Econ Soapbox Year in Review
2024 Edition
Two years of blogging in the books. After an incredibly busy 2023, where I posted twice a week, it was nice to ease up and post every Monday in 2024. Except, of course, when I was behind and posted on Tuesday, or accidentally posted on Sunday when I meant to delay till Monday. You get the point. The weekly Monday posts will continue into 2025.
Similar to my 2023 year of blogging, the most popular Econ Soapbox posts this year surprised me. My most popular post was from just a few weeks ago, about teachers’ unions and what they stand for. That was my strongest polemic of the year, so apparently controversy still generates clicks. Regardless of whether you agreed with it or not, I hope you found it thought-provoking and well-reasoned. The second most popular post of the year was about Scott Galloway’s TED talk. Interestingly, one of my most viewed posts in 2023 was also about Scott Galloway. Maybe putting his name in a title moves me up the algorithms? Or perhaps Scott just has a Google Alert set for any bloggers who write about him? (I hear if you repeat his name three times, he appears behind you and immediately gives you two predictions, one that seems insane but will come true, and one that seems sensible on the surface but is actually insane). The third most popular post of 2024 was one of my favorites, Trees vs. Solar Panels. If you haven’t given that one a read, please do. I’d also like to bump my post about living in New England for the last eight years, which I spent by far the most time writing and editing. Most posts I write over the course of the week - that one took more than a month.
Looking globally, the biggest story of 2024 is one of elections. An astounding 67 countries had elections in 2024, making up about half the world’s population. For whatever reason, 2024 was a year of votes. It was also a bumper year for the opposition. Across the board, incumbent parties were voted out. South Korea handed control of their legislature to the party opposite their president (which would have massive ramifications later on), The UK swung sharply to the left, with the Conservative Party deteriorating from the strongest they’ve been in recent memory to the weakest. The US went the opposite direction, giving unified control of government to the Republican party after four years of Democratic rule. Nations as diverse as Ghana, Portugal, Panama, and Uruguay also turfed out incumbents.
One of the biggest surprises came from Southern Africa. The Botswana Democratic Party had ruled their country for nearly 60 years. That’s almost equal to the life expectancy of their landlocked nation. Normally, a party that stays in power that long is an authoritarian government that holds “elections” in which the chosen candidate comes away with 90 percent of the vote, a la Robert Mugabe in nearby Zimbabwe. On the contrary, Botswana is a free and fair democracy. The BDP keeps on winning because they were the party that led their people to independence and have done a good job running the country ever since. Apparently, however, in recent years their competence has declined. Botswanans went to the polls last October and for the first time voted for change. Notably, the ruling party quickly admitted defeat, far from given in sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana’s new president is a 54-year-old lawyer who trained in part at Harvard.
Other ruling parties maintained control but in a diminished capacity. In the same neighborhood as Botswana, the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, the party of Nelson Mandela, was forced into a coalition for the first time with the Democratic Alliance (DA). Given the breathtaking corruption the ANC has ruled with for the last twenty-some years, this is long overdue. Better late than never. India had a similar result, with the once highly popular BJP forced into a coalition. Their prime minister, Narendra Modi, looks human for the first time. In Japan, the LDP party, arguably the most successful political party in the world since 1945, also lost its majority and will now head a shaky minority government. In Europe, French voters forced its ruling party into an unwieldy coalition, which collapsed within months and will likely lead to aimless drifting for the foreseeable future.
There aren’t any good counterexamples. The country of Georgia saw its ruling party win in an election that has widely been disputed and was likely fraudulent. Otherwise, incumbents lost or were weakened. Challengers won or gained strength. I would love the perspective of a political scientist. Has this ever happened before? Have countries around the world all said no to their incumbent parties, parties that they the same citizens voted for years earlier, and instead voted for change? It is especially heartening, South Korea aside, that the will of the people was respected by governments around the world. Even in Korea, rank-and-file soldiers didn’t seem that enthralled with being part of a coup, and I suspect the President of South Korea is going to see the inside of a jail cell soon.
I think this democratic shift, especially since incumbent parties from both the right and the left lost ground, is the result of Covid and the sharp increase in global prices throughout 2021 and 2022. It should be a lesson to politicians everywhere that significant expansion of government power during a crisis may be met with approval for a time, but that making your citizens' lives worse for dubious reasons will not be looked upon fondly in hindsight. That, and people really hate inflation.
So in a time of pessimism and after a decade of democratic backsliding, raise a glass to democracy in 2024. Voters had their say. They voted for change around the world, and governments respected their wishes. This year should go down as a real bright spot for democracy, and will hopefully spark an inflection point to get the world back in a more democratic direction.
Finally, below is a list of some of my favorite articles of the year. If you’re looking for something to read over the holidays, I recommend each of the below articles. I can’t promise you will agree with all of them, but each will teach you something new and make you think. Some of the articles are behind a paywall, so use Paywall Buster or another site to read them.
“Universities Are Not on the Level” by Josh Barro. American’s trust in colleges and universities has fallen sharply over the last decade. There are a lot of reasons why, most of them deserved. In this incisive critique, Josh Barro lays out what’s gone wrong in an unsparing but accurate fashion. Perhaps my favorite article of the year.
“Exclusive: Life Aboard a Nuclear Submarine as the US Responds to Threats Around the Globe” by Adam Ciralsky. Reporters aren’t allowed on nuclear submarines very often for obvious reasons. In this article, Adam Ciralsky does a marvelous job telling the story of those who work and live one of the most fearsome weapons of war ever created.
“A War on the Nile Pushes Sudan Toward the Abyss” by Declan Walsh and Ivor Prickett. Sudan is the site of one of the world’s largest conflicts and easily the location of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Yet, not nearly as much is being written about compared to the wars of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Walsh and Prickett do a fantastic job bringing the conflict to life in one disturbing piece. This article perfectly encapsulates my love for the New York Times.
“I Was a Heretic at The New York Times” by Adam Rubenstein. This story starts with an anecdote so absurd that it was called out by other journalists (who wasn’t there) for being fake. Then others vouched for Rubenstein, and it looks like he is telling the truth. This article perfectly encapsulates my hatred for the New York Times.
“Notes on El Salvador” by Matthew Lakeman. El Salvador has been in the news a great deal over the last few years for the total overhaul of their criminal justice and penal system. I’ve read a lot about it, but nobody does better than Matthew Lakeman at explaining the history of El Salvador and what the conditions on the ground are like today.
“An Object Lesson From Covid on How to Destroy Public Trust” by Zeynep Tufekci. I know a lot of us want to forget about Covid. This would be a huge mistake. The public health apparatus needs to be pressured into making immense changes or else the next pandemic will be far worse than the last. In this article, Tufekci fairly and objectively lays out the mistakes and sins of those who misled Americans during the first year of Covid.
“Why Biden finally quit” by Eli Stokols, Jonathan Lemire, Elena Schneider, and Sarah Ferris. My favorite article on the 2024 campaign. Biden quitting his campaign will have reverberations for decades. I (naively) hope it will inspire politicians to learn when to throw in the towel. This article lays out what went on behind the scenes in the days before Biden’s withdrawal.
“How Costco Hacked the American Shopping Psyche” by Ben Ryder Howe. The best take on how Costco got to where it is today. A wonderful read.
“Unicorn Governance” by Michael Munger. Not a new article, but one I discovered a few weeks ago. This article perfectly articulates the mistake many make when insisting that “the government” should do something.
“What economists don't know” by Scott Sumner. A great explanation for why we should be suspicious of industrial policy. My favorite econ article of the year.