire Bank of England website — though that’s more than other central banks. 

Bernanke could recommend that we finally set about the search for economic superforecasters. He should also propose that the BoE lead the world by open sourcing economic forecasting.  

In this scenario, all models used would be released fully documented and a “prediction tournament” would focus on the key forecasts. Outsiders would be encouraged to enter the tournament — offering their own forecasts, their own models and their own reconfiguration or re-parameterisation of the BoE’s models. Prizes could be offered for the best teams and the best schools and universities.  

The BoE’s forecasting team(s) should also compete. The BoE could then release its official forecasts using the work it has the most confidence in, whether it is that of its own team(s), outsiders or some hybrid option. Over time, we’d be able to identify which ones were consistently better.  

Using this formula, I predict that the Bank of England’s official forecasts would find their way towards the top of the class — in the UK, and the world.

A level Economics: India's Economic Data could be fiction

 T C A Sharad Raghavan in The Print

The next time somebody, even the Prime Minister, boasts about India being the fastest-growing economy or that it is the fifth largest in the world, ask them to prove it. Even Modi will not be able to. The reams of government data that will be thrown at you will almost all be incorrect, and the analysis done on them will be guesswork at best. The reason for this is not some convoluted statistical reasoning. It’s much simpler: the data is outdated and largely meaningless. The most recent actual data for the Indian economy we have is about 12 years old.

Amrit Kaal may be the target, but we don’t even know our starting point.

The old…

Let’s take something as conceptually simple as per capita gross domestic product (GDP)—basically the total output of the country divided by the population. It serves as a broad proxy to denote the wealth of an average Indian. Should be simple enough to calculate, right? Let’s start with the numerator, which is the GDP figure.

The agriculture sector probably has the most up-to-date data when it comes to the overall GDP measure, and even that comes with a delay of about two years. The Directorate of Economics and Statistics in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare compiles the data on India’s agriculture output for any given year, and releases four advance estimates, before the final figures come out about two years after the collection.

Such a ‘short’ delay of just two years might have been okay if agriculture formed a larger part of our GDP. But with a share of less than 20 per cent, accuracy of agricultural data, while important, doesn’t materially improve the quality of the overall GDP number.

From here, it just becomes worse.

The manufacturing sector is divided into the organised sector and the unorganised sector. Data for the organised sector used to come from the Annual Survey of Industries—but with a lag. Now it comes from the much more up-to-date MCA-21 database compiled by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. That’s not the problem here. The unorganised sector is.

The unorganised or informal sector, by definition, is difficult to quantify because there are no formal metrics through which such an audit can take place. If you could effectively measure it, it would not be ‘unorganised’ or ‘informal’. Rather, it is ‘unorganised’ because you can’t measure it.

Policymakers have gotten around this problem by periodically doing a nation-wide survey. Using the findings of the survey of the informal sector, the statisticians in the government then arrive at a ratio that can neatly be multiplied by the size of the formal sector, to arrive at an approximation of the size of the informal economy.

So, let’s say the formal sector is Rs 100 in size, and the ratio they have arrived at is 1.25. The informal sector would then be estimated at Rs 125 (Rs 100 x 1.25), which then gives you the total economic output of the sectors being measured—Rs 225 (Rs 100 + 125).

Ideally, this would work well. However, at a time when the latest survey of the informal sector—the Unincorporated Enterprises Survey—is from about 13 years ago, well before demonetisation, GST, and Covid, we don’t really know what shape the informal sector is in right now.

Then we come to the services. Trade, hotels, restaurants, real estate, all have significant contributions to GDP and sizeable informal segments, all of which are based on surveys conducted in 2011-12 or thereabouts.

Just think about the sea change the Indian economy has witnessed since 2011—both the positive and the negative. Inequality has widened, but access to basic essentials has improved. Demonetisation wiped out 86 per cent of the cash in the system overnight. The indirect tax system was overhauled with GST. A pandemic disrupted the economy like never before.

