Although interesting, this analysis reminds of that old axiom about generals, fighting, and old wars. It makes a great case for the last great consensus breakdown not happening again, but it doesn't seem to make the case that a new sort of breakdown won't occur.

I mean, look at one of the examples cited. "Japan has so far managed to avoid another depression". True, but it may have mired itself in something much worse- a long term malaise that saps the economy of its strength and nearly institutionalizes the gap between what is produced and what can be produced- a gap that both you and Paul Krugman said was one of the biggest dangers facing both Japan and the U.S. economy.

Also, Wolf was a little disingenuous here. The only source he used in order to describe the anti-globalists was a pamphlet by John Lloyd. Why not actually use source material written by those under discussion, instead of one of their critics? If I were going to explain why the ideas and tactics of the anti-globalists didn't matter, I'd cite (and critique) Naomi Wolf long before I cited John Lloyd.

Ack. Bradford, if you can edit these, kill the first one and keep the second. I meant Klein, and didn't quite catch it in time.

Ack! I meant Naomi KLEIN, not Wolf, and didn't post two entries after all.

That's it. I'm going back to bed.

yah, but if Wolf were to quote Klein, he wouldn't be able to raise strawmen like:

>>But no significant economist argues that closing off an economy makes sense<<

which he just seems to have a total blind spot about; he's been told a number of times that it's a position held by almost literally nobody on the anti side.

I also think that the analysis of Brazil's problems as an "old fashioned fiscal crisis" is pretty difficult to understand ...

Whether globalization continues does not strike me as an important question. It will. What is important is how globalization is to better the lives of milllions and millions in the poorer countries.

Free-Market Upheaval Grinds Mexico's Middle Class
By GINGER THOMPSON - New York Times

MEXICO CITY -— By Mexican standards, Álvaro Álvarez and Alma Amarillas are a solid middle-class couple. But in the 20 years they have worked to build a stable life for themselves and their children, the economic ground beneath them has never stopped shaking.

She works double shifts as a public school teacher and administrator. He has quit teaching to work as a personnel manager for the government. Together they make about $24,000 a year. But they have little more to show for their life's labor than the roof over their heads.

They have not been able to save a penny. They spend more than half their monthly income on their mortgage. Their safety net is a credit card with a $300 limit. And they have diminishing hope that their two daughters will live better than they do.

"We live day to day," Ms. Amarillas said. "We never know when there will be a new crisis. I panic when the girls get a fever or the car sounds funny.

"I don't think much anymore about how our situation will improve," she added. "I worry more about how it could get worse."

It has been two decades since Mexico committed itself to free-market reforms aimed at propelling this country into the developed world. The North American Free Trade Agreement, considered the centerpiece of the new Mexican philosophy, has generated a quarter trillion dollars in cross-border trade with the United States. The treaty helped turn a closed, inefficient economy dominated by state-owned companies into one that was flooded by foreign investment and driven by foreign competition.

But government statistics show that economic liberalization has done little to close the huge divide between the privileged few and the poor, and left the middle class worse off than before. Battered by a series of severe recessions, teachers and engineers, nurses and small-business men, all find themselves swinging above and below the poverty line with the rise and fall of the peso, interest rates and the unemployment rate.

What is important is to devise development spurs as globalization continues that allow middle class families increasing measures of security and help to include the poor to in turn become middle class. Mexico has opened, Brazil has opened. Are the openings going to close the income gaps between classes in these countries?

Antiglobalism is a form of racism and imperialism.
The antiglobal brigade wants to impose its primitivist fantasies on the poor countries. The line is that it is better for the world's poor to stay that way rather develop their economies and lose their colorful and authentic folk cultures that so charm all the hip left-liberal types in the West.

To hear Greenpeace tell it, if the Multinational Corporations, the World Bank and the IMF would just go away the world would become one big hippie commune and we would all live happily ever after. Talk about clueless.

looking for some pointers here: i've found the recent studies/critiques faulting globalization for its role in creating larger income gaps incomplete. i'm uncertain whether the poor in developing countries are acquiring wealth, but just at a slower rate than the rich, or whether they aren't acquiring any at all (like the middle and bottom 1/5 in this country according to a '98 Congressional Budget Office study). if the former, i'd like to know how hard they're working for their new wealth, etc. if anyone could tip me off in the right direction, i'd appreciate it.

