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Who is Stirling Newberry?
His insight brings me to new peaks of excitement:
No movement in the history of mankind has produced more words for free than the libertarian movement. And yet, its fundamental ideology is that people do everything for money, that being how markets send signals about what makes people happy - giving money to the people who do them. One could understand communists or Christian missionaries - but free marketeers? Either they must believe that there is so much prosperity waiting for them on the other side of the revolution that years of unpaid labor is worth it, or they don't really believe what they say they believe.
For a clear argument, try this:
To generate a Reactionary movement, all one needed to do is create a demon, a nomos and a boundary that separated the two. Rhetoric falls out of this almost immediately, since it is all about either emphasizing the evils of the demon, the self-justifying good of the nomos, and the importance of having an absolute and simplistic boundary between the two. This means that not even a speck of evil can be tolerated, not a single example. It also means that whatever is inside the tank, once all corrupting influences are removed, must be pure good, and therefore even questioning it is evil.
The essential insanity of the last decade has been this - by creating a vast dollar glut, the United States has managed to create an inflationary rev up of the world economy. By moving much farther up the curve of diminishing returns of oil production, it has manged to create a small amount of extra growth, and a great deal of extra profit and ownership for those involved in the oil production.
He blogs "economics" on TPM Cafe. You can peruse this post for more. He is also a composer. I thank an avid reader of Stirling for the pointer.
As Robin Ficker used to say: "Josh Marshall, telephone...!"
Addendum: Here is another dose of Stirling...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 20, 2006 at 08:02 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Why should the incentives of a communist and libertarian writer be any different? Neither one is expecting a direct monetary gain as a result. Aren't they both getting direct utility from advocating what they think is right?
Posted by: Fred at Aug 20, 2006 10:12:52 AM
Has anyone *ever* argued that people always and only do things for money? That might be a criticism of some forms of economic analysis that are money-centered, but certainly not of libertarianism. The real question is why he's setting libertarianism up as a demon to the domos of liberalism. Oh, wait, sorry. That's not the real question. The real question is how anyone can write that with a straight face (I didn't).
Posted by: John Jenkins at Aug 20, 2006 10:15:51 AM
It's "fundamental ideology" is not that "people do everything for money" (regardless of how nice it is that markets do send pretty good signals by giving money to those who do what others need or want). It's fundamental ideology is that things turn out awfully well for most everyone when people are free and the signals of money and all kinds of other signals are allowed to be sent pretty much at will.
Why must libertarians be waiting only for prosperity and why only for themselves? I know one libertarian who feels so much gratitude towards John Locke and Thomas Paine that he feels happily obliged to carry on the work they so wonderfully blessed us with.
While it is true many libertarians work to find every speck of evil, and that this tendency can sometimes be counterproductive..... on the other hand ignoring the distinctions between plain evil and common good can eventually lead a Germanic people to end up supporting a man like Hitler or an American people one like Woodrow Wilson. If you had been an early exclaimer of the dangers of Castro, Khomeini, Lenin or Pol Pot, you would doubtless have been accused of being a narrow minded reactionary.... and so indeed it was said of Thomas Paine.
He says it's all about "a small amount of extra growth" .... Well, in Viet Nam alone, the percentage of folk living below the $1 a day line has declined from 50% to less than 15% in just the last 15 years.... not to mention the broader escape from poverty in places like China, India, and Indonesia.
Posted by: Dave Meleney at Aug 20, 2006 11:46:04 AM
Because of my immense respect for Tyler I read the magnum opus "Moral Quagmire" to which Tyler linked.
I must say, I found it extremely weak.Here's a graph from near the end, where he puts it all together:
"Power is its own policy. To have power, Bush and his executive needed to tell their followers that Iraq would be a safe place for small contractors to go and make huge amounts of money. The insertion of contractors was not an accident, but a necessity of the very purpose of the invasion, to create a colony where a certain class of people could become rich in a free market fundamentalist paradise. The creation of a weak government nominally elected was needed to convince enough people that the war was "about" democratization. However, these two actions, along with a host of others, while rhetorically required, were pragmatic disasters.
This is the fruit of all his theoretical heavy breathing? Haven't seen such a feelble thesis since Michael Moore.