And then there are the myriad smaller changes that over time become big. The movie theatre industry has changed so dramatically. An entire generation of entrepreneurs are minting money by creating two-minute videos, forget any sort of asset creation. None of these or the million other changes to the Indian economy over the last decade are being captured in the data.

So that’s the numerator of the per capita GDP formula—almost every aspect of it is outdated. The denominator is the population of India, measured by the Census of India. When was the latest one? You guessed it, 12 years ago! 

…and the uncaptured

So, if the GDP number as well as the population size are both more than a decade old, then when somebody talks about the size of the economy or per capita income, what are they talking about? It’s not the present, for sure.

Our data issues don’t end there. The other big number on everybody’s mind is inflation. As this analysis shows, the Consumer Price Index—which is what the Reserve Bank of India uses to measure inflation—falls woefully short of truly measuring the impact of rising prices on the people. The weightage for food is too high, while that of fuel and services such as health, education, and transport and communication are too low.

So, you have a situation where the overall inflation rate gets affected by a change in the price of wheat, even though 80 crore Indians currently get it for free. Or you have a situation where fuel prices shoot up in response to global oil prices, but the overall inflation rate barely registers it. And, while the middle class increasingly prefers private hospitals and private schools (don’t forget tuition classes), this increased spending on health and education is not getting captured.

In fact, with the latest usable Household Consumption Expenditure Survey being only available for the year 2011-12, we actually have only a vague idea about how people are spending their money and how much they are earning.

It’s fine for developed countries like the US to not update their CPI for around 40 years—though even there it might be time for a revision—because the rate of change of these basic economic indicators is much lower there than in an emerging economy like India. Here, a decade is a long time, and a lot can change during it.

It’s not just these, though. Several lesser-known but key surveys that underpin the very basic estimates we have of the economy haven’t been updated in years. The Economic Census is nine years old, the employment survey is 12 years old, as is the base year of the Index of Industrial Production. The input-output tables, critical to measuring the relationship between the production and use of various items in the economy, are 15 years too old.

The government can say all it wants about Amrit Kaal arriving and India becoming a developed nation by 2047, but if it wants to seriously achieve this trajectory, it is first going to have to establish where we stand now.

A level Economics: Was your degree really worth it?

 The Economist 

Is university worth it? That question once seemed a no-brainer. For decades young adults in rich countries have flocked to higher education. Governments have touted college as a boon for social mobility and economic growth. Yet as fees rise and graduate earnings stagnate, disillusionment is growing. A poll published by the Wall Street Journal on March 31st suggests a crisis of confidence has worsened: 56% of Americans now believe a degree is no longer worth the time and money spent on it.

For an average undergraduate, at least, this is not consistent with the facts. In most places, for most learners, the financial returns to higher education remain extremely healthy. Yet undertaking a degree has become riskier. The rewards for the best performers are increasing, but a troublingly high share of students see negative returns from their studies.

New data sets, such as tax records, are illuminating this dispersion like never before. They can track how much students taking specific courses, at specific institutions, earn in later life. In time that detail will help students avoid the worst pay-offs and seize the best. Choice of subject and timely graduation matter hugely; choice of institution somewhat less so. It could also be useful to governments tempted to crack down on “low-value degrees”.

A boom in graduate earnings began in the 1980s in the rich world. Back then the difference between the salaries of people who gain at least a bachelor’s degree and those who do not—commonly called the “college-wage premium”—began to soar. In the 1970s an American with a university education was earning on average 35% more than a high-school graduate. By 2021 that advantage had risen to 66%.

Recently the wage premium in many countries has either stagnated or begun to fall. And in places that actually charge students for their degrees, costs have gone up (see chart 1). Tuition in England has soared from nothing in the late 1990s to £9,250 ($11,000) a year, the highest in the rich world. In America, the out-of-pocket fee paid by an average bachelor’s-degree student increased from $2,300 a year in the 1970s to some $8,000 in 2018, in real terms, according to Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz at the New York Federal Reserve. (Students at public universities often pay much less; those at private non-profits can pay a lot more.)

