Why golf is a rubbish sport

The LSE’s Paul Cheshire has a good post up on the Spatial Economics Research Centre blog today on green- and brown-field development. Among other things, he explains why there are so many golf courses on the green belt:



The whole thing is a good read, particular the estimate of how much greenfield land is currently available to build on within a ten minute walk of a train station. (Quite a lot.)

My word, you mean competition actually works?

Well, would you look at that! Apparently competition works to the benefit of consumers! Who could have possibly predicted that outcome?

Shop prices fell at the steepest rate for at least eight years last month as the popularity of discount stores among the middle classes helped to drive down the cost of clothing and consumer goods.

The overall price of items at the till fell by 1.8 per cent compared with June last year, with the price of clothes down by 13.7 per cent year-on-year.

The figures, compiled by the British Retail Consortium/Nielsen shop price index, show the fastest drop in prices since the trade association began compiling data in 2006.

It was also the 14th month in a row in which shop prices fell, easing the pressure on households where wage-earners have suffered pay freezes.

Yes, of course, the capitalists are straining every sinew to increase the profits that they make from our need for basic necessities such as food and drink. But in doing so they find themselves competing with other capitalists who would also like to like that pelf from our pockets. That competition then limiting the amount any one shop can charge and finally leading to falling prices for consumers.

Of course, a number of people have pointed this out before, starting with Adam Smith, Bastiat had things to say on the point and even Karl Marx got it. Monopoly capitalism is to be avoided for it is without that competition, for it is that market choice that makes such a system work to the benefit of consumers.

This is all obvious to us, the initiates, of course. But we need to continue to make a song and dance about it. Yes, there really are things that governments must do that cannot be done by other actors. Yes, there really are times that said government must intervene in the economy. But for the most part that intervention necessary is simply to ensure that competition is possible.

It’s not necessary to ensure that competition is happening, only that it can. For a monopolist in possession of a contestable monopoly is unable to exploit that monopoly for fear of competition arising to contest it. It’s not even necessary to have a level or even playing field, only to have an open one.

Worth noting the next time someone starts to complain about the monopoly of the supermarkets (as they do every few years, prompting yet another enquiry). Precisely because competition is forcing prices down we’ve obviously not got an exploitable monopoly here.

So just what is slow economic growth then?

This is slightly worrying:



Not the predictions themselves, which come from this OECD report, but the interpretation that is put upon them. For it appears that Paul Mason, supposedly one of those employed to explain the world to us, is incapable of actually reading a report.

On the inequality point he’s missed the crucial qualifier: “in-country” inequality. The report is actually telling us that the currently poor countries are going to catch up with the currently rich ones and that when they do, when they join us at the technological frontier, then their growth will be lower than it is during the current catch up phase.

That is, the prediction is that the vast gulfs of inequality between those living on a $1 a day and ourselves will be closed: yet Mason is concerning himself with that trivial 30% rise in inequality amongst ourselves, the already rich. It’s absurd to be worrying that in-country gini will rise from, say, 0.30 to 0.39 while not celebrating the collapse of the global gini from 0.80 to 0.40 (made up numbers just for illustration). At least it’s absurd if inequality is one of those things that you want to worry about.

There’s another misunderstanding there, one which anyone who has actually read Piketty should understand for he explains it very well. Gross GDP growth, the size of the entire economy, is driven by two different things. One is the expansion of the population that is producing that GDP. The other is the efficiency with which each person is contributing to that GDP. The report is stating that the entire globe is just about to finish going through the demographic transition, as the UN and everyone else assumes it is. Thus population growth will not be contributing to growth after some few decades of the future.

3% (or 2.7%) growth without the demographic effect is not low or slow growth: this is fast growth. The economy doubles every 25 years or so but over the same number of people meaning that per capita GDP doubles every 25 years. This is not an historically slow level of per capita GDP growth. This is actually rather fast.

It’s not the specific predictions that worry at all: it’s that someone supposedly employed to explain such matters to us doesn’t seem to understand the points being made. How did we end up in this situation?

One of the upsides of having a global elite is that at least they know what’s going on. We, the deluded masses, may have to wait for decades to find out who the paedophiles in high places are; and which banks are criminal, or bust. But the elite are supposed to know in real time – and on that basis to make accurate predictions.

Well, yes, quite.

Voxplainer on Scott Sumner & market monetarism











But read the whole thing, as they say.


Lost and loster

“So you’re telling me there’s a chance!” That is Jim Carrey’s reaction, in Dumb and Dumber, when the lady he fancies tells him his chances are like one out of a million. (The 33-second clip is here.)

You’ve got to admire such optimism. May we classical liberals find it when we ponder the chances of seeing a turn toward classical liberalism.

The prospects are enhanced by understanding the situation. But currently we are still stuck in the ruts that were worn into our culture from 1880. A hard look at the period 1880-1940 might inspire, not a comedy, but a tragedy: Sad and Sadder.

But there’s still a chance, so chin up. At the end of Dumb and Dumber, Carrey does not get the girl, but he and his friend carry on in good cheer.

Our movie would be called Lost and Loster. “Lost” not as in “lost cause,” but as in “lost children.” Our civilization has gone astray and is now bewildered as to place and direction. That is the theme of the new website, Lost Language, Lost Liberalism, nicknamed 4L.

With governmentalization on autopilot, with the center-left dominating much of the media, schooling, academia, and other cultural institutions, with the entrenchment of government as big, suffocating player, it is no surprise that many people who fancy themselves “liberal” are doing some soul searching. Edmund Fawcett’s 2014 book Liberalism: The Life of an Idea demonstrates such soul searching, if not soul finding.

What makes a liberal? To answer that question, it is good to learn about how the term “liberal” first arose as a political term. Here, think Adam Smith (as I explain here). Then, we also need to understand how from 1880 the meaning shifted—the theme of Lost Language, Lost Liberalism – 4L.

4L shows that English-language discourse underwent a watershed change during the period 1880-1940. 4L studies the changes in the meaning of words, and suggests that these changes played an important role in the decline of classical liberalism. Ten central words are treated: liberal(ism), liberty, freedom, justice, property, contract, equality, equity, law, and rights.

Compendia of quotations show the debate over the meaning of each word. The site also features other forms of evidence, including ngrams and copious testimony about generational shifts.

I am honored that the Adam Smith Institute has chosen to partner on the project; the Press Release from ASI can be found here.

The chances of recovering Adam Smith liberalism depend on understanding the course of the past 250 years. The 1880-1940 act is especially sad and casts a long shadow. But there is still hope that we’ll find our way to the true path of liberalism.