The best piece of writing about the Economist you've ever read is a piece by an author who admits that "until last week, I had not read The Economist since high school"? This is the author whose opinion on the Economist you trust?
I haven’t read the piece, but if someone makes a well-reasoned argument, it doesn’t matter who they are or what credentials they hold.
It’s equally as meek a counter-argument as, “trust me because I hold degrees in this topic.” Good. Then it should be easy for you to make a well-reasoned argument.
> I haven’t read the piece, but if someone makes a well-reasoned argument, it doesn’t matter who they are or what credentials they hold.
I strongly disagree. Well reasoned means nothing if it is not based on anything real except own imagination. And it means nothing if it was not checked against reality.
Our tendency to favor "sounds plausible and logical" even when the person writing it never bothered to check reality is just yet another logical fallacy.
The author has discovered that The Economist is pro-market.
As someone who is a Yale educated leftist and believes that markets do not work Robinson is upset.
Meanwhile, when employers of his own magazine wanted it to become a worker owned socialist cooperative he got them to resign. Socialism for thee, not for me.
The best take on The Economist magazine that I saw (after subscribing for several years) is that it's News of the World for policy wonks. To be read for laughs. For maximum effect, leave your paper copy aside for six months, then read it.
Is it true that most of their writers are twenty-somethings?
I accept the article's assertion that their kneejerk free-market philosophy is, at the least, limiting. But to me, the tone has always suggested middle-age journalism grads, rather than the right-wing business-school types the article is suggesting.
They have a bias, but they don't seem stupid or inexperienced. So much of free-market thought in the US, and recently the UK, has been caught up in culture war, and the Economist is staunchly against that.
Which is to say, they don't read like twenty-somethings to me. So if I'm wrong about that, I need to take another look at the lens through which I view their writing.