Yet the average degree remains valuable. In 2019 Mr Abel and Mr Deitz roughly estimated the annual financial return on the money that a typical American invests in a bachelor’s degree. They conclude that the typical rate of return for a bachelor’s degree is around 14%. That has dropped from a peak of 16% in the early 2000s. But it is still a princely sum. And it is well above the 8-9% that American graduates were recouping in the 1970s, before graduate wages, and tuition fees, began to soar. These calculations include not only fees but also the money individuals might expect to earn if they were working full-time instead.

The average hides a very wide range of outcomes, however. Until recently economists seeking to identify the winners and losers were mostly limited to surveys. The trend now is for governments, such as those of Britain and Norway, to proffer hefty, anonymised databases showing actual earnings for millions of university-goers. That makes it much easier to compare people like-for-like. The disaggregated data reveal that a high share of students graduate with degrees that are not worth their cost.

In England 25% of male graduates and 15% of female ones will take home less money over their careers than peers who do not get a degree, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs), a research outfit. America has less comprehensive data but has begun publishing the share of students at thousands of institutions who do not manage to earn more than the average high-school graduate early on. Six years after enrolment, 27% of students at a typical four-year university fail to do so, calculate researchers at Georgetown University in Washington, dc. In the long tail, comprising the worst 30% of America’s two- and four-year institutions, more than half of people who enroll lag this benchmark.

Dropping out without any qualification is an obvious way to make a big loss. Taking longer than usual to graduate also destroys value (because it eats up years that might otherwise have been spent earning full-time). Both these outcomes are common. Across the rich world less than 40% of people studying for undergraduate degrees complete their courses in the expected number of years. About one-quarter still have no qualifications three years after that.

Choosing the right subject is crucial to boosting earning power. Negative returns are likeliest for Britons who study creative arts (less than 10% of men make a positive return), social care and agriculture (see chart 2). By far the best-earning degrees in America are in engineering, computer science and business. Negative returns seem especially likely for music and the visual arts. Using America’s available data to guess lifetime earnings by programme is a stretch. But Preston Cooper at freopp, a think-tank, ventures that more than a quarter of bachelor’s-degree programmes in America will lead to negative returns for most enrolled students.

What you study generally matters more than where you do it. That comes with caveats: the worst colleges and universities provide students with little value, whatever they teach. But on average people who enroll in America’s public universities get a better return over their lifetimes than students who go to its more prestigious private non-profit ones, reckon the Georgetown researchers. High fees at the non-profits is one of the reasons why.

Earnings data in Britain call into question the assumption that bright youngsters will necessarily benefit from being pushed towards very selective institutions, says Jack Britton of the ifs. In order to beat fierce competition for places, some youngsters apply for whatever subject seems easiest, even if it is not one that usually brings a high return. Parents fixated on getting their offspring into Oxford or Cambridge, regardless of subject, should take note. But there is also evidence that tackling a high-earning course for the sake of it can backfire. Norwegian research finds that students whose true desire is to study humanities, but who end up studying science, earn less after ten years than they probably otherwise would have.

Men have more reason than women to worry that their investments in higher education will be a bust. That is because they have a higher chance of earning well without a degree. University is a risk for those with mediocre school grades as they often earn less after graduation than better-prepared peers who hold the same degrees.

In Britain the return from a degree is generally higher for South Asian students than for white ones, as they tend to study subjects such as business, and generally lower for black students (compared with what people of the same race typically earn if they do not go to university). In America, Asian students seem to have the least trouble paying off their student debts, compared with white and black students.

Marks and markets

What are the implications of all this analysis? Already there are signs that the higher-education market is evolving. People are already searching out better returns of their own accord at different educational stages. In America the number of degrees conferred annually in English and in history fell by around one-third between 2011 and 2021. The number of degrees in computer science more than doubled in that time (see chart 3). Others are skipping college altogether. The number of people enrolling has fallen every year since 2011.

