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by pseudo0 1913 days ago
> And you must be laughably far right to call The Economist left wing. Marine Le Pen would call it a right wing paper.

I'd consider The Economist neoliberal rather than right-wing, as they have a pretty clear editorial bias in favor of free trade and globalization, but also tend to lean left on social issues. That puts the magazine opposite Le Pen on most issues, given her nationalist positions. Trying to lump them together as "right-wing" is incredibly reductionist.

You can go back and read The Economist's opinion of Le Pen if you'd like, and it's distinctly not charitable.

https://www.economist.com/1843/2016/03/02/marine-le-pen-letr...

1 comments

Right-wing and left-wing are always somewhat reductionist terms. I would say though that Le Pen and the Economist would find much more common grlund in practice (and lerhaps Le Pen is a relatively bad example here, Bolsanaro or the Polish right or Modi would be even better) than The Economist and Jean-Luc Melanchon or Jeremy Corbyn or even Bernie Sanders.

Sure, there are specific social issues, mainly related to personal liberties, where they would disahree (and Le Pen's populism is always unpleasant to business interests). But the broader topics of interest to the Economist, the improtance of business interests and using the state to further them internationally, are quite aligned. Perhaps Le Pen really believes and would have put her populist promises in action, but I think its far more likely that she would have done just like Trump - spout populist promises but govern with business interests at the forefront.