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Comment by c3534l | Hacker News Reader

Three issues with the article: the study looked only at Scandinavian countries; the methodology wasn't even discussed, let alone critically analyzed; the article contains inappropriate and unprofessional unsourced editorializing in an article not marked as such:

"Globalisation has disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour. But globalisation has also made it easier for the well-heeled to hide their wealth. In that sense, maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes."

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You confuse inserting an opinion with having a viewpoint.

The Economist's official editorials (which they call leaders) are separate. There they are quite free with their opinions. Elsewhere, though, they mainly mainly stick to having a viewpoint. Since their founding 1843 they've been firmly in favor of what we'd now call economic liberalism: their perspective is pro-human, pro-freedom, and numerically oriented.

What they don't do much of, though, is conforming to journalistic orthodoxies that came into fashion after they got going. In particular, you seem to want them to ape what journalism professor calls "the view from nowhere": http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...

Having read them for decades, I'm glad they don't. I often disagree with them, but I appreciate their transparency. That's in sharp contrast to "view from nowhere" media where you either have to puzzle out their actual viewpoint or the articles are so watered down that they are nearly useless for understanding anything.

They definitely inserted an opinion. The bit I quoted gave the reader nothing new. It conveyed no information other than the personal and uninteresting views of the author. Had that section been removed, the reader would know precisely the same amount of information they had before they got to that point. It was not a viewpoint, it was an opinion (and a childish one at that), which was inserted into an article which seems to present itself as describing a study.

Why? It offered an interesting, alternative interpretation of the same data. That seems valuable.

In a normal journalism article this same opinion would probably be offered in the form of a quote by some competing economist, instead of directly, but the effect is the same.

It wasn't based on the data. Nothing in the study suggested that opinion. It's simply the statement of a narrative. That's part of why I specifically mentioned "unsourced." The claim doesn't follow from anything the article meant to cover.

The article contextualized the study in a broader base of knowledge. That's part of why they're so valuable to readers: they just don't rewrite the study's abstract; they write about the study from the viewpoint of somebody who knows the topic and can connect this one item to a broader understanding.

It conveyed no information other than the personal and uninteresting views of the author.

Do you think globalisation has not rewarded capital more than labour?

Do you think globalisation has not made it easier for wealthy people to hide their assets from governments?

Because I think both statements are factually accurate, not opinion. The only bit that was "opinion" was the suggestion that the reader should perhaps be surprised. It doesn't seem a stretch.

My references:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/3-charts-that-explain...

https://understandingsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/tyler-co...

I'm using growing income inequality as a proxy for rewarding capital vs rewarding labour. It's well-known to everyone that middle-classes in Western countries have had the rawest deal from globalisation, and that large populations in poorer countries have seen large relative increases. But that isn't the same thing as saying that globalisation benefits labour more than capital; it doesn't. It also isn't a judgement as to whether globalisation is good or bad; overall, I think it's a good thing, we're better off with fewer poor people globally.

That's definitely not true. The first two sentences are clearly statements of fact. The third is pointing out something interesting.

In the "view from nowhere" style, a journalist would get quotes from experts to make those points. But The Economist writes as an expert. They work from a clearly established and frankly declared viewpoint. That's why people read them

If you believe their facts are wrong, you should demonstrate that. Indeed, they regularly print letters from people claiming that. But as far as I can tell, you just don't like their viewpoint.

“Pro-human”? Isn’t everybody pro-human, aside from some fringe advocates of human extinction?

I mean that they believe strongly in the worth of each individual for their own sake. There are plenty of people who don't have that view.

I think what you're talking about would be more "pro-humankind".

"Inappropriate unprofessional unsourced editorializing?"

The Economist explicitly brands and declares itself a journal of both reporting and opinion. As for "unsourced", it choses to adopt an anonymous style and tone of writing (such that any statements of opinion, which in any case are hardly disguised and pretty obvious to spot as such, take be taken to be the opinions of the entire editorial board, more or less).

As such, it's one of the few organs (though I frequently find myself in disagreement with it) I almost always enjoy reading.

Are any of those statements factually incorrect or otherwise misleading? A critical discussion of methodology is welcome.

No, but they might only apply to Scandinavia (or high tax countries). For example: if taxes are high, the incentive to avoid more (but also evade) is clearly there.

Most wealthy people don't have an issue paying taxes, say 15-20% of their income (income / dividends / capital gains) -- even if that income runs in the millions. Most have an issue paying excessive taxes, e.g. 30%+, for what they get back from society.

Simple math: the higher the tax rate, the more sense it makes to avoid. And once you've set up the structures to avoid and are taking the risk, you might as well try and bring it as close to zero as possible.

For example, I recently had a friend tell me: I could buy this expensive car every three months, with the amount of tax I pay on my (passive) dividends. Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco (or some other country that doesn't tax their income excessively) and keep that money?

It might be an unpopular opinion, but in my view, he's right. As selfish as it sounds, the fact of just being allowed to live in a certain jurisdiction might not be sufficient for any wealthy person to stick around.

> Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco (or some other country that doesn't tax their income excessively) and keep that money?

They're welcome to. But they don't (or they haven't yet) because they see some benefit to staying versus the cost of leaving.

> Most wealthy people don't have an issue paying taxes

What an unsourced and biased viewpoint :) a lot of wealthy people are routinely found evading taxes even in low-tax countries. Even the likes of Luxembourg and Monaco have to go after illegal tax avoidance. Nobody likes paying tax, even at 1% people would try to skim. Egoism is a natural element of human psychology.

> Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco

Indeed, why? It might have something to do with Monaco being a minuscule country and their citizens being subject to more restrictions when working or investing in larger markets. This is a friction that globalization has eroded (e.g. there are no such restrictions now for Luxembourg citizens accessing the EU market, or Delaware citizens accessing the US market), which is part of the problem. If you make money from a large and well-run market, you should pay your fair share towards maintaining that market, no matter where you haul from.

"Even the likes of Luxembourg and Monaco have to go after illegal tax avoidance. "

Monaco and Luxembourg are not 'low tax' countries.

They are 'tax shelters' for foreigners, not for locals.

And other things.

But you still pay high Euro taxes, VAT and all sort of things like hidden taxes.

Source: myself, ex-Monaco resident + worked and stayed in Lux.

Yes, the main premise. Globalization has primarily benefited the poor, and to think otherwise shows a grave misunderstanding of history. International trade has toppled Monarchies, dramatically improved the living conditions in Africa and led to the most prosperous eras in history. The fact that in the past few decades, relative inequality has increased in Western nations is certainly unfortunate, but if you think globalization is a recent development in economics, then you shouldn't be writing for a magazine called the Economist.

I'm unable to spend much time commenting atm, but what I will say is that unlike the Economist, you are the one editorializing. Factually, capitalism/globalization has benefited lower classes materially, but has stripped them of agency. While you are right globalization is not entirely new (e.g. mercantilism, the East India Company), what is new is private, multinational actors being able to choose which set of rules they can play by.

That is genuinely new, at least at scale. Private actors making states compete against each other to lower their taxes and sue nations for enforcing health codes a la investor rights trade agreements.

While trade is good, extractive trade is damaging. The American industrial midwest is a good example. Capitalists first moved jobs overseas, and then automated what was left. We still have strong manufacturing, but few people doing it.

This level of inequality, lack of agency, and lack of hope is incredibly corrosive to democratic values. You can see it for yourself in the election of our leader, the grievance of the pepés, and the general ascension of the right. The fact that this kind of thing is taking place globally across the trilateral powers means there's something systemic at work, it's not a quirk of American circumstance.

> you are the one editorializing

Of course I am, this is the comments to an article submitted to HackerNews.

> Factually, capitalism/globalization has benefited lower classes materially

So we're in agreement.

> but has stripped them of agency

Social mobility has gone up since 1700s and continued to go up, with little more than a few hiccups along the way. Regardless, whether or not globalization is good or bad is an opinion and one that does not belong in an article about a single specific study on tax avoidance / possible tax evasion.

I'm not going to reply to the rest of what you said because of that same basic point. It's a complicated issue that tackles a lot of different areas of economics, history, and politics that doesn't have any real agreement with the experts that study those things. I certainly have no hope of doing the subject justice as a comment to an article.

And that's precisely why that shouldn't be shoehorned into an article about taxes to begin with. You have no hope of defending general condemnation of globalization and piling on nonspecific blame on the "ultra rich." If a journalist has an opinion and they want to argue why they're right backed up by objective facts and research, I'd love to read that sort of thing. But precisely because I don't want to live in an echo chamber, I don't want to hear your opinion stated as fact without anything to back up.

whether or not globalization is good or bad is an opinion

You'll note that judging whether globalisation has helped capital more vs labour more is not an assertion of goodness or badness of globalisation, either way. Just like someone can say that cars make road accidents more likely (fact), without it being a judgement on whether cars are good or bad (opinion).

I think you've been triggered and are reacting to something that wasn't written; you've over-read into the piece.

You are living in a pre-11/9 mentality my friend. A few years ago, it was easy to think that material possessions were enough. The yawing chasms in the fabric of society are now baldly apparent.

The old system is crashing. We need to acknowledge reality now and work as fast as possible to fix it after we figure out how.

Are you really excusing The Economist, the bastion of neoliberalism that it is, of not being sufficiently in favor of globalization?

Sure, globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, but it is also pretty uncontroversial to state that it also has disproportionately increased the wealth of the billionaire and millionaire class.

You believe you're contradicting them here:

> Globalization has primarily benefited the poor

But you aren't. It is simultaneously possible for globalization to have strongly benefited the poor and for "Globalisation [to have] disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour."

They quite regularly make the point that trade has broad benefits, and on net they're fans of globalization. But unlike you, they are willing to hold that opinion while simultaneously noting that not everything about it is perfect.

On the last point, that’s just The Economist’s style. It’s not a newspaper it’s a magazine.

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