Scepticism, values, and the “blog brand”
There is one thing I would like to make clear to people when they read our posts – we are sceptical people.
Even so, I like to think we are equally cynical about government and private institutions when we discuss things.
On top of that – we often try to put our scepticism to one side to discuss “idealised” versions of both government and private institutions. This does not mean we favour one over the other – it just means that in order to study the failure on one independently we need to make unsatisfactory assumptions in other places.
As a result, if our “implicit value judgments” on government/market failure/success upset you remember two things:
- Value judgments can differ: So we can disagree without having to get upset about it,
- Even if the example is wrong, the concepts underlying them can help to illustrate what is going on: Government isn’t perfect – but assuming that it is allows us to see the institutional failings of markets, and vice versa.
Now we frame our blog as relatively “pro-government”. This implies that we solely tend to focus on areas where the government could succeed rather than when it could fail – not that we believe governments are truly less likely to fail than the market. The distinction is important.
If you believe government fails more than we do – tell us in the comments or even write your own blog posts. Trust me, there isn’t enough time in the day to study every side of an issue – so we will be very happy to see other people taking the other side
I prefer to think of myself as a rationalist, although I have been accused of scepticism at times. Either way, I harbour little pessimism about human nature and can’t properly be described as a cynic.
Good point – sceptical is a more accurate term for what I mean here. I will change it
Keep working ,great job!
What a great article. I stumbled into your site when I was searching for movies and I must say I really enjoyed your post. Will be back to check more out in the future!