Institutions are also shifting by culling humanities. In February the trustees of Marymount University in Virginia voted to abolish majors in nine subjects including English, history, philosophy and theology. Calvin University in Michigan and Howard University in Washington, dc are among those which have abandoned classics. And archaeology’s future at the University of Sheffield in Britain looks precarious.

Employers are adapting, too. Firms are becoming a bit less likely to demand that job applicants have degrees, according to analysis by Joseph Fuller of Harvard Business School, and others. Tight labour markets and a desire for more diverse workers help explain why. A few years ago some 80% of the jobs that ibm, a tech giant, advertised in America required a degree, says Kelli Jordan, one of its vice-presidents. Now it is about half. “A degree does not have to be the only indicator of skills that someone may have,” explains Ms Jordan.

Should governments amplify these trends? In Estonia one-fifth of an institution’s funding depends on meeting a variety of targets; one relates to the share of students graduating on time. Similar systems exist in Finland, Israel, Lithuania and Sweden. Australia’s government is trying to encourage learners to make socially useful choices. In 2021 it doubled what undergraduates pay to study social sciences, political science or communications and halved the fee for nursing and teaching. Students do not appear much moved yet, possibly because of the generosity of Australia’s student-debt repayment terms. Britain’s government reckons it can alter behaviour by giving everyone in England an online account listing a maximum cash sum that they are entitled to borrow from the state for studies over their lifetime. The idea is to make school-leavers more parsimonious.

Others still splurge. President Joe Biden hopes that the Supreme Court will soon approve a plan, announced last year, to write off a big chunk of America’s student loans. He also wants a more lenient repayment system. The associated costs could mount to hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Mr Biden also promises an official list of “low-financial value” courses. More compelling is talk of preventing feeble programmes from benefitting from federal student loans. But without an act of Congress this would mainly affect for-profit colleges (which enroll only a fraction of America’s learners).

To many, a growing focus on the financial returns to higher education is crude. Graduates in public service are bound to earn less than those on Wall Street. Many disciplines are worth studying for their own sake. Yet students frequently tell pollsters that improving their earning power is a priority. Good returns are vital to the poorest learners, for whom the financial burden of degrees is highest. Today bad degrees are surprisingly common. A combination of better information, market forces and smarter policy can reduce their prevalence. 

A level Economics: The 1973 coup against democratic socialism in Chile still matters

It happened 50 years ago, changed the course of world history – and revealed just how authoritarian conservatives are. Andy Beckett in The Guardian


Fifty years on, the 1973 coup in Chile still haunts politics there and far beyond. As we approach its anniversary, on 11 September, the violent overthrow of the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and its replacement by the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet are already being marked in Britain, through a period of remembrance scheduled to include dozens of separate exhibitions and events. Among these will be a march in Sheffield, archival displays in Edinburgh, a concert in Swansea, and a conference and picket of the Chilean embassy in London.

Few past events in faraway countries receive this level of attention. Military takeovers were not unusual in South America during the cold war. And Chile has been a relatively stable democracy since the Pinochet dictatorship ended, 33 years ago. So why does the 1973 coup still resonate?

In the UK, one answer is that roughly 2,500 Chilean refugees fled here after the coup, despite an unwelcoming Conservative government. “It is intended to keep the number of refugees to a very small number and, if our criteria are not fully met, we may accept none of them,” said a Foreign Office memo not released until three decades afterwards.

The Chileans came regardless, partly because leftwing activists, trade unionists and politicians including Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn created a solidarity movement – of a scale and duration harder to imagine in our more politically impatient times – which helped the refugees build new lives, and campaigned with them for years against the Pinochet regime. Some of these exiles settled in Britain permanently; veterans of the solidarity movement are involved in this year’s remembrance events, as they have been in earlier anniversaries. The left’s reverence for old struggles can sometimes distract it or weigh it down, but it is also a source of emotional and cultural strength, and an acknowledgment that the past and present are often more linked than we realise.

Two weeks ago, it was revealed that an old army helicopter that stands in a wood in Sussex as part of a paintball course had previously been used by the Pinochet government, to transport dissidents and then throw them into the sea. The dictatorship was a pioneer of this and other methods of “disappearing” its enemies and perceived enemies, believing that lethal abductions would frighten the population into obedience more effectively than conventional state murders.

Not unconnectedly, the regime also pioneered the harsh free-market policies which transformed much of the world – and which are still supported by most Tories, many rightwing politicians in other countries, and many business interests. In Chile, the idea that a deregulated economy required a highly disciplined citizenry, to avoid the economic semi-anarchy spilling over into society, was exhaustively tested and refined, to the great interest of foreign politicians such as Margaret Thatcher.

Augusto Pinochet, left, and President Salvador Allende attend a ceremony naming Pinochet as commander in chief of the army, 23 August, 1973. Photograph: Enrique Aracena/AP

Another reason that the 1973 coup remains a powerful event is that it left unfinished business at the other end of the political spectrum. The Allende government was an argumentative and ambitious coalition which, almost uniquely, attempted to create a socialist country with plentiful consumer pleasures and modern technology, including a kind of early internet called Project Cybersyn, without Soviet-style repression. For a while, even the Daily Mail was impressed: “An astonishing experiment is taking place,” it reported on the first anniversary of his election. “If it survives, the implications will be immense for other countries.”

The coup happened partly because the government’s popularity, though never overwhelming, rose while it was in office. This rise convinced conservative interests that it would be reelected, and would then take the patchy reforms of its first term much further. For the same reasons, the Allende presidency remains tantalising for some on the left. An updated version of his combination of social liberalism, egalitarianism and mass political participation may still have the potential to transform the left’s prospects, as Corbyn’s successful campaigns in 2015, 2016 and 2017 suggested.


Files reveal Nixon role in plot to block Allende from Chilean presidency


There is one more, bleaker reason to reflect on the coup: for what it revealed about conservatism. When I wrote a book on Chile two decades ago, it was unsettling to learn about how the US Republicans undermined Allende, by covert CIA funding of his enemies, for instance, and how the Conservatives helped Pinochet, through arms sales and diplomatic support. But these moves seemed to be explained largely by cold-war strategies and free-market zealotry, which was fading in the early 21st century.

Yet from today’s perspective, with another Trump presidency threatening, far-right parties in power across Europe, and a Tory government with few, if any, inhibitions about criminalising dissent, the Chile coup looks prophetic. Nowadays the line between conservatism and authoritarianism is not so much blurred occasionally, in national emergencies, as nonexistent in many countries.

Some critics of conservatism would say that it’s naive to think such a line ever existed. In 1930s Europe, for instance, supposedly moderate and pro-democratic rightwing parties often facilitated the rise of fascism. Yet the postwar world, after fascism had been militarily defeated, was meant to be one where such toxic alliances against the left never happened again.

The 1973 coup ended that comfortable assumption. “It is not for us to pass judgment on Chile’s internal affairs,” said the Tory Foreign Office minister Julian Amery in the Commons, two months later, despite the coup having initiated killings and torture on a mass scale. When the coup is remembered, its victims should come first. But the response of conservatives around the world to the crushing of Chile’s democracy and civil liberties should never be forgotten.

A level Economics: Convincing people of faith

 ChatGPT

"You cannot convince the most ingenious mollusc that a thing like a whale was ever possible."

The quote seems to convey the idea that sometimes it's challenging to convince someone, even if they're highly intelligent or ingenious, about the existence or possibility of something that is far beyond their current understanding or experience.

In a broader sense, this quote reflects the difficulty of trying to persuade people to accept new, unconventional, or revolutionary ideas that go against their established beliefs or knowledge. It highlights the resistance some individuals might have toward accepting concepts that seem impossible or unfamiliar to them.

