The Paranoid Style in Economics

The Paranoid Style in Russian Politics

So, I started to really get really paranoid.

My father was kind of like Andy Grove, paranoid of the competition.

And I love Maynard Sipes, but he's off in his own world, and, bless his heart, he's so paranoid.

And you know, some of my friends have always said, Hey, you're just paranoid. Why are you doing this?

Maybe amongst themselves they had a few good laughs, but Stalin was a paranoid man, even more than my father.

We spend our lives being paranoid about death, murder, homicide, you name it it's on the front page of every paper, CNN.

Moreover, Pakistan s fear of vilification and failure has given birth to an increasingly paranoid brand of Islam that seeks to impose stricter controls on education, women s rights, dancing, beardlessness, and sex and close society to all forms of modernity. This paranoid Islam, represented by hard line outfits like the Tablighi Jamaat, is Pakistan s fastest growing brand of faith.

Tretyakov is hardly alone. On the contrary, his morbid logic is a perfect reflection of the paranoid vision that has taken hold in the Kremlin.

In the microblogging with real name certification, Wang Zhi'an also said that the reason for Lan Yuefeng to become this is because of his stubborn characters and paranoid personality .

In May 2004, Kelsey Patterson was executed in Texas for double murder, despite having suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since 1981 and having been recommended for commutation of sentence by the Texas Board of Pardons.

On the Israeli side, this means a less paranoid view of the Palestinians, coupled with a recognition that Israel s behavior runs contrary to modern ethics. Past conquest cannot be a legitimate basis for current rule.

For those who know these two superb international macroeconomists, as I do, it is evident that these allegations should promptly be dismissed. But there is the larger question of why the paranoid style has become so prominent.

Contrary to the expectations of transparency advocates, greater disclosure of government information does not make public discourse more rational and less paranoid. If anything, it fuels conspiracy theories (there is nothing more suspicious than the claim of absolute transparency).

Moreover, China s bullying of the Philippines included not only the dispatch of warships to Scarborough Shoals, but also the sudden imposition of import restrictions on Filipino produce. And China s reactions toward Japan are far more paranoid since a non LDP government took power.

Iran tried that, and failed. The almost inevitable fall of Iran s closest ally in the region, the Baath regime in Syria, only adds to the regime s paranoid anxieties and makes developing a nuclear capability seem all the more necessary for its survival.

In fairness, given Krugman s strong and public positions, he has been subject to immense personal criticism by many on the right. Perhaps the paranoid style in public debate, focusing on motives rather than substance, is a useful defensive tactic against rabid critics.

At the peak, gold bugs a combination of paranoid investors and others with a fear based political agenda were happily predicting gold prices going to 2,000, 3,000, and even to 5,000 in a matter of years. But prices have moved mostly downward since then.

Rodrik has rendered a major service by stating so openly the claim of one economics. A critic who made the same claim that economics allows only one theoretical approach would be dismissed as paranoid, whereas Rodrik s standing creates an opportunity for a debate that would not otherwise be possible.

The fate of the museum and the school is part of the wider clampdown on freedom of expression and behavior in Putin s third presidential term. Dissidents are routinely dubbed deviants, fifth columnists, and traitors, as the regime leads a drive for national unity based on religion, tradition, and paranoid rhetoric.

The shooting in Newtown was not only especially horrific and heartbreaking, but is also part of an increasingly common pattern a specific kind of murder suicide that has been carefully studied by psychologists and psychiatrists. Loners, often with paranoid tendencies, commit these heinous acts as part of their own suicide.

A useful simplification in addressing the potential work of research ethics panels is to consider two models of review inquisitorial and accusatorial. Whereas the inquisitorial model presumes that fraud is rampant, but often undetected, the accusatorial model adopts a less paranoid stance, presuming that researchers are innocent until proven otherwise.

In Denmark, the hard right Danish People s Party, with 25 parliamentary seats, is the country s third largest party. Dutch populists, such as Rita Verdonk or Geert Wilders, who is driven by a paranoid fear of Islamization, are putting the traditional political elites a combination of liberals, social democrats, and Christian democrats under severe pressure.

Abe s visit to the US comes at a time when friction between the two countries is at an all time low. The trade and economic disputes that incited tensions and a sub genre of paranoid movies about Japan in the 1980s, when nine members of Congress even smashed a Toshiba radio with sledgehammers, rarely make an appearance nowadays.

By contrast, if the industry were open to new players, potential entrants, with everything to gain and little to lose, would have a strong incentive to unleash the waves of creative destruction that Schumpeter thought so essential to human progress. In a competitive industry, only paranoid incumbents those constantly striving for betterment have any hope of surviving.

After all, the movement took shape following the US government s massive and bipartisan bailout of Wall Street banks. And, at a time when the Chinese government, America s main creditor, has begun sending clear signals about its preferences for US domestic policy even as it ignores American criticism of its human rights record are the Tea Partiers merely being paranoid?

The big picture today is the possible passage of global leadership from the West to Asia. The paranoid reaction of neoconservatives in America to the terrorist threat can only accelerate that process, if not render it inevitable, by endangering our democratic values and thereby weakening the soft power of the United States, while giving fuel to the terrorist cause.

This treatment goes far beyond documentaries like Michael Moore s polemical Fahrenheit 9 11 or The Corporation , an earnest if somewhat paranoid portrayal of multinational companies role in globalization. It extends to mainstream hits like The Constant Gardener , in which the idealistic protagonists do battle with a malicious global pharmaceutical company that is bent on exploiting Africa s misery to test experimental drugs.

To be sure, the Tea Party s brand of aggrieved populism and its composition of mostly white, angry, middle class voters has deep roots in the United States, flaring up during times of change. But observers who have drawn comparisons to the Know Nothings, the racist, paranoid, anti Catholic, and anti immigrant party that surged in the 1850 s, are reading the movement far too superficially.

The problem with this saying is the paranoid mindset behind it, for it implies that the nature of Russian US relations has not changed fundamentally since the Cold War s end that the animosities that exist between the two countries are those of two permanently implacable geopolitical opponents. Russians, it seems, can only feel good about themselves if they are contesting the world s great power head to head.

Indeed, the Bush administration s unilateral behavior, including the dismantling of the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework with North Korea, the hyping of an enriched uranium deal, and the infamous axis of evil speech, have all increased the paranoia of an already paranoid regime. So former President Bush s foreign policy toward North Korea, especially during his first term in office, must take a fair share of responsibility for the present mess.