Timmy, here's the URL to a piece in the New York Times that deals with that question.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/business/15SCEN.html

There is also a lot of information about that topic in various of Prof. DeLong's writings on this web site.

The story seems to be that in countries that are part of the global economy everybody is getting richer, even where the gap between rich and poor is growing within a country.

The big success stories are India and China. Since those countries have taken the capitalist road their economies have grown like gangbusters. They still have skillions of poor people, but they are a lot better off than they were twenty years ago.

Reading the above comments, and other such stuff in various places, it seems to me that various different concerns are being conflated under one umbrella. As an example, the issue of the Mexican couple described above, Álvaro Álvarez and Alma Amarillas, is essentially a proxy for the concerns of many Americans about what is happening in the US, and has little to do with globalization and Africa or even globalization and India/China.

Having said that, let's look at the case of the Mexican couple and their American counterparts. I think the immediate question of interest is why are their lives not getting better. How could one answer that?

One possibility is that their lives ARE getting better, they just don't realize it because it's happening slowly, and because back when they were poorer, they didn't have kids so could live an easier and more carefree life.

Let's assume that's not the case. Then the question is:
is there more money/stuff available in the society (ie higher GDP/person)? and
if so, how is that money/stuff being split up?
A similar question is one of where their money is going? Is lots of it going to housing because
(1) they have a better and nicer house than their parents before them, or because of
(2) rents (in the general economist's sense of the term), or because
(3) the supply of housing has run out because Mexico city has hit some natural barriers like surrounding mountains (ie like housing in the Bay Area) or because
(4) they have moved to a better neighborhood for the sake of status?
Each of these four cases implies something different about the solution.
Case (1) means their lives are getting better and that's the way it goes---someone has to pay for the nicer house.
Case (2) implies a problem with the internal social structure of the country, a problem that is perhaps best dealt with via something like a wealth tax, or constraints on the amount of property which individuals and organizations can own---but it's not clear how it's related to globalization.
Case (3) is a consequence of too many babies and the bottom line is that people have to be told to stop having babies (either inside Mexico City or in villages, said babies then growning up to move to Mexico City). After all, there's always going to be something that runs out first as you increase the number of people, and in this case what's run out is the supply of housing in Mexico City.
Case (4) tells us something about pathologies of the human psyche, and is a problem/complaint that will be with us till the end of time.

My point in this is that it is not enough to fulminate about how much something about someone's life sucks and then claim (with apparently no linking whatever) that this is because of globalization. Far more useful for everyone, both the readers and the people involved, is to establish exactly what the problem is (and if there even is a problem), and then honestly to look at the cause of the problem.

Um, Maynard, it's pretty well established that Mexico's previous "Closed, inefficient" economy grew way faster than the wonderful new open one they have now.

It boggles the mind that those two educated people have nothing to show for 20 years of work, and I feel that a strong enough causal link between Mexico's opening up and the Amarillas' economic malaise exists to argue that it's the neo-liberals turn to "honestly look at the problem."

PS: Everytime I read the Wolf piece it seems to have less and less substance. A bunch of bromides and loud assertions "All great powers have abandoned the atavistic notion that prosperity derives from territorial gains plus plunder" (tell those Nigerian women that they aren't being "plundered") but no scholarship at all.

different chris: I've never heard that about Mexico before. Do you know any sources?

Re: the Mexican couple.

These people own a house and a car -- there are a lot of people in the world (including no smalll number in this country) that would be happy to be in their position.

I google'd as quickly as I could but I gotta go home, this I hope should link to hard numbers:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/growth.htm

BTW, I don't think (and I can't emphasize this enough) that pre-liberalization PRI rule was even 1 micro-iota better overall. They sucked in their own ossified way.

But the Mexicans seem to have gone from pushing against an immovable object to being run over by an irresistible force.

In this case the new boss is *not* the same as the old boss but is he any better? And if not, then time for some more thinking, no?

different Chris.
Did you read what I said?
I don't have a stake in globalization. I'm not interested in maintaining the current US power structure. What I AM interested in is helping people around the world live a good life. I believe that doing so requires an honest understanding of what the real nature of the problems is.