There is a much more thoughtful analysis of the same phenomena by James Caeser published here:
http://pcr.hudson.org/files/publications/Ceaser2006BradleySymposium.doc
But I do plan to red Newberry's promised follow-up, about the "forward left."
Posted by: Kent Guida at Aug 20, 2006 11:58:06 AM
All this guy's posts can be summed up easily: "only liberals truly CARE - everyone else is a greedy SOB".
Posted by: Foobarista at Aug 20, 2006 3:14:04 PM
And here I thought Tyler's comments on Mr. Newberry's arguments were simple sarcasm.
Posted by: Shaun M. at Aug 20, 2006 3:26:34 PM
Yeah, Tyler was being sarcastic. The addition of that last link was for those of us who didn't get the joke at first. You must read the exchange between Drum and Newberry. It's priceless. This Stirling Newberry looks like a real clown to me.
Posted by: Keith at Aug 20, 2006 3:50:51 PM
"or they don't really believe what they say they believe."
More accurately:
"or they don't really believe what I say they believe."
Posted by: Keith at Aug 20, 2006 4:18:12 PM
Stirling is more interesting and useful when he is wrong or obtuse than 20 academics trying to time a housing bubble or defend a collapsed neo-liberal consensus. I suspect he is a genius, and so inevitably an ornery and over-sensitive SOB. For most of you, this will speak to my own ability to analyze arguments; a few of you might want to check him out at length.
Posted by: bob mcmanus at Aug 20, 2006 4:25:09 PM
"I suspect he is a genius, and so
inevitably an ornery and over-sensitive SOB."
I agree with half of that.:)
Posted by: Keith at Aug 20, 2006 5:29:13 PM
OK, I read it quickly and didn't get the sarcasm at first. It did seem strange that Tyler was being so complimentary.
Posted by: Fred at Aug 20, 2006 5:32:04 PM
"all one needed to do is create a demon, a nomos and a boundary that separated the two"
Newberry's project is evidently no less than an assault on thought itself.
May we wish him the best of success.
Posted by: Rick Strange at Aug 20, 2006 8:11:44 PM
I thought his critique of the free market was funny. If we minimize the government's influence within our lives then it must be out of some sort of maniacal blud lust for money. God for bid that some of us just want to hold onto our meager earnings and not have to buy good's that are artificialy expensive due to the perceived benevelonce of government regulation of the economy. Libertarianism to me is just because it keeps people with designs on my life off my back. Everyone has a pet project for a "better world" and there is no better context than government for violently compeling people into adherence towards your plan.
Posted by: John Pertz at Aug 20, 2006 9:08:20 PM
It would be interesting to study how strong is the correlation between libertarianism and Asperger's Syndrome.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 20, 2006 11:10:27 PM
Who is Stirling Newberry? Apparently, he's some guy whom I should ignore.
Posted by: J. at Aug 20, 2006 11:54:55 PM
The paragraph about the Reactionary movement is dead on.
Posted by: Peter Clay at Aug 21, 2006 5:21:34 AM
"A rich soundscape, which touches Bach, Stravinsky and Copland, but presses on to the 21st century in painting the dark swirls of clouds, and memorializing those striken by Hurricane Katrina." Wow. Just. Wow.
Posted by: Chevalier at Aug 21, 2006 7:35:26 AM
I cane across Newberry recently. Read a few pieces and quickly came to the conclusion that he is, in fact, a satirist. An intentional one, albeit not a very good one.
I can think of no other possible explanation for his output.
Posted by: Tim Worstall at Aug 21, 2006 8:52:27 AM
So what about it, Tyler? Was your post an example of your hitherto hidden taste for sarcasm?
Posted by: Kent Guida at Aug 21, 2006 9:57:15 AM
After reading his post, I looked into some ways to short his fund
http://www.22fg.com/
But they don't seem to be in operation.
Oh well.
Posted by: lannychiu at Aug 21, 2006 1:22:30 PM
"It's "fundamental ideology" is not that "people do everything for money" (regardless of how nice it is that markets do send pretty good signals by giving money to those who do what others need or want)"
The reason libertarian talk is so cheap, is because the supply greatly excedes the demand.
Posted by: Stirling Newberry at Aug 25, 2006 7:28:43 PM
Stirling Newberry is the biggest loser I have ever met. Seriously. Look at his content on Wikipedia - it's a community he continues to generate outright hatred for his cause within. In fact, look at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Stirling_Newberry and check out his archives.
