I don’t know what I am going to say. I’m tempted to try a comparison of four intellectuals at four different moments in western print-culture: William of Occam, Niccolo Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Tyler Cowen.
Apr 25 2007
My co-blogger's Myth of the Rational Voter has gotten well-deserved thumbs up from Greg Mankiw and Tyler Cowen. Tyler raises some issues, including 3. Voters are less irrational in many northern European countries. I don't agree with their socialistic view of the world, but in epistemically procedural terms they are...
Apr 25 2007
DeLong also links to an excellent piece by Justin Fox. Bottom line: The Efficient Markets Hypothesis has its problems, but even so, low-cost index funds remain your best bet: The message that the behavioral finance guys have for investors is that yes, you can beat the market, but--for reasons that are essential to the...
Apr 25 2007
From Brad DeLong: I don't know what I am going to say. I'm tempted to try a comparison of four intellectuals at four different moments in western print-culture: William of Occam, Niccolo Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Tyler Cowen.
READER COMMENTS
Patrick R. Sullivan
Apr 25 2007 at 1:59pm
Looks like he’s been banging his head against the wall again.
Barkley Rosser
Apr 25 2007 at 5:03pm
What it means is that in a debate, Tyler will use a Smithian advocac of free markets to cut Macchiavelli’s cynicism with an Occam’s razor.
Arnold Kling
Apr 25 2007 at 6:14pm
I see Brad as perhaps saying he will tie together culture with the form and content of written expression. Neil Postman used to do that sort of thing. Postman always denigrated 20th-century media/content in favor of Enlightenment-era equivalents.
dearieme
Apr 25 2007 at 9:25pm
I’ll ignore the elephant in the room, but can’t resist wondering at the use of “at four different moments in western print-culture” to include two people who existed before western print-culture. Was Mr DeRound tired?
Comments are closed.