All you have done is assert that globalization is the problem. The URL you cite is interesting, but the bottom line is that all it says is that growth in most of the world was a lot worse from 1980 to 2000 than from 1960 to 1980. I can give you a bunch of possible reasons for that:
- wars and power-mad leaders gradually destroyed what remained of the physical and cultural legacy of communism
- higher oil prices
- the low-lying fruit of industrialization (whatever did not require cultural change) was exploited in 1960-1980
- cold-war competition drove these countries (and the interaction of the wealthier world) in a certain way
- populations grew too large, and the gains of 1960-1980 were even then unsustainable in terms of resources.
- destructive political philosophies like political Islam came along.

Now which of these explanations is true? Maybe none? Maybe different ones in different countries. The point is,
(1) simply claiming that globalization is the problem, without looking at alternative explanations smacks of being interested in scoring points rather than solving the problem and
(2) what is the alternative proposed to globalization? Telling people in the west to simply hand over money to the poor is not going to fly, especially in the absence of any concrete steps to ensure that the money actually lands up in health care and education rather than in private jets and palaces. The donors of the west have seen this game play out enough times to have ZERO patience which claims that this time it will be different.

Basically someone has to impose some discipline in how money is spent in these countries. The alternatives appear to be
- the market does so in some way (ie globalization)
- donors and the west do so (ie neo-colonization)
- local leaders do so in a horribly corrupt fashion (most of Africa)
- local leaders do so in a lackadaisical fashion (eg Inonesia)
- local leaders do so in a brutal (but successful) fashion (eg China)

Which of these alternatives do you want? And if your choice is for local leaders, explain how you propose to ensure that they will follow the example of China (ie with a payoff after the brutality), and how you find it acceptable that the west support this.

Don't give some blathering crap about "local initiatives" and "trusting the people". Modern society is based on industry, which requires somehow the control of vast amounts of plant, resources and labor. Who is going to have that control? There does not appear to be a single society ever that has control of industry based on "democracy" for the simple reason that most people don't have a clue how to run a power station or a steel factory or a semi-conductor plant. So we are looking at some sort of elite/aristocracy. The only question is, who is that aristocracy to be, what are the constraints on their behavior, how will those constraints be enforced, and how do they enforce their will on labor and other industrial organizations,. Anything other than dealing with these issues is just a waste of time.

In response to Joe Willingham, who says:

"The story seems to be that in countries that are part of the global economy everybody is getting richer, even where the gap between rich and poor is growing within a country."

This is really too simple. At least, it is if you mean the Washington consensus of "drop your trade barriers, welcome foreign multinational corporate investors on their own terms, and adopt the privatisation/deregulation recommendations of the IMF and everything will come up roses" which is what it sounds like. The stories of India and China may even suggest that relatively closed economies can do pretty well. Stories of other countries that have followed the Washington consensus, including many Latin American countries, are much less inspiring.

As a non-economist, the stuff I have found most interesting on the subject is that by Dani Rodrik, who has many papers posted on his web site. He emphasises the fact that there is no simple solution, and that different things may work for different countries.

In response to Timmy, who says:

"I'm uncertain whether the poor in developing countries are acquiring wealth, but just at a slower rate than the rich, or whether they aren't acquiring any at all"

It really depends on the developing country. As has been pointed out, it seems that many Indian and Chinese poor people are acquiring wealth. On the other hand, there are still many millions of people in other countries who are starving or nearly so -- and so by definition can't have been worse off in the past (or they would have been dead).

It's a big world we live in, and I think it is a mistake to look for averages across the globe. They really don't tell us very much--if Indian peasants are getting richer, does that tell us much to help peasants in small countries who are not? Probably not.

>>The big success stories are India and China. Since those countries have taken the capitalist road their economies have grown like gangbusters<<

Wish somebody would explain to me about Botswana. Or Singapore... Some nations experience consistant growth without liberal democracy, but I don't see how.

Is there a free trade theory equivalent to the optimal currency area criteria?

I'm no fan of the Lee thesis---I don't think harsh political systems promote growth, but (becoming a bore now) it would really be remarkable if all countries that have exhibited economic growth shared a common political system as you seem to expect. From industrial revolution Britain to Stalinist Russia to postwar Japan and on and on, economic growth has appeared in many environments -- not all of them pretty.

In short, methinks you expect too much from economics.