Here are some real-world examples to illustrate this concept:

1. Flat Earth Believers: Despite overwhelming evidence supporting the fact that the Earth is round, some individuals still hold onto the belief that the Earth is flat. Confronting them with scientific evidence might be akin to trying to convince an ingenious mollusc (a clever but metaphorically close-minded creature) that something as large and complex as the Earth could be round.

2. 
   

3. Historical Paradigm Shifts: Throughout history, there have been moments when new scientific or philosophical ideas challenged existing worldviews. For example, when Copernicus proposed that the Earth revolves around the sun, it contradicted the prevailing geocentric model. It took time for people to accept this heliocentric idea, as it was difficult for many to conceive of the Earth not being the center of the universe.

4. 
   

5. Advanced Technology: Imagine explaining the concept of the internet and smartphones to someone from the distant past. They might find it incredibly difficult to believe that something like the internet, which connects people around the world in seconds, is possible. It could be compared to trying to convince an ingenious mollusc of the existence of a massive creature like a whale.

In all these examples, the quote's essence comes through – the challenge of convincing someone of something that falls outside the scope of their current understanding, even if they possess great intelligence or ingenuity.

---Why not?

Why do certain individuals, even if they are intelligent and ingenious, be resistant to being convinced of new, unconventional or disconfirming ideas. There are several psychological and cognitive factors at play:

1. Cognitive Dissonance: People tend to seek consistency between their beliefs and their actions or experiences. Introducing a new, unfamiliar idea can create cognitive dissonance – a state of mental discomfort caused by holding conflicting beliefs. To alleviate this discomfort, some individuals may reject the new idea rather than reevaluate their existing beliefs.

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3. Confirmation Bias: People often seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss information that contradicts them. When presented with evidence that challenges their beliefs, they might be inclined to reject it or find reasons to discredit it.

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5. Anchoring Bias: This bias refers to the tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions. If someone has a long-held belief, their initial exposure to a new idea might be anchored to their existing beliefs, making it difficult for them to shift their perspective.

6. 
   

7. Limited Perspective: Individuals often rely on their own experiences and immediate surroundings to make sense of the world. Concepts that are far removed from their personal experiences might seem implausible or even absurd.

8. 
   

9. Fear of the Unknown: Venturing into unfamiliar territory can be unsettling for some people. The fear of the unknown or the uncertainty associated with embracing new ideas can lead to resistance in accepting them.

10. 
    

11. Social Pressure and Identity: People often identify with certain groups and communities, and their beliefs become intertwined with their sense of self. Embracing a new idea that contradicts the group's beliefs might result in social isolation or a sense of losing one's identity within that group.

12. 
    

13. Lack of Tangible Evidence: Some unconventional ideas might lack concrete, tangible evidence, making them harder to accept for individuals who rely heavily on empirical proof. This is particularly true when the idea challenges established scientific or societal norms.

14. 
    

15. Emotional Attachments: People can develop emotional attachments to their beliefs, especially if those beliefs are tied to personal experiences, cultural values, or cherished memories. Dislodging these emotional attachments can be difficult.

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17. Inertia and Habit: Human behavior is often driven by inertia and habit. Changing one's perspective or beliefs requires effort and mental energy, and some people might resist such change due to the comfortable nature of their existing beliefs.

In essence, while intelligence and ingenuity are valuable qualities, they do not necessarily prevent individuals from being resistant to new ideas. The interplay of cognitive biases, emotional attachments, social influences, and personal experiences can create barriers that hinder people from easily accepting ideas that challenge their existing worldview. This is why even the most ingenious individuals might struggle to be convinced of something that seems implausible to them.

---What if the mollusc was an average citizen and the whale was an economic panacea called growth led development?

