The Economist (March 23rd 2019)

69 Pages·2019·4.261 MB·English

by  The Economist

White-nationalist terrorism
A new man in Kazakhstan
Why female economists are fed up
Buzzing off: are insects going extinct?
MARCH23RD–29TH2019
The determinators
Europe takes on the tech giants
Contents The EconomistMarch23rd2019 3
The world this week United States
6 Around-up of political 21 Chicago’s police
andbusinessnews
22 College legacy preferences
23 Voter suppression
Leaders
26 Deporting immigrants
9 Regulating tech giants
26 New York’s bottle deposits
Why they should fear
Europe 28 LexingtonBet on
O’Rourke
10 The $100bn bet
Too close to the Son
The Americas
10 The Christchurch
mosque massacre 29 Canada: Trudeau’s woes
Thenewfaceofterror 30 BelloSouth American
integration
11 Womenandeconomics
On the cover
Marketpower
To understand the future of 12 Insects
Silicon Valley, cross the Plaguewithoutlocusts
Atlantic: leader,page 9. The
strong positions European Letters Asia
regulators take on competition
14 OnFlorida,water, 31 Kazakhstan’s president
and privacy reinforce each
biomassenergy,ElCid, resigns
other. That should worry
JoanBaez,clowns 32 Aprimary for Taiwan’s
American tech giants:
president
briefing,page17
Briefing 32 Personal seals in Japan
•White-nationalist terrorism
17 Europeantechnology 33 Mumbai’s deadly bridges
Violent white nationalists
regulation
increasingly resemble the 33 North Korean propaganda
Commonrestraint
jihadists they hate: leader, 34 BanyanNew Zealand’s
20 Challengingadtech
page 10. A solitary killer in self-image
Seeyouincourt
Christchurch is part of a global
35 India’sthuggishpolitics
movement, page 52. The
Christchurch massacre has
China
challenged New Zealanders’
image of themselves: Banyan, 37 Drug rehabilitation
page 34 38 Family values in doubt
•A new man in Kazakhstan 39 ChaguanBond villain-ese
The president resigns, but
clearly plans to keep pulling
strings,page 31
•Why female economists are
Middle East & Africa
fed upA dispiriting survey—and
our own investigations— 40 Anew Arab spring
demonstrate the poor treatment 41 Gantz v Netanyahu
of female economists in America’s Free exchange
42 Burning Ebola clinics
universities, page 68. How the Alan Krueger, a quiet
42 Flooding in Mozambique
economics profession should fix revolutionary of
its gender problem: leader, economics, died on 43 Uganda’s war-crimes court
page 11 March 16th, page 70
•Buzzing off: are insects
going extinct?Insectageddon
is not imminent. But the
decline of insect species is still
aconcern: leader,page 12. The
long-term health of many
species is at risk, page 71
1 Contents continues overleaf
4 Contents The EconomistMarch23rd2019
Europe Finance & economics
44 Twilight of Syriza 65 A$43bn payments merger
45 Italy and the Belt and 66 ButtonwoodWhy book
Road Initiative value has lost its value
46 Aliberal win in Slovakia 67 Merger talk in Germany
46 Lithuania’s murdered Jews 68 Women in economics
47 Health care in Ireland 70 Free exchangeAlan
Krueger
48 CharlemagneSpain isn’t
Italy
Science & technology
Britain 71 Is insectageddon real?