>>Wish somebody would explain to me about Botswana. Or Singapore... Some nations experience consistant growth without liberal democracy, but I don't see how.<<

Consistent growth started in western Europe when market systems as we know them arose, and continued for hundreds of years well before there were any liberal democracies anywhere. By today's standards even the U.S. -- with slavery, no vote for women, and other voting restrictions -- wasn't a 'liberal democracy' until rather recently. (Although it's contemporary standards that matter, of course). But the economic growth made the gradual emergence of liberal democracies possible.

When the benefits of enough economic growth are distributed widely through a population, economic power and information are distributed with it, and the people start using them to demand political power that corresponds. You know, the King has to borrow money from the nobles to finance his wars. Then when he decides his divine rights free him from the duty to repay, they run him down and force him to submit to the laws of borrowing. The King no longer has divine power. Then the nobles in turn find they are dependent on the leaders of the rising commercial class, and the leaders of commerce find they are dependent on their workers, finally even women get into the act, and here we are. But it all took a lot of time.

I don't know if anyone here saw "1900 House", but the women participants in it came away saying they believed the invention of vacuum cleaners and washing machines may have been as responsible for women getting the vote as anything else, because they freed women from hours and hours of grinding domestic labor and gave them the time to make their weight felt outside the home in society. To the extent that's true, it's an example of economic development creating the conditions where democracy can later expand.

As to a place like Singapore, the culture of democracy started developing in the west hundreds of years before it did in the east, so one would expect the west to be "ahead" in that regard. But if one compared conditions in Singapore decade by decade, I'd wager one would conclude it is gradually moving towards more democracy rather than less.

>>I don't know if anyone here saw "1900 House", but the women participants in it came away saying they believed the invention of vacuum cleaners and washing machines may have been as responsible for women getting the vote as anything else, because they freed women from hours and hours of grinding domestic labor and gave them the time to make their weight felt outside the home in society.<<

God that's stupid; the suffragette movement was a movement of upper-middle class women who had domestics for all of that.

And in fact, women were given the vote in Britain in 1918, in grateful reward for their labour in munitions factories and such.

In re: Singapore and Botswana, I am not sure that "discover diamonds" is a paticularly useful development strategy to recommend to anyone, and nor is "be a vital staging post between the Indian sub-continent and China". Even the antis have to admit that although neoliberalism doesn't often work, nothing else seems to work at all.

There are several encouraging example of a successful market economy leading to greater democracy. Taiwan, after many years as a one party dictatorship has made the transition to democracy. South Korea is now ruled by an elected government rather than the military as it was for many years. With the opening of its economy Mexico very quickly made the transition, and the ruling party faced and lost a real election for the first time in seventy years. Other Latin American countries are trying hard, and Cuba is the last remaining outright dictatorship in the western hemisphere.

The sixty-four dollar question concerns China. Can China's economy continue to grow while China remains a dictatorship? The government there hopes so, but in the long run the odds are against it. Did everyone see the story about the Chinese regime blocking Google in an apparent attempt to constrict the flow of information during the upcoming party Congress? That says a lot about what China's rulers fear.

According to several of the essays in a recent book, *Culture Matters*, edited by Samuel Huntington, cultural variables affect whether a nature successfully develops its economy as much as do the kinds of things economists talk about. An example given is that in 1960 Ghana and South Korea were at about the same level, but only the latter has made the grade since. The theory is that this is due to cultural differences between the two countries.

If true, this is bad news, since culture is a very difficult thing to change.

>>God that's stupid; the suffragette movement was a movement of upper-middle class women who had domestics for all of that.

And in fact, women were given the vote in Britain in 1918, in grateful reward for their labour in munitions factories and such.<<

Uhm. 1869, the Wyoming Territory. Votes for women! Not many maid servants and ladies-in-waiting attending upon their mistresses at high social teas and political salons when THAT franchise was awarded. (Nor washing machines or diesel-powered grain mills, either, for that matter and tying back into previous discussions...) And the women who DID work out in those remote locations no doubt found "Bloomers", eponymous of the women's right
advocate who designed the trouser-like garmets,
more practical for chores than whaleboned dresses.

At Wyoming's statehood, some three decades later, the former territory continuted the policy. Neighboring frontiers like Idaho competing for women copied the idea. Several states had women voting around 1900.

The movement started in, what, 1840 or so?
Susie B Anthony and all? Glass's "1900 House" reference is more apt than post WWI, anyhow.