If we reinterpret the quote with the mollusc representing an average citizen and the whale symbolizing the concept of economic growth leading to upliftment, the meaning becomes more focused on the challenges of convincing people about the potential benefits of a certain economic concept, especially if it's presented as a solution for societal progress.

In this context, the quote could be highlighting the difficulty of convincing everyday individuals about the positive effects of economic growth as a means to uplift society. Here's a breakdown of the analogy:

1. Average Citizen (Mollusc): Just as a mollusc is a simple and relatively uninvolved creature compared to a complex entity like a whale, an average citizen might not have an in-depth understanding of economic principles or the intricate workings of economic growth. They might have limited exposure to economic concepts and might not readily grasp how economic growth can lead to broader societal benefits.

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3. Economic Panacea (Whale): Economic growth is often touted as a solution to various societal issues, such as poverty reduction, job creation, and improved living standards. In this analogy, the economic panacea is like the whale – a large and powerful force with the potential to drive positive change on a significant scale.

Exploring why it can be challenging to convince average citizens about the benefits of economic growth led upliftment:

• Complexity: Economic principles and their effects can be complex and abstract. Explaining how economic growth can lead to upliftment involves understanding factors like job creation, increased income, improved infrastructure, and better social services. These concepts might not be easily accessible to everyone.

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• Limited Exposure: Many individuals might not have had substantial exposure to economics or may not fully comprehend its implications. The idea of economic growth as a means of societal upliftment might seem distant and disconnected from their daily lives.

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• Skepticism: Some people might be skeptical about the idea that economic growth automatically translates into improved living conditions for all. They might question whether the benefits of growth truly reach all segments of society or whether it primarily benefits a privileged few.

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• Inequality Concerns: Skepticism might also arise from concerns about income inequality and unequal distribution of the benefits of economic growth. If an individual perceives that only a small portion of society benefits from growth, they might be resistant to accepting it as a panacea for upliftment.

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• Alternative Beliefs: Some individuals might hold alternative beliefs about how societal upliftment can be achieved. These beliefs could be rooted in social ideologies, environmental concerns, or other factors that prioritize different approaches over economic growth.

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• Limited Empirical Evidence: In some cases, individuals might not have seen firsthand evidence of the positive impact of economic growth. If their personal experiences do not align with the narrative of growth-led upliftment, they might be hesitant to accept it as a feasible solution.

In this reinterpretation of the quote, the challenge lies in conveying the potential benefits of economic growth as a means of societal upliftment to individuals who might have limited exposure to economic concepts, varying perspectives, and different beliefs about how progress should be achieved. Just as an ingenious mollusc might struggle to comprehend the possibility of a whale, average citizens might struggle to fully grasp the potential of economic growth to drive positive change across society.

--- What if the mollusc was a believer in animism while the whale was Christianity/Islam?

If we reinterpret the quote with the mollusc representing a believer in animism and the whale symbolizing major organized religions like Christianity or Islam, the meaning shifts toward the challenge of convincing someone with deeply ingrained spiritual or religious beliefs to accept a completely different faith system.

In this context, the quote could be illustrating the difficulty of convincing an individual who adheres to animism, a belief system that attributes spiritual significance to various elements of nature, to accept the more structured and monotheistic belief systems of Christianity or Islam. Here's how the analogy can be understood:

1. Believer in Animism (Mollusc): Just as an average mollusc might lack the capacity to comprehend something as massive and complex as a whale, a believer in animism might have a worldview deeply rooted in nature's interconnectedness and spirituality. Their belief system is likely centered around attributing spiritual essence to natural elements like plants, animals, and natural phenomena.

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3. Organized Religions (Whale): Organized religions like Christianity and Islam are vast and intricate systems of belief, encompassing theological doctrines, moral codes, rituals, and a structured understanding of the divine. The whale, in this context, symbolizes the enormity and complexity of these established faiths.

Exploring the challenges of convincing an animism believer to accept Christianity or Islam:

• Worldview Clash: Animism emphasizes a holistic connection between humans, nature, and the spiritual world. Shifting to monotheistic religions like Christianity or Islam, which emphasize the worship of a single deity, represents a significant shift in worldview and belief structure.

