The Rational Optimist

I really enjoyed listening to Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist as an audio-book. It seemed perfectly suited to the format. The reader, L.j. Ganser, had just the tone of jaunty buoyancy to carry me through the whole set of 11 CDs in just a couple of weeks of listening in the car, which is the only place I find conducive to working through audio-books. The book itself could perhaps be considered a kind of libertarian manifesto, though Ridley is a lot less concerned about the corrosive effects of "statism" and government abuse of power than most libertarians, as long as property rights are reliably protected. I'd call him a Madisonian liberal: he's all in favor of political forms that weaken and factionalize, but have the authority to defend the processes of exchange he finds magical in determining the (almost) inevitability of human progress. There's also an ingredient of engagement with science in Ridley's writing and thinking here that I find quite admirable, though it has drawn what I think is criticism of the wrong sort from professional scientists, predictably, in the area of climate change. I say the wrong sort because I see the criticism as simply an attempt to shut his argument down point by point rather than addressing it overall, and overall I think he remains convincing, as an "amateur" thinking about the implications of even the "scientific consensus" on climate change issues: namely, that there is uncertainty about the magnitude and meaning of effects of climate change, and very little uncertainty about the magnitude of the costs of simply trying to stop carbon emissions on the living standards of the world, developed and developing. To categorize him as a climate change denier is I believe dishonest.

Slayer of Gods

     Lynda Robinson's Slayer of Gods is a mystery set in ancient Egypt, and follows her Drinker of Blood in the "Lord Meren" series. The mystery which provided the narrative drive and structure for both books, the death of Nefertiti, was resolved in this one. The structure of the "case" allowed Robinson to imagine two distinct Egyptian regimes, that of Akhenaten and that of Tutankhamen, quite interestingly. Slayer of Gods is apparently the sixth book in the Lord Meren series. I'd have to say that I really see these two in particular as one long novel, despite their being part of a perhaps continuing series.

The Soros Lectures

     I've been meaning to note that I read The Soros Lectures, by the financier George Soros, several weeks ago… It seemed an interesting mix of views emerging from different bits of his life and not necessarily finding themselves consistent with one another. First, a description of some philosophical views on the "reflexivity" of economic systems that boil down to the importance of self-fulfilling but false expectations in creating extended failures in markets to behave correctly (i.e., to process information objectively), failures that Soros himself has been able to take advantage of in some of his most profitable investing activities. All good, and anything someone makes a billion dollars off of and is willing to divulge to the world, I'm at least interested in hearing – though he didn't seem quite as original a thinker as he sees himself being. Second, a critique of what he sees as a similar form of cognitive dissonance characterizing the recent Bush administration in both the economic and political spheres – that is, his claim that the fundamental mode of that administration was deception, of itself and others. Most of this put in the kind of "isn't it obvious" terms that infuriate me in the arguments of my left-liberal Berkeley friends. Weak stuff, this, unless much better argued. Third, and perhaps most interesting, statements that the structural problems that caused the recession from 2008 on aren't even close to being resolved, that it's possible the worst of the "correction" is yet to come. He seems to be basing this third argument on a combination of solid knowledge of the degree to which bad investment positions around the world haven't yet completed their "unwinding," and the additional effects of government debt and doubts about creditworthiness. Soros' prescribed solution seems to be a combination of continued short selling of private and government securities, of the sort that has made him rich, and strong government intervention in the economy of the sort that Paul Krugman's been advocating in the New York Times, threatening a depression if his advice isn't followed (as it probably won't be). I found myself much more inclined to trust the short selling than the proposed solutions, not that I'd put any money on it myself.