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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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. ;-)
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.
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.
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.
Comparisons between the Cultural Revolution and the Woke Era get laughed at. The Woke Era didn't use violence, of course. But the *motivation* of people wanting to overturn social hierarchies, especially students wanting to overturn academic hierarchies, is recognizably similar.
In 2010s America, there was a widespread desire to overturn local social hierarchies -- the classroom authority of teachers and professors, the cultural power of entertainment stars, the authority of nonprofit execs and heads of civic organizations.
In 1960s China, overturning local hierarchies happened via physical mob violence. In 2010, it happened through online mobs destroying people's reputations on social media. Obviously, the second is far preferable to the first. This is why economic development is good!
1. They engender material equality more efficiently than any other economic intervention, and
2. They create an equality of respect, through the habit of mutual use.
Although rich people may pay more for a train or a park, when they ride the train or walk in the park, they are equal in social status to everyone else on the train or in the park.
This creates a feeling of equality throughout society.
1/Here's a thread in which the Economist's Mike Bird tries to rebut my recent post about decoupling. I think this thread is useful for understanding why the doubters are making the mistakes that they're making.