49 Brextension time 73 Aself-charging pacemaker
50 Companies’ no-deal plans 74 Cannabis psychosis
51 BagehotThe roar of the 74 Origins of gods
crowd
Books & arts
International 75 Satire in Ethiopia
52 White-nationalist 76 Graham Greene in Cuba
terrorism
77 Salvatore Scibona’s novel
77 AI comes to health care
78 Britain’s statue boom
Economic & financial indicators
Business 80 Statisticson42economies
55 SoftBank and the Vision
Funds Graphic detail
57 BartlebyUber and its 81 Happinessandeconomicgrowth
drivers
58 Ericsson and Nokia Obituary
58 Indian motorcycles 82 Atta Elayyan, victim of the Christchurch gunman
59 Boeing and the FAA
62 SchumpeterBusiness v
violent crime
Subscription service
For our full range of subscription offers, including digital only or print and digital combined, visit:
Economist.com/offers
Volume430 Number9135
PublishedsinceSeptember1843 You can also subscribe by mail, telephone or email: One-year print-only subscription (51 issues): Please
totakepartin“aseverecontestbetween North America
intelligence, which presses forward, The Economist Subscription Center, United States..........................................US $189 (plus tax)
and an unworthy, timid ignorance P.O. Box 46978, St. Louis, MO 63146-6978 Canada......................................................CA $199 (plus tax)
obstructing our progress.” Telephone: [phone] Latin America.......................................US $325 (plus tax)
Email: [email protected]
Editorial offices in London and also: PEFC certified
Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Latin America & Mexico This copy of The Economist
Chicago, Johannesburg, Madrid, Mexico City, The Economist Subscription Center, is printed on paper sourced
Moscow, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, P.O. Box 46979, St. Louis, MO 63146-6979 from sustainably managed
San Francisco, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Telephone: [phone] forests certified to PEFC
Singapore, Tokyo, Washington DC Email: [email protected] PEFC/29-31-58 www.pefc.org
©2019TheEconomistNewspaperLimited.Allrightsreserved.Neitherthispublicationnoranypartofitmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Economist Newspaper Limited. The Economist(ISSN 0013-0613) is published every week, except for a year-end double issue, by The Economist Newspaper Limited, 750 3rd
Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, N Y 10017. The Economist is a registered trademark of The Economist Newspaper Limited. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NYand additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The
Economist, P.O. Box 46978, St. Louis , MO. 63146-6978, USA. Canada Post publications mail (Canadian distribution) sales agreement no. 40012331. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to The Economist, PO Box 7258 STN A, Toronto,
ON M5W 1X9. GST R123236267. Printed by Quad/Graphics, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
6 The world this week Politics The EconomistMarch23rd2019
the new chairman of the Sen- frontallkindsofwrongopin- this and asked: “If Gantz can’t
ate and the constitution gives ions”—anapparentreference protect his phone, how will he
him lifetime immunity from toWesternideas. protect the country?”
prosecution. The capital,
Astana, is to be renamed Ina“whitepaper”,theChinese For the third week in a row
Nursultan after him. governmentsaidthatsince Algeriawas rocked by mass
2014ithaddestroyed1,588 protests against Abdelaziz
Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s terroristgangs,arrested12,995 Bouteflika, the ailing presi-
president, was challenged for terroristsandpunished30,645 dent. Mr Bouteflika insists on
her party’s nomination in next peoplefor“illegalreligious staging a national conference
year’s presidential election by activities”inthefarwestern and approving a new constitu-
Lai Ching-te, a former prime regionofXinjiang.Human- tion before holding an elec-
A gunman killed 50 worship- minister. No sitting Taiwanese rightsgroupssayabout1m tion, in which he would not
pers at two mosquesin Christ- president has faced a primary peopleinXinjiang,mostly run. But a new group led by
church, streaming part of the before. MuslimUighurs,havebeen politicians and opposition
atrocity live on Facebook. The lockedupforsignsofextrem- figures called on him to step
attacker, an Australian who The Philippineswithdrew ism,suchashavingbigbeards down immediately. The army
had been living in New Zealand from the International Crimi- orprayingtoomuch. appeared to be distancing itself
for two years, was motivated by nal Court. Rodrigo Duterte, the from the president.
fears that immigration was country’s president, initiated
threatening “white” culture. the move a year ago after the The protection racket More than 1,000 people may
The government vowed to court began probing his cam- Benny Gantz, the main chal- have been killed when a cy-
tighten gun-control laws and paign to encourage police to lenger to Binyamin Netanya- clone hit Mozambique, caus-
monitor right-wing extremists shoot suspected drug dealers. hu, the prime minister, in ing floods around the city of
more carefully. Israel’s forthcoming election, Beira. The storm also battered
China’spresident, Xi Jinping, dismissed reports that his Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Nursultan Nazarbayev, told a meeting of educators phone had been hacked by Iran
Kazakhstan’sstrongman that training people to support and that he was vulnerable to Amnesty Internationalsaid
president of 30 years, resigned the Communist Party should blackmail. Some in Mr Gantz’s that 14 civilians were killed
abruptly. He retains consider- begin when they are toddlers. party blamed Mr Netanyahu for during five air strikes by Amer-
able influence; his daughter is He said teachers must “con- leaking the story. He denied ican military forces in 1
The EconomistMarch23rd2019 Theworldthisweek 7
2Somalia.africom,America’s Supporters of Juan Guaidó, the isthefourthpersontoresign protest against what many in
militarycommandforAfrica, man recognised as the rightful overthematter,whichhas the parliament believe are
saidnocivilianshadbeen president of Venezuelaby over tarnishedJustinTrudeau,the repeated attempts by the
killedinthestrikes. 50 countries, said they now Liberalprimeminister. government to undermine the
controlled three of the coun- rule of law.