The sufferagrettes movement -- so well conveyed by Glynnis Johns in the classic movie "Mary Poppins" by Disney Studios -- was rather later than frontier movements. On the evidence of the
songs there, "Mrs Banks" was wearing her banner and getting chained to lampposts in 1910. Well
before any work in the munitions industry. Not that sequence implies causality...

>>In re: Singapore and Botswana, I am not sure that "discover diamonds" is a paticularly useful development strategy to recommend to anyone, <<

It seems to have worked in a higher percentage of cases than "discover oil" ... Leading me to contemplate the differences between deBeers and
OPEC; Exxon and United Fruit; and possibly the Dutch East India Trading Co.

Hmm. We may have an empirical case before us this week. What will be the impact upon single commodity exporting nations -- where the commodity is cocoa -- of a multi-national corporation like Kraft or Nestle buying out the family trust control of Hershey?

Going only upon gut feeling, rather than data, I suspect Hershey trustees has been practicing benign neglect towards the cocoa-producing nations. I am skeptical of corporate mergers in general, and expect the buyout to fall short of expectations, which will then lead to short-term efforts to cut losses. Which will mean taking actions to the local and immediate interests of the corporation and contrary to the global and long-term interests of cocoa-producers. Since the
alternate market Hershey (King Log) once provided will be gone, Nestle (or RJ Reynolds/Kraft, whoever becomes King Stork) will be able to royally screw chocolate growers. And chocolate eaters...

Any bets either way?

Since there's been some discussion of both Botswana and my NYT column on Xavier Sala-i-Martin's work, readers might be interested in his take on Botswana, which didn't make it into the column. Botswana, for those who don't know, was the fastest growing economy in the world over the period in question and has also maintained democratic rule. Here's Sala-i-Martin's response to an email asking about Botswana:

"Botswana did very well DESPITE discovering diamonds in the early 1960s (most people would say "thanks to" diamonds, but I say "despite" because most countries that discover natural wealth such as oil or diamonds suffer from corruption, violence or even war - Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Congo, etc.). How did Zimbabwe avoid all of that? No one really knows for sure, but my guess is that it is one of these examples when a single person changes history: George Washington did a lot [for] US democracy by choosing not to be president for a third term, Nelson Mandela did a lot for peace in South Africa by not seeking "revenge"against the white minority. Similary, King (and sir) Seretse Kama (who was exiled in Britain) went back to Botswana to be the president. They discovered diamonds in his region of origin. He did not try to have his group keep all the wealth (as the Biafrans tried to do in Nigeria in the late 1960s or the Ogonis are still trying to do the same today). He decided to use the wealth for benefit of the whole population, he decided to work closely with the private extrators of diamonds (mainly)DeBeers, he kept a democratic regime all the way to today (Botswana is one of the few countries without a military coup since independence).

Of course not all is well in Botswana. As you know, AIDS is hitting the country (and all the Southern Arican region) particularly hard (over 30% of adults are infected, over 50% of pregnant women are infected...)"

Virginia Postrel

1,554,000 total population of Botswana.
762,000 population of adults 15 to 49.

300,000 adults HIV/AIDS positive.
38.8% adult rate of infection.
56.7% of infected adults are women 15 to 49.
22.99 - 44.98% range of women 15 to 24
infected.
28,000 children 0 to 14.

26,000 AIDS deaths in 2001.
69,000 AIDS orphans cumulatively to 2002.

Thanks for remembering.

Virginia Postrel has made some important remarks about Botswana and the potential for development in a liberalized economy with a safety-net to cushion those displaced by development. There is much to be optimistic about in Botswana and South Africa "if" the problem of illness can be effectively dealth with. HIV/AIDS in particular is the fiercest of problems.

My sense is that development through sub-Saharan Africa is being severely limited by the HIV/AIDS crisis. The crisis threatens above all and must be continually set in focus.

Just as an aside, but Postrell's comment about "a single man changing history" sounds remarkably Machiavellian. Sounds remarkably like something you'd read in the Discourses, doesn't it?

December 2001 -

663,815,000 total population of sub-Saharan
Africa.
291,310,000 population of adults 15 to 49.

28,500,000 sub-Saharan Africans HIV/AIDS
positive.
26,000,000 adults 15 to 49. 9.0% adult rate.
15,000,000 women 15 to 49. 57.7% of
infected.
2,600,000 children 0 to 14.

22,000,000 - 35,000,000 range of sub-Saharan
Africans
HIV/AIDS positive.

6.41 - 11.39% range of women 15 to 24
infected.
3.13 - 5.56% range of men 15 to 24 infected.

19,400,000 deaths estimated for sub-Saharan
Africa's
adults and children of diseases caused by
AIDS from
beginning of epidemic to end 2001.

2,200,000 deaths of Africans from diseases
caused by AIDS in 2001.
500,000 deaths of children.

1,300,000 - 2,300,000 range of deaths for
adults.
380,000 - 650,000 range of deaths for
children.

3,400,000 Africans newly infected in 2001.
700,000 children newly infected.

11,000,000 orphans cumulatively at end
2001. An orphan is described as a child who
by 15 has had a mother or both parents die of
diseases caused by AIDS. Mothers generally
are the leading care takers of Africa's
children.

44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
37 countries studied.

20% or more adults infected in 7 African
countries.
11% or more infected in 12 countries.
8% or more infected in 15 countries.
5% or more infected in 24 countries.

>> The movement started in, what, 1840 or so?
Susie B Anthony and all? Glass's "1900 House" reference is more apt than post WWI, anyhow.<<

The issue isn't when a movement starts but when it succeeds, of course. Many movements start generations before conditions change enough to enable them to succeed politically -- and many movements never succeed politically.

In the US this occurred in 1920 with the ratificiation of the 19th Amendment. And while some have noted that some states endorsed the vote for women before then, several states also opposed the vote for women as late as then by rejecting the amendment.

(And some of these didn't get around to going on record in support of the amendment until the 1970s and '80s)

A little quibble centred around Daniel Davis's post and the position of women at the begining of the twentieth century. Actually Joel Mokyr has a nice piece somewhere about the riddle of domestic technology and housework. It seems that after the introduction of the above mentioned gadgets women actually worked more hours in the home (implying less free time). The reason for this was possibly that subsequently working and middle class women were expected to maintain a home of the standard only available previously to the rich with two or three servants. Which possibly brings me to the topic of globalisation since today many middle and working class women are able to maintain splendid homes by having an immigrant woman (often illegal) in to do the cleaning. Oh we are hypocrites!

The connection of this with globalisation is of course that globalisation is also about the movement of people. I'm a firm believer that the recent extensive immigration into the US and the UK has had an important role to play in the changed slopes of the labour supply curves in those countries (ie the very rapid rates of job creation they have experienced) and that this may go a very long way to explaining the problems many economists have been having with NAIRU.

Maybe the wages many of these women are being paid is extremely low, but if you live in Ecuador or Columbia, or you happen to be a displaced Kurd with no rights living in Syria, then maybe they are a godsend. And this godsend has more consequences. Part of this money goes back to your family at home (and for some countries like Ecuador and Pakistan this revenue is not insignificant), while at the same time the previous 'homemaker' is now much freer to go out to work, thus again facilitating job creation.

Well this was supposed to be about whether globalisation was in danger. I'm afraid I cannot accept Martin Wolf's argument here, there is what Brad calls a 'material base', it's known as the nation state, and in particular represented by all those influential groups who benefit from the rents generated by defending their 'cultural exceptionalness'. Wherever you look, from Argentina to France you can find a similar story in the background. Europe, Latin America, Japan, the USA, there is a similar picture across the board of countries turning inwards in the face of problems. Is this inevitable, and will it continue. Maybe not, but does it represent a threat: certainly.

I am also a big fan of Martin Wolf. But he did not manage this time to fully convince me. If wish very stronly he is right but in these matters analysts often confuse their wishes with reality.

It reminded of the laudry list of arguements people used to come up to tell you there hadn't even been a recession - the unemployed and the homeless are a plot by a coalition of some frustrated neo-liberals and the Green party - and that under no strech of mind could the situation in the US be remotely compared with the Japanese post-"bubble economy" experience...

If we could be sure that distorting reality in a hopeful way would turn our beliefs into realities then, maybe, this could justified (I personally cherish truthfulness for its own sake, sometimes...) But the fact is that the trick is not reliable and that it blurs our political vision, and arguably, slows down our response to crises.