What's even better, check out his MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/stirlingnewberryformen
Posted by: Ray Lopez at Aug 28, 2006 2:57:42 PM
I offer my apologies to Newberry if
this poster is posing as him, although who would ever
want to do such a thing?
"The reason libertarian talk is so cheap,
is because the supply greatly excedes the demand."
That's Stirling Newberry posting for free (cheap) on
a popular, i.e. high demand, libertarian blog.
I guess when the supply of leftist chatter
exceeds the demand, Newberry calls it "speaking truth
to power".
Oh, and here's some cheap, but badly needed, rewriting:
"Libertarian talk is so cheap because the supply exceeds the demand."
If you're going to say something stupid,
Newberry (which seems to be your hobby), at least say it well.
Posted by: Keith at Aug 31, 2006 10:23:15 AM
libertarians hate taxes and love dope and/or deviant sex
I find nothing wrong with any of the three but they do not form an ideology
Posted by: give me liberty, or give that guy death at Sep 5, 2006 9:30:03 PM
Longtime Newberry spotter doing a drive-by (I was looking for the name of his alleged "capital fund" to see whether he'd ever gotten the site running, and this post came up in the search).
One of my favorite Newberry Moments was when he became "chief economist" at a pay-for-play stock research firm. Not that there's anything wrong with the issuer-sponsored model; there are plenty of fine analysts in that field and they perform a valuable service. The funny thing was that in that role he published a single short macro update (I seem to remember four pages total, including cover and boilerplate) and then disappeared from the company's official list of analysts. Kindergarten fluff and for all I remember, utterly wrong.
I kept meaning to ask Langner about it, but never found a way to pose the question in a more diplomatic way than "there's this guy claiming to be your chief economist. What were you thinking?" But now Langner itself seems to be gone. I saved a copy of Newberry's report though -- wonder where I put it? In any event, 22fg looks to be an even more absurd puff piece than his "chief economist" title, since this time nobody seems to be buying into the hype but himself.
Posted by: Al at Nov 1, 2006 11:47:06 AM
Some more answers to your question,
and here.
Posted by: anonymous at May 18, 2007 2:23:33 PM
I'd be interested in seeing Stirling's CV. I don't see it online anywhere, though.
Posted by: Elizabeth at May 29, 2007 9:35:31 PM
I had a confrontation with this pile of pap today. He threatened to "Blackball me" simply because I upset him. Of course, two questions immediatelly popped into my mind:
1) WHO is he going to get to blackball me, the little green men in his head who also made him an "economic authority"?
and
2) What reason is he going to give? "Don't hire him, darling, he made me upset."
Psh. Some people are so full of manure that they could rent themselves out for fertilizer and make a fortune.
Posted by: Kain Scalia at Oct 31, 2007 3:12:48 AM
Stirling is a paranoid little fellow with a massive Napoleonic complex. He used to post regularly at the Salon.com forums, and quickly fell into screaching insults at anyone who disagreed with him.
Occassionally I google his name to see if he's changed at all. This time, this page came up. Judging by the other sites, he hasn't changed.
Posted by: Jason at Nov 30, 2007 8:34:51 PM
See also this.
Posted by: at Feb 24, 2008 6:54:58 PM
Used to regularly bust "Dingleberry's" balls on a number of message boards and forums....a complete nutter.
Posted by: Sonny Drysdale at Feb 24, 2008 8:54:32 PM
Oh I remember Stirling from many years ago when he (she) had infested rec.music.classical. Stirling used to post bizarre, inflammatory, histrionic, incoherent, and typo-filled rants on rec.music.classical under the
pen name of "Margaret-Mary Petit." Stirling would go so far as to sign "her" e-mails with an ASCII rose,
Margaret-Mary Petit Internet: MP4...@uacsc1.albany.edu
Rockefeller College Bitnet: MP4...@albnyvms.bitnet
SUNY Albany, NY
----`---,---{@
and to take the cake would occasionally throw fits about how "her" opinions were not respected because "she" was a woman.
I am sure nobody will be surprised to hear that no matter how hard Stirling tried, "she" still wrote with the finesse and sensitivity of a thug.
Posted by: at Mar 22, 2008 6:26:31 PM