try’s diplomatic buildings in
Aspecial relationship the United States, including Speaker’s truth to power Zuzana Caputova, a political
the consulate in New York. Citing a convention dating novice, came top in the first
back to 1604, John Bercow, the round of Slovakia’s presi-
A judge in Guatemalaordered Speaker of Britain’s House of dential election. Disgust at
the arrest of Thelma Aldana, a Commons, intervened in the official corruption, and the
candidate in the forthcoming Brexitprocess, again, ruling murder last year of a young
presidential election, on char- out a third vote on the with- journalist who was investigat-
ges of fraud, which she denies. drawal deal unless there was a ing it, fuelled her victory.
Ms Aldana, a former attorney- change in substance to its
general, worked closely with a terms. Parliament therefore
un-backed commission in- could not have another “mean- He could get used to this
vestigating corruption. Guate- ingful vote” on leaving the Donald Trump vetoedthe first
mala withdrew its support European Union before this bill of his presidency, a resolu-
Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’spopu- from that body after it turned week’s European Council tion from Congress to overturn
list president, visited Donald its sights on the president, meeting, where Brexit is on the his declaration of a national
Trump at the White House. Mr Jimmy Morales. agenda. Theresa May asked the emergency on the border with
Bolsonaro has been described council for a three-month Mexico. The resolution had
as the “Trump of the Tropics” Canada’stop civil servant extension of the Brexit passed with some support
for his delight in offending resigned over his entangle- deadline, to June 30th. from Republicans, worried
people. The pair got on well. Mr ment in a scandal in which about the precedent Mr Trump
Trump said he wanted to make political pressure was allegedly The European People’s Party, is setting for future presidents,
Brazil an official ally, which exerted on the then attorney- a grouping of centre-right who might also declare an
would grant it preferential general to drop the prosecu- parties at the European Parlia- emergency to obtain funding
access to American military tion of an engineering firm ment, voted to suspend Fidesz, for a project that Congress has
technology. accused of bribery in Libya. He Hungary’s ruling party, as a denied them.
8 The world this week Business The EconomistMarch23rd2019
The Federal Reserve left weedkillermadebyMonsanto, The White House nominated tariffs on goods that each side
interest rates unchanged, and whichBayeracquiredlastyear. Steve Dickson, a former exec- has imposed on the other.
suggested it would not raise TheGermandrugsandchemi- utive at Delta Air Lines, to lead
them at all this year (in Decem- calscompanyhasbeenunder the Federal Aviation Adminis- Tariffs imposed by the eu,
ber the Fed indicated rates thespotlightsinceAugust, tration. The faais under China and others on American
might be lifted twice in 2019). It whenajuryreachedasimilar pressure to explain its proce- whiskeyled to a sharp drop in
is also to slow the pace at verdictinaseparatecase. dures for certifying Boeing’s exports in the second half of
which it shrinks its portfolio of 737 max8, which has crashed 2018, according to the Distilled
Treasury holdings from May, twice within five months, Spirits Council. For the whole
and stop reducing its balance- Brother, can you spare a dime? killing hundreds of people. It year exports rose by 5.1% to
sheet in September. Anil Ambaniavoided a three- has not had a permanent head $1.2bn, a sharp drop from 2017.
month prison sentence when since early 2018, in part be-
hisbrother, Mukesh, stepped cause Donald Trump had The European Commission
Europe’s biggest banks inat the last minute to help pay mooted giving the job to his slapped another antitrust fine
By assets, end 2018, $trn
the$77m that a court ordered personal pilot. on Google, this time for re-
0 1 2 3 was owed to Ericsson for work stricting rival advertisers on
HSBC itdid at Anil’s now-bankrupt bmwsaid it expects annual third-party websites. The
BNP Paribas telecoms firm. Anil Ambani, profit this year to come in “well €1.5bn ($1.7bn) penalty is the
Deutsche Bank/ who was once ranked the below” last year’s. Like others third the commission has
Commerzbank
world’s sixth-richest man, said in the industry, the German levied on the internet giant
Crédit Agricole
hewas “touched” by his carmaker is forking out for the within two years, bringing the
Banco Santander
brother’s gesture. technologies that are driving total to €8.3bn.