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• Spiritual Significance: In animism, various elements of nature are considered imbued with spiritual significance. Convincing someone of the exclusive divinity of a singular deity in monotheistic religions might challenge their deeply held belief that spiritual forces permeate all aspects of the natural world.

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• Cultural Context: Animism often has cultural roots and practices that are closely tied to specific communities or regions. Transitioning to Christianity or Islam might involve leaving behind cultural practices that are deeply meaningful to the believer.

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• Faith and Tradition: Believers in animism might have inherited their spiritual beliefs from generations before them. These beliefs and traditions can be deeply ingrained, making it emotionally challenging to consider adopting an entirely new belief system.

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• Lack of Familiarity: The concepts, rituals, and teachings of monotheistic religions can be unfamiliar and even alien to someone raised in an animistic belief system. This unfamiliarity might make it difficult for them to connect with or accept the new faith.

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• Attachment to Natural World: Animism emphasizes a profound connection to the natural world. Switching to monotheistic religions might be seen as a detachment from this close relationship with nature.

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• Societal and Family Pressures: In some cases, societal and family pressures could strongly discourage abandoning one's ancestral beliefs for a new faith, particularly when animism is an integral part of their identity and community.

In this reinterpretation of the quote, the challenge lies in attempting to convince someone deeply rooted in animism to embrace the monotheistic tenets of organized religions like Christianity or Islam. The differences in worldview, spirituality, cultural significance, and personal identity can make such a transition profoundly complex and resistant to persuasion.

---What about the use/absence of evidence?

The use or absence of evidence is indeed a crucial factor that can contribute to the difficulty of convincing someone of a different belief or idea, especially when it comes to matters of spirituality, religion, or worldview. Here's how evidence or its absence plays into the scenarios you've described:

1. Believer in Animism (Mollusc) vs. Organized Religions (Whale):

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   • Use of Evidence: Monotheistic religions often emphasize faith and belief in the absence of tangible evidence. Believers are encouraged to have faith in the divine based on spiritual experiences, teachings, and traditions, even when empirical evidence might be lacking.
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   • Absence of Evidence: From the perspective of someone rooted in animism, the absence of empirical evidence for the specific theological claims of monotheistic religions might be a barrier to acceptance. Animism might have a more immediate connection to natural phenomena that believers can perceive, leading them to question the basis for monotheistic religious claims.

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3. Average Citizen (Mollusc) vs. Economic Panacea (Whale):

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   • Use of Evidence: The concept of economic growth as an upliftment tool often involves presenting historical data, case studies, and economic theories to demonstrate its positive effects. Proponents rely on evidence of improved living standards, decreased poverty rates, and enhanced infrastructure resulting from economic growth.
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   • Absence of Evidence: Skeptics might resist accepting economic growth as an effective solution if they perceive a lack of concrete evidence that it benefits all segments of society. They might point to instances where economic growth has led to increased inequality or negative environmental consequences.

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5. Average Citizen (Mollusc) vs. Christianity/Islam (Whale):

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   • Use of Evidence: Monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam often involve the presentation of holy scriptures, historical events, and spiritual experiences as evidence of their truths. Proponents rely on these sources to provide a foundation for their claims.
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   • Absence of Evidence: Those who come from a different belief system might find it challenging to accept the theological claims of monotheistic religions if they don't see the same evidentiary basis in their own belief system. The absence of tangible evidence for certain religious teachings might be a point of contention.

In all these cases, the use or absence of evidence can influence an individual's willingness to accept a new belief or idea. The availability and interpretation of evidence are essential components of persuasive communication. When evidence aligns with an individual's existing beliefs or experiences, they might be more open to considering a new perspective. However, when evidence is lacking or contradicts deeply held beliefs, convincing them to embrace a different viewpoint becomes more challenging.