Tyler Cowen: evaluation

Transcript context

…How likely is it the case that the most important thing to track is not the global economic growth rate, but rather the relative growth rate of countries that have the best moral values versus those that have relatively worse moral values? That it’s a more Manichean vision of a future where the right people have to have power and influence. It’s a very good question. I don’t think we can say which countries have the best moral values. A lot of people will tell you that’s the United States, but our longer-run history is a pretty brutal one, and we’ve treated a lot of disadvantaged groups very badly. If you look at a lot of smaller countries, they’ve done a lot less wrong-doing, but they also were not in a position to. So to glorify them as the model to copy, I think is begging the question because if they had more power, well, what would they have done? We don’t know. I think of it more in terms of strands or tendencies we want to encourage in all the countries. The so-called bad, evil countries — so many people can be so good or good at heart or maybe even partly because they’re in a bad country, like in the former Soviet Union — bonds of friendship often were stronger. So I think we need to unpack the whole notion of the better and worse countries and mostly be a lot more self-critical about our own country, whichever one that may be. Do you think that people overstate or understate the differences both morally and otherwise between people in different countries?…

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