Société Générale
the transition to electric and
Barclays abInBevshook up its board, self-driving vehicles; it un-
Source:Bloomberg
appointing a new chairman veiled a strategy this week to Tunnel vision
Aftermonthsofspeculation, and replacing directors. The reduce its overheads. Industrial action by French
Deutsche Bankand changes are meant to reassure customs staff caused Eurostar
Commerzbanksaid they investors that the brewer Talks on resolving the trade to cancel trains on its London-
would explore a merger. A intends to revitalise its droop- disputebetween America and Paris route. The workers want
combined entity would be ing share price and pay down China were set to resume, with better pay, and also more peo-
Europe’s third-biggest bank the $103bn in net debt it accu- the aim of signing a deal in late ple to check British passports
and hold about one-fifth of mulated in a spree of acquisi- April. Senior American offi- after Brexit. A study by the
German deposits. The German tions. They also reduce the cials including Steven Mnu- British government has found
government is thought to influence of 3gCapital, a priv- chin, the treasury secretary, are that queues for the service
favour a tie-up between the ate-equity firm that helped preparing to travel to Beijing could stretch for a mile if there
Frankfurt neighbours. A deal create abInBev via several for negotiations, followed by a is a no-deal Brexit, as Brits wait
faces many hurdles, not least mergers. 3g’s strategy has been reciprocal visit from a Chinese to get their new blue passports
from unions opposed to the called into question by mount- delegation led by Liu He, a checked. Passengers got a taste
potential 30,000 job losses. ing problems at Kraft Heinz, vice-premier, to Washington. of that this week, standing in
another corporate titan it One of the sticking points is a line for up to five hours
In one of the biggest deals to helped bring about. timetable for unravelling the because of the go-slow.
take place in the financial-
services industry since the end
of the financial crisis, Fidelity
National Information
Services, a fintech company,
offered to buy Worldpay, a
payment-processor, in a $43bn
transaction. It is the latest in a
string of acquisitions in the
rapidly consolidating pay-
ments industry amid a shift to
cashless transactions.
Lyftgave an indicative price
range for its forthcoming ipo
of up to $68 a share, which
would value it at $23bn and
make it one of the biggest tech
flotations in recent years. Uber,
Lyft’s larger rival, is expected to
soon launch its ipo.
Bayer’sshare price swooned,
after another jury found that
someone’s cancer had devel-
oped through exposure to a
Leaders Leaders 9
Europe takes on the tech giants
To understand the future of Silicon Valley, cross the Atlantic
“The birthdayof a new worldisathand.”EversinceThom- marries two approaches. One draws on its members’ cultures,
as Paine penned those words in 1776, America has seen it- which, for all their differences, tend to protect individual pri-
self as the land of the new—and Europe as a continent stuck in vacy. The other uses the eu’s legal powers to boost competition.
the past. Nowhere is that truer than in the tech industry. America The first leads to the assertion that you have sovereignty over
is home to 15 of the world’s 20 most valuable tech firms; Europe data about you: you should have the right to access them, amend
has one. Silicon Valley is where the brainiest ideas meet the them and determine who can use them. This is the essence of the
smartest money. America is also where the debate rages loudly General Data Protection Regulation (gdpr), whose principles are
over how to tame the tech giants, so that they act in the public in- already being copied by many countries across the world. The
terest. Tech tycoons face roastings by Congress for their firms’ next step is to allow interoperability between services, so that
privacy lapses. Elizabeth Warren, a senator who is running for users can easily switch between providers, shifting to firms that
president in 2020, wants Facebook to be broken up. offer better financial terms or treat customers more ethically.
Yet if you want to understand where the world’s most power- (Imagine if you could move all your friends and posts to Ace-
ful industry is heading, look not to Washington and California, book, a firm with higher privacy standards than Facebook and
but to Brussels and Berlin. In an inversion of the rule of thumb, which gave you a cut of its advertising revenues.) One model is a
while America dithers the European Union is acting. This week scheme in Britain called Open Banking, which lets bank custom-
Google was fined $1.7bn for strangling competition in the adver- ers share their data on their spending habits, regular payments
tising market. Europe could soon pass new digital copyright and so on with other providers. A new report for Britain’s govern-
laws. Spotify has complained to the eu about Apple’s alleged ment says that tech firms must open up in the same way.
antitrust abuses. And, as our briefing explains, the euis pioneer- Europe’s second principle is that firms cannot lock out com-
ing a distinct tech doctrine that aims to give individuals control petition. That means equal treatment for rivals who use their
over their own information and the profits from it, and to prise platforms. The euhas blocked Google from competing unfairly
open tech firms to competition. If the doctrine works, it could with shopping sites that appear in its search results or with rival
benefit millions of users, boost the economy and constrain tech browsers that use its Android operating system. A German pro-
giants that have gathered immense power with- posal says that a dominant firm must share
out a commensurate sense of responsibility. bulk, anonymised data with competitors, so
Western regulators have had showdowns that the economy can function properly instead
over antitrust with tech firms before, including of being ruled by a few data-hoarding giants.
ibmin the 1960s and Microsoft in the 1990s. But (For example, all transport firms should have ac-
today’s giants are accused not just of capturing cess to Uber’s information about traffic pat-
huge rents and stifling competition, but also of terns.) Germany has changed its laws to stop
worse sins, such as destabilising democracy tech giants buying up scores of startups that
(through misinformation) and abusing individ- might one day pose a threat.
ual rights (by invading privacy). As aitakes off, demand for in- Europe’s approach offers a new vision, in which consumers
formation is exploding, making data a new and valuable re- control their privacy and how their data are monetised. Their
source. Yet vital questions remain: who controls the data? How ability to switch creates competition that should boost choice
should the profits be distributed? The only thing almost every- and raise standards. The result should be an economy in which
one can agree on is that the person deciding cannot be Mark consumers are king and information and power are dispersed. It
Zuckerberg, Facebook’s scandal-swamped boss. would be less cosy for the tech giants. They might have to offer a
The idea of the eu taking the lead on these questions will slice of their profits (the big five made $150bn last year) to their
seem bizarre to many executives who view it as an entrepreneur- users, invest more or lose market share.
ial wasteland and the spiritual home of bureaucracy. In fact, Eu- The European approach has risks. It may prove hard to
rope has clout and new ideas. The big five tech giants, Alphabet, achieve true interoperability between firms. So far, gdpr has
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, make on average a proved clunky. The open flow of data should not cut across the
quarter of their sales there. And as the world’s biggest economic concern for privacy. Here Europe’s bureaucrats will have to rely
bloc, the eu’s standards are often copied in the emerging world. on entrepreneurs, many of them American, to come up with an-
Europe’s experience of dictatorship makes it vigilant about pri- swers. The other big risk is that Europe’s approach is not adopted
vacy. Its regulators are less captured by lobbying than America’s elsewhere, and the continent becomes a tech Galapagos, cut off
and its courts have a more up-to-date view of the economy. Eu- from the mainstream. But the big firms will be loth to split their
rope’s lack of tech firms helps it take a more objective stance. businesses into two continental silos. And there are signs that
A key part of Europe’s approach is deciding what not to do. For America is turning more European on tech: California has adopt-
now it has dismissed the option of capping tech firms’ profits ed a law that is similar to gdpr. Europe is edging towards crack-
and regulating them like utilities, which would make them ing the big-tech puzzle in a way that empowers consumers, not
stodgy, permanent monopolies. It has also rejected break-ups: the state or secretive monopolies. If it finds the answer, Ameri-
thanks to network effects, one of the Facebabies or Googlettes cans should not hesitate to copy it—even if that means looking to
might simply become dominant again. Instead the eu’s doctrine the lands their ancestors left behind.7
10 Leaders The EconomistMarch23rd2019
The $100bn bet
Too close to the Son
Masayoshi Son’s Vision Fund has reinvented investing—and become a giant governance headache
Almost two years ago Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tycoon, veto investments only if they are for over $3bn.
broke all the rules of investing by setting up a new vehicle to The second worry is the potential for conflicts of interest be-
back tech firms. The Vision Fund was unusual in several ways. tween the Vision Fund and SoftBank, a giant conglomerate listed
Worth $100bn, it was enormous. Some $45bn of that came from in Japan that Mr Son founded and still runs. In deals where the
Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, who got Vision Fund’s investment process takes too long, Mr Son has in
the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to contribute. It took huge the past used SoftBank’s balance-sheet to buy stakes in young
bets on trendy “unicorns”—unlisted firms worth over a billion companies which are in turn transferred to the Vision Fund. Of-
dollars, such as Uber. And it gave almost total control to Mr Son. ten SoftBank makes a profit, as with Didi, a Chinese ride-sharing
Many sceptics dismissed the Vision Fund as a vast pot of company, which it bought for $5.9bn in 2017 and will soon trans-
tainted money squandered on hyped-up assets. And by October fer to the Vision Fund for $6.8bn. Very occasionally SoftBank
last year it looked as if they were right. The murder of Jamal makes a loss.
Khashoggi, a journalist, cast Saudi Arabia and the fund into dis- SoftBank and the Vision Fund obey rules on investing and
repute, while the shares of tech firms started to tank. their fiduciary duties. The fund uses independent valuers, in-
Now, however, the Masa show is back on the cluding big audit firms. And SoftBank has a big
road. The Khashoggi affair has receded and tech- direct stake in the Vision Fund and thus an in-
nology stocks have recovered. Several of the Vi- centive to see it prosper. Nonetheless SoftBank
sion Fund’s biggest investments are due to float has too much scope to manoeuvre unlisted in-
on the stockmarket at racy prices. And Mr Son vestments in high-growth but loss-making
plans to raise as much as $100bn, for the Vision firms. Worse is the scant disclosure on how in-
Fund 2 (see Business section). He will soon do vestments are valued, or how much cash the Vi-
the rounds of the world’s sovereign-wealth sion Fund’s firms are burning up.
funds and pension giants, touting robots and ar- You do not need artificial intelligence to con-
tificial intelligence—and, once again, his own magic touch. clude that Vision Funds 1 and 2 need better governance. Both
These custodians of other people’s money should be on their need independent boards. Bringing in a heavyweight technology
guard. Mr Son’s relations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment executive to test Mr Son’s convictions would lessen the risk of
Fund (pif), which provided the $45bn, are reportedly strained. dud deals. Transfers between SoftBank and the Vision Funds
The reason is not the Khashoggi murder but the pif’s (privately should stop. Investors must be told how positions are valued.
expressed) dismay about the Vision Fund’s governance.
Looking in from the outside, the first problem is “key-man The Vision Fund needs transparency
risk”. As with Prince Muhammad’s reign, Mr Son’s rule at the Mr Son’s empire has become too big to get by with patchy, ama-
fund is absolute. If he views a startup as sufficiently world- teur governance. It has about $300bn of equity and debt, and
changing, next to nothing will stop him betting big. His is by far stakes in 70 or so prominent startups which could be damaged if
the strongest voice on the Vision Fund’s three-member invest- one of their leading sponsors blows up. When Mr Son comes ask-
ment committee, which has the final say on what is bought. That ing for more money, investors should make it clear that the time
is because the other two members are his employees. The pifcan has come for his style to change.7
The Christchurch mosque massacre
The new face of terror, much like the old
Violent white nationalists increasingly resemble the jihadists they hate. They should be treated the same
Afanatic walked into a house of worship and opened fire. multinational subculture of resentment. Islamists share footage
Men, women, children; he made no distinction. Brenton of atrocities against Muslims in Myanmar, Syria, Xinjiang and
Tarrant showed no mercy because he did not see his victims as Abu Ghraib. White nationalists share tales of crimes against
fully human. When he murdered 50 people, he did not see moth- white people in New York, Rotherham and Bali. The alleged
ers, husbands, engineers or goalkeepers. He saw only the enemy. shooter in New Zealand, who is Australian, scrawled on a gun the
The massacre in New Zealand on March 15th was a reminder name of an 11-year-old Swedish girl killed by a jihadist in 2017.
of how similar white-nationalist and jihadist killers really are. It takes a vast leap of illogic to conclude that the murder of a
Though the two groups detest each other, they share methods, young girl in Stockholm justifies the murder of Muslim children
morals and mindsets. They see their own group as under threat, 17,500km away. But when extremists meet in the dark corners of
and think this justifies extreme violence in “self-defence”. They the web, they inspire each other to greater heights of paranoia
are often radicalised on social media, where they tap into a and self-righteousness. Their enemies want to destroy their peo-1
The EconomistMarch23rd2019 Leaders 11
2ple and their faith. It is a fight for survival. Apparently uncon- ple, that America’s Department of Homeland Security has no ex-
nected outrages are part of a global plot which, after great contor- perts in far-right terrorism. But even with ample funds, the task
tion, both jihadists and neo-Nazis often blame on the Jews. will not be easy. People who post racist diatribes online often
Worldwide, jihadists kill many more people than white su- pretend that they are joking. Spotting potential killers among the
premacists do. However, in the West, white-nationalist violence much larger number of poison-pontificators is hard. So is find-
is catching up with the jihadist variety and has in some places ing the right people to deradicalise the far right. Would-be jiha-
overtaken it (see International section). The numbers are hard to dists can sometimes be talked out of it by moderate imams, who
pin down, but there is cause for alarm. By one estimate, between ground their arguments in texts that both parties revere. This is
2009 and 2018 white supremacists killed more than three-quar- trickier with neo-Nazis, but a mix of public ostracism and pa-
ters of the 313 people murdered by extremists in America. Far- tient counselling can work.
right networks with violent ambitions have been uncovered in Sensitivity is essential. Lots of non-violent people share at
the German army. The West has no white-nationalist equivalent least some of the extremists’ concerns, albeit in milder form.
of Islamic State, but plenty of angry racists there have access to And just as the struggle against jihadism must be calibrated so as
guns. And recent events have fired them up. The not to pick on peaceful Muslims—or create that
Syrian refugee crisis, for example, created vivid Deaths from terrorism sense—so the struggle against white extremism
images of Muslims surging into Europe, fuelling Westerncountries*,Jan2010-Mar2019 should avoid alienating peaceful whites who
the fears of those who fret that non-whites are happen to oppose immigration or who occa-
Jihadist 544
outbreeding whites and will one day “replace” sionally say obnoxious things online.
them in their ancestral homelands. It is an explosive problem, and one that
Right-wing220
Yet there is hope. Another reason the white would be easier to deal with if prominent politi-
*WesternEurope,NorthAmerica,
racist threat looms relatively larger is that the cians stopped throwing lighted matches at it.
AustraliaandNewZealand
West has grown better at thwarting the jihadist When President Donald Trump calls the flow of
one. Since the attacks of September 11th 2001, security services immigrants an “invasion”, he lends cover to those who would re-
have put huge efforts into infiltrating jihadist groups both in per- pel them violently. Likewise Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime min-
son and online, eavesdropping on their conversations and tak- ister, when he claims that a Jewish billionaire is plotting to flood
ing down their propaganda. Since jihadism crosses borders, in- Europe with Muslim migrants in order to swamp its Christian
telligence services have also shared information and worked culture. And so too Turkey’s strongman, President Recep Tayyip
hand in hand to disrupt plots. Governments have strengthened Erdogan, when he says that the shooter in New Zealand is part of
the defences of obvious targets, starting with airline cockpits. a grand plot against Turks. By contrast, New Zealand’s prime
They have foiled dozens of plots and jailed hundreds of jihadists. minister, Jacinda Ardern, has struck the right note. She donned a
They have also worked to deradicalise extremists, or to prevent headscarf, to show that an attack on Muslims is an attack on all
them from taking up arms. New Zealanders. She is tightening the country’s gun controls.
All these methods should be used against violent white na- She has shown how an assault on New Zealand’s values of toler-
tionalists, too. More cash will be needed. It is absurd, for exam- ance and openness is in fact a reason to strengthen them. 7
Women and economics
Market power
How the economics profession should fix its gender problem
At the heartof economics is a belief in the virtues of open become academic economists are treated badly.
competition as a way of using the resources you have in the Only 20% of women who answered the aeapoll said that they
most efficient way you can. Thanks to the power of that insight, are satisfied with the professional climate, compared with 40%
economists routinely tell politicians how to run public policy of men. Some 48% of females said they have faced discrimina-
and business people how to run their firms. Yet when it comes to tion at work because of their sex, compared with 3% of male re-
its own house, academic economics could do more to observe spondents. Writing about the survey results, Janet Yellen and
the standards it applies to the rest of the world. In particular, it Ben Bernanke, both former chairs of the Federal Reserve, and
recruits too few women. Also, many of those who do work in the Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist of the imf, said that
profession say they are treated unfairly and that their talents are “many members of the profession have suffered harassment and
not fully realised. As a result, economics has fewer good ideas discrimination during their careers, including both overt acts of
than it should and suffers from a skewed viewpoint. It is time for abuse and more subtle forms of marginalisation.”
