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Comment by LaGrange | Hacker News Reader

So I went and read the Pinker's "rebuttal." He just casually avoided the claim about the entire base of their infographic being bogus, then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats "far leftists". Why is _anyone_ treating that guy seriously?

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To be fair Pinker wrote that in a private mail. When you criticize this, then also let's not forget what on the other hand Hinkel wrote in his article published in the Guardian newspaper:

> It is madness – and no amount of mansplaining from billionaires will be adequate to justify it.

We can certainly discuss about the data and how to interpret it, but using such phrases in a newspaper-article isn't really helpful either.

> wrote in his article published in the Guardian newspaper:

[mansplaining]

...I mean, Hinkel's a dude too and should perhaps avoid the term, but these are men spouting nonsense and telling off more expertised people, so it's not too far off.

It's drawing unnecessary attention to the sex of the human over the content of the argument. The way people casually (and self deprecatingly) throw it into conversation seems like a cheap way to win points with those who share a certain ideology, not a logical argument.

Hinkel shouldn't have used this term, simply because Pinker was NOT mansplaining. And AFAIK Pinker isn't a billionaire either.

Calling them mansplaining billionairs is IMHO a cheap shot. Pinker and Hinkel have different opinions - which is perfectly fine, experts disagree a lot after all. But accusing someone of mansplaining just because of having a different opinion is not correct. An expert in this area should argue differently.

Because Pinker's rebuttal was initially supposed to be an email to somebody else. He recognized that Hickel was likely pushing an ideology and left it at that. Even in the email Pinker is saying that he's citing experts in the field.

>then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats

A central point in the criticism Hickel wrote was that markets don't work, but regulation, protectionism and state intervention does. I'm not sure that would qualify him as a "mild centre-left social democrat".

I'm pretty sure regulation, protectionism and state intervention in a market economy is the definition of social-democracy.

No, not really.

Social democracy is about solidarity. It does not conflict with a free market which needs regulation to stay free, it does not encourage protectionism, rather it seeks solidarity with others.

I should know I live in one :)

I too live in a Social democracy.

And I'd say that the GP is pretty much spot on.

Social democracy, from Wikipedia, an excerpt: "The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy; measures for income redistribution and regulation of the economy in the general interest; and welfare state provisions."

So, there you have regulation and and state-intervention.

If you then consider that every Social Democracy in Europe has some sort of protectionist policy with regards to it's agricultural sector, I'd say that GP is spot on.

For the European Union, the agricultural subsidies still make up about 38% of the budget. What's that, besides protectionist?

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy)

So, there you have all three; regulation and state-intervention by definition, protectionism by fact.

> Because Pinker's rebuttal was initially supposed to be an email to somebody else.

...you can't really be serious? It's published. With his knowledge. He could have edited it, or at least quickly tweeted "omg this was terrible I'm sorry I had a heated gaming moment."

> A central point in the criticism Hickel wrote was that markets don't work, but regulation, protectionism and state intervention does. I'm not sure that would qualify him as a "mild centre-left social democrat".

That's literally the definition of a mild centre-left social democrat.

A social democrat, at least when looking at Europe, is somebody who thinks markets work. They simply want a better safety net for people and maybe some additional regulation to keep the market more fair.

> If people had willingly opted into the capitalist labour system, while retaining rights to their commons and while gaining a fair share of the yields they produced, we would have a very different story on our hands.

That's straight out of Marx/Engels. I don't think far left is an unfair statement.

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