One of my book reviews in the Fall issue of Regulation is about Philip Coggan’s More (The Economist, 2020) and has the same title as this post. In the article, I explain what my love and hate story is about:

I am certainly not the only one to have a love–hate relationship with The Economist, the venerable magazine created in 1843 to defend free trade. At least over the past 10 years, the magazine seems to have become more tolerant of Leviathan, but it remains a source of serious information and it keeps me up to date on what intelligent social democrats think.

I had the same feeling reading Philip Coggan’s new book … The fact that Coggan is a journalist at The Economist may have something to do with this.

What I love in More’s book is explained in the review, and so is what I like less. “Hate,” of course, is used metaphorically, although the politicization of everything does generate confrontation, resentment, and, in the worst case, hate. The juxtaposition of love and hate seems to have originated in a love poem by the Roman poet Gallus Valerius Catullus (84-54 BC):

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Coggan’s book, subtitled “The World Economy from the Iron Age to the Information Age,” does not quote Latin poetry but it helps reflect on the economic adventure of mankind.