Irritating pseudo-populism, backed up by false statistics and implausible speculations

I was preparing my lecture for tomorrow and happened to come across this post from five years ago. And now I’m irritated by Matt Ridley all over again! I wonder if he’s still bashing “rich whites” and driving that 1975 Gremlin? Grrrr…

8 thoughts on “Irritating pseudo-populism, backed up by false statistics and implausible speculations

  1. It’s interesting that you dislike the use of “rich whites” as a descriptor. Pretty much anyone who is “rich” in America (exception a few entertainer and athletes) is white. And the claim of your Red State, Blue State is that the rich (who are white) behave differently in those two types of states. But of course that is “rich white” (see the second sentence above). I think there’s a racial component you aren’t accounting for in RSBS, but leaving that aside for the moment, the point is that looking at “rich whites” as a universe is not all that an outlandish idea. I think what you’re objecting to is incorrect attribution of opinions to “rich whites”, which is not the same thing as bashing them (anyway, as you point out in your post from five years ago, the WSJ ends to exult the rich (who are white) except when they violate their class consciousness and actually try to help the non-rich (whites)). Anyway, at this point I should tell you to check your privilege to end the debate, but I’m opposed to this type of argument (though I think I’ll use it on a Bayesian the next time I’m in a dispute with one).

    • Numeric:

      What particularly bugged me about Ridley’s article was not just that he was portraying “rich whites” as the clueless ones, but how meaningless this was. He was wrong on the facts but wanted to situate himself so that “rich whites” were the bad guys, opposing his beloved school vouchers. That’s what I was calling pseudo-populism. Rich white guy Ridley can’t just say he supports a policy favored by other rich white guys—even though that’s actually happening. Also ludicrous is that idea that we’re supposed to oppose something that rich whites supposedly support (again, this is particularly rich, as it were, coming from a zillionaire who’s writing in the Wall Street Journal), as well as the idea “that very fact that [an]idea defies conventional wisdom suggests that it is a good one.” The whole thing is just full of irritating tropes from the journalism and pop-econ world.

      • Andrew:

        What are the summary numbers on this? Does a larger / smaller fraction of the “rich whites” cohort support school vouchers versus the average for the nation? For whatever reasonable definition of “rich”.

        I couldn’t figure this metric from your 2011 post.

  2. Speaking of rich whites, Matt Ridley is the 5th Viscount Ridley. His late father was Lord Stewart of the [Royal] Household. The Ridleys traditionally live in Blagdon Hall on an 8,500 acre estate in Northumberland. From the estate’s website:

    “The Families of Ridley and White

    “Blagdon has been home to the same family since 1700. The first three generations of owners were all named Matthew White. The next nine generations of owners have all been named Matthew White Ridley. For more than 300 years Blagdon has been owned by somebody called Matthew.”

    From a nature-nurture perspective, Darwinian intellectuals like Ridley in Britain usually come from roughly one layer down in the class structure, upper middle class rather than aristocrats.

    • > From a nature-nurture perspective, Darwinian intellectuals like Ridley in Britain usually come from roughly one layer down in the class structure, upper middle class rather than aristocrats.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqObJtGrKaA

      PS My organization did a re-org a couple years ago. Managers high and low got new titles. I put in for Viscount. I didn’t make the sale but it sure would have been fun to put that on a business card.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *