Bishop Hill Left-wing journalism
May 5, 2009 Tax Tony Curzon Price has written a piece on a proposed new tax:
Taxes are basically a good thing when you put a cost on something that needs some degree of discouragement. This is why a carbon tax would be good. Left-wing journalism falls into that category. Every time a left wing journalist misrepresents the facts, it should be counted as a pure social cost. Moreover, in a world of multiple news sources, I do not believe that someone who is actively searching for the truth actually needs left wing journalism. Google does a perfectly acceptable job if you're looking for the truth. And if you end up believing something that isn't true, I think that the likelihood of a mis-sell - of having swallowed a pack of fibs - is very high.
That suggests that left-wing journalism, which has a high private pay-off to the writer, also has a high externality, or social cost.
So, go ahead and tax left wing journalism.
(I've changed it a bit)
Reader Comments (4)
"Tony Curzon Price is Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy. He graduated with a First from Oxford in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and received a PhD in economics from University College London (UCL). He worked as a jobbing economist for more than ten years. He founded the game theory consultancy company ElseCo and the high-tech electronics compancy, Arithmatica. He lived in Silicon Valley from 2001 to 2004.
He has lectured on economics and energy policy at Imperial College, London, and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)."
How did that much education result in that much facile f***wit?
Anyone know if he is related to the ultra-liberal good-egg, Victoria Curzon-Price? I have a horrible feeling he may be, but for her sake, I hope not.
Incredibly, with views like that, he attended last year's meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, as did she (naturally enough), which is what makes me suspect they may be related, as I can't see how else he would have got in.