April 30, 2003
New article by Jared Diamond, apparently an extended advertisement for his forthcoming book. Interesting, as usual. But this time he has an overt political agenda, and this time his disregard for economic institutions undercuts his argument badly. His theme is short-sightedness. He decries mistakes allowed by the market: "For example, executives of Enron correctly calculated that they could gain huge sums of money for themselves by looting the company coffers and harming the rest of society, and that they were likely to get away with their gamble."
He doesn't seem to grasp the reasons why markets are generally less short-sighted than governments. (Though he does get closer to the truth with this comment: "Governments, too, regularly operate on a short-term focus: they feel overwhelmed by imminent disasters, and pay attention only to those problems on the verge of explosion and feel that they lack time or resources to devote to long-term problems." But notice the "too"!)