1/I haven't yet read @mattyglesias' book, "One Billion Americans". But this book review, by @jakebackpack, contains what I think are a number of conceptual mistakes, so I thought it would be useful to go through some of these.

newrepublic.com/article/159306…
2/Bacharach faults Yglesias for not presenting a "theory of political power or change" -- a road map for turning his vision into political reality.

But that seems like it's far too much to expect of any book about policy. Image
3/First of all, policy thinkers may not understand politics well. And the people who are good at turning ideas into reality may not be the best at coming up with ideas in the first place.

It's OK to have a division of labor between policy people and politics people!
4/Much of the review is a personal criticism of Yglesias. But when Bacharach does level a specific criticism of Yglesias' acumen, it turns out to be something that EZRA KLEIN, not Yglesias, got wrong!

How does that make sense? Ezra Klein is not Matt Yglesias! Image
5/When addressing the substance of the book, Bacharach asserts that Yglesias' idea to upgrade 2nd-tier research universities with federal funding (something I've long argued for) won't help the surrounding regions. But no actual evidence is presented! ImageImage
6/Bacharach has anecdotes for regions that (supposedly) have not been revitalized by the nearby presence of universities.

And yet it's easy to find examples of regions that *have* been revitalized, even by small low-ranked universities.

medium.com/migration-issu….
7/There's plenty of research about the beneficial effect that universities have on the economies of the surrounding regions.

For example, this paper:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

But Bacharach does not engage with this evidence at all.
8/Bacharach's dismissal of YIMBYism is similarly vague and reliant on anecdotes.

Pittsburgh has built some housing and yet rents have gone up there. So? How much would rents have gone up if the housing hadn't been built?

Bacharach doesn't even ask this question. Image
9/Bacharach claims that there's no political way to end single-family zoning, because zoning is done locally.

But he's wrong! Oregon just banned single-family zoning statewide!

npr.org/2019/07/01/737…
10/In other words, something that Bacharach assumes is politically impossible is not only possible, but JUST HAPPENED. (It also came close to happening in California but failed.)
11/Finally, I would like to note that when writing a book review, before I assert that a phrase does not appear in the book, I make sure to do a word search.

If I have a physical copy, I avoid making strong claims about what does not appear. ;-) Image
12/To sum up, this review:

1. is an impressionistic personal broadside against Yglesias,

2. stumbles badly when discussing specific policy issues, and

3. demands a "theory of change" yet ignores the reality of actual change now taking place.

newrepublic.com/article/159306…
13/I am looking forward to reading @mattyglesias' book, and I hope to write a review that avoids these pitfalls.

(end)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Noahpinion

Sep 1
This will be a running thread of observations from my trip to Poland!
Most European apartment buildings don't look any better than an American 5-over-1. But people like them more, because:

1. "Thing, Europe! 😃"

2. They have shops on the first floor and you can walk in and out on the street -- i.e. the neighborhood is walkable. Image
One thing you see a lot of here are Polish flags. There's so much red and white around here it feels like I'm back at Stanford!
Read 38 tweets
Jul 28
1/Here's something I've been wondering about recently: How did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?

With every other technological revolution, we anticipated it well in advance, and as a result we were the first -- or one of the first -- to take advantage of it.
2/The U.S. invented the computer, the internet, and modern AI. On all three of those, we were (or are) the leading nation. We talked ad infinitum about the benefits of those digital technologies long before they became a reality, allowing us to shape their eventual use.
3/We did the Human Genome Project. We invented mRNA vaccines. We did most of the research that drove down the costs of solar power. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House more than 30 years before it became economical.
Read 24 tweets
Jun 10
Russia's empire is a nested hierarchy. At the center is Moscow. Under them are mid-tier Russian cities and rural areas, then subject peoples like the Buryats, Sakha, and these African folks.

The closer you are to the center, the less fighting you do, and the more money you get. Image
In fact, the circles of Russian hierarchy don't stop at Moscow. There are privileged subgroups of Muscovites, then more privileged groups inside that circle, all the way up to the Tsar himself.

The principle still holds: Closer to the center = less fighting, more money.
The advantage of this organizational structure is that the more power you have, the less likely you are to ever suffer negative consequences from adverse shocks or bad decisions. All the losses from failed wars, bad economic decisions, etc. get taken by the less powerful.
Read 16 tweets
Jun 3
In fact, it's not law even now. This executive order is (sadly) AGAINST the law and will probably be struck down, because our asylum law says we can't discriminate against asylum claimants for crossing the border illegally. That law needs to be changed by Congress.
The problem is that the U.S. is a party to the 1967 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, which says that your asylum system can't discriminate against people for being in the country illegally. We wrote our domestic law to comply with that treaty.
The non-discrimination provision is obviously stupid, so what we need to do is flout the 1967 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, and simply amend our domestic law to say "You can't claim asylum if you crossed illegally". But this would require an act of Congress.
Read 5 tweets
May 7
I'm incredibly bored of talking about the Palestine protests, but here are some results from the recent Generation Lab survey.

Key fact #1: College students just don't care about the Palestine issue that much.

axios.com/2024/05/07/pol…
Image
About 8% of students have participated in the protests on one side or the other. That's a substantial number, but less than the 21% who joined BLM protests in May/June 2020 (and the latter were pretty much all on one side of the issue).

collegepulse.com/blog/8-in-10-c…
Image
Only about 1/8 of students blame Biden for the conflict. 34% blame Hamas, and 31% blame either Israel in general or Netanyahu specifically. Image
Read 6 tweets
May 2
The Palestine protesters have created a dream Palestine that is almost entirely disconnected from the real place, in which all of their fantasies of a perfect society are realized.

This is a bit like what weebs do with Japan.
FromTheRiverToTheSeaboos
Most weebs don't actually want to live in Japan. They want to live in a local subculture of their own creation, whose values are based on gentleness and romance -- the ideals that attracted them to Japanese fantasies and made those fantasies resonate.

noahpinion.blog/p/weebs
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(