the dismal science to improve its dismal record on gender. To deal with its gender shortfall, economics needs two tools
For decades relatively few women have participated in stem that it often uses to analyse and solve problems elsewhere: its
subjects: science, technology, engineering and maths. Econom- ability to crunch data and its capacity to experiment. Take data
ics belongs in this list (see Finance section). In the United States first. The aeastudy is commendable, but only a fifth of its 45,000
women make up only one in seven full professors and one in present and past members replied to its poll. More work is need-
three doctoral candidates. There has been too little improve- ed to establish why women are discouraged from becoming
ment in the past 20 years. And a survey by the American Econom- economists, or drop out, or are denied promotion. More bench-
ics Association (aea) this week shows that many women who do marking is needed against other professions where women 1
12 Leaders The EconomistMarch23rd2019
2thrive. Better data are needed to capture how work by female myriad subtle ways in which those who responded feel uncom-
economists is discriminated against. There is some evidence, for fortable. For example 46% of women have not asked a question
example, that they are held to higher standards than men in peer or presented an idea at conferences for fear of being treated un-
reviews and that they are given less credit for their co-writing fairly, compared with 18% of men. Innovation is overdue. Semi-
than men. And economics needs to study how a lack of women nars could be organised to ensure that all speakers get a fair
skews its scholarly priorities, creating an intellectual opportuni- chance. Job interviews need not typically happen in hotel rooms,
ty cost. For instance, do economists obsess more about labour- a practice that men regard as harmless but which makes some
market conditions for men than for women? The more compre- women uncomfortable. The way that authors’ names are pre-
hensive the picture that emerges, the sooner and more easily ac- sented on papers could ensure that it is clear who has done the
tion can be taken to change recruitment and to reform intellectual heavy lifting.
professional life. Instead of moving cautiously, the economics profession
The other priority is for economists to experiment with new should do what it is best at: recognise there is a problem, mea-
ideas, as the aeais recommending. For a discipline that values sure it objectively and find solutions. If the result is more wom-
dynamism, academic economics is often conservative, sticking en in economics who are treated better, there will be more com-
with teaching methods, hiring procedures and social conven- petition for ideas and a more efficient use of a scarce resource.
tions that have been around for decades. The aeasurvey reveals What economist could possibly object to that?7
Insects
Plague without locusts
Insectageddon is not imminent. But the decline of insect species is still a concern
“Be afraid. be very afraid,” says a character in “The Fly”, a keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than be-
horror film about a man who turns into an enormous in- fore. It is hard to argue that insect decline is yet wreaking signi-
sect. It captures the unease and disgust people often feel for the ficant economic damage.
kingdom of cockroaches, Zika-carrying mosquitoes and creepy- But there are complications. Agricultural productivity is not
crawlies of all kinds. However, ecologists increasingly see the in- the only measure of environmental health. Animals have value,
sect world as something to be frightened for, not frightened of. In independent of any direct economic contribution they may
the past two years scores of scientific studies have suggested that make. People rely on healthy ecosystems for everything from nu-
trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butter- trient cycling to the local weather, and the more species make up
flies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off. “If all an ecosystem the more stable it is likely to be. The extinction of a
mankind were to disappear”, wrote E.O. Wilson, the doyen of en- few insect species among so many might not make a big differ-
tomologists, “the world would regenerate…If insects were to ence. The loss of hundreds of thousands would.
vanish the environment would collapse into chaos.” And the scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how
We report on these studies in this week’s Science section. long ecosystems can remain resilient. An experiment in which
Most describe declines of 50% and more over decades in differ- researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields
ent measures of insect health. The immediate found that plant diversity held up well until
reaction is consternation. Because insects en- about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it
able plants to reproduce, through pollination, collapsed. In Krefeld, in western Germany, the
and are food for other animals, a collapse in mass of aerial insects declined by more than
their numbers would be catastrophic. “The in- 75% between 1989 and 2016. As one character in a
sect apocalypse is here,” trumpeted the New novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy
York Timeslast year. came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly”.
But a second look leads to a different assess- Given the paucity of data, it is impossible to
ment. Rather than causing a panic, the studies know how close Europe and America are to an
should act as a timely warning and a reason to take precautions. ecosystem collapse. But it would be reckless to find out by actu-
That is because the worst fears are unproven. Only a handful ally triggering one.
of databases record the abundance of insects over a long time— Insects can be protected in two broad ways, dubbed sharing
and not enough to judge long-term population trends accurately. and sparing. Sharing means nudging farmers and consumers to
There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the adopt more organic habits, which do less damage to wildlife.
world, including China, India, the Middle East, Australia and That might have local benefits, but organic yields are often lower
most of South America, South-East Asia and Africa. Reliable data than intensive ones. With the world’s population rising, more
are too scarce to declare a global emergency. land would go under the plough, reducing insect diversity fur-
Moreover, where the evidence does show a collapse—in Eu- ther. So sparing is needed, too. This means going hell for leather
rope and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are hold- with every high-yield technique you can think of, including in-
ing up. Although insect-eating birds are disappearing from Euro- secticide-reducing genetically modified organisms, and then
pean farmlands, plants still grow, attract pollinators and setting some land aside for wildlife.
reproduce. Farm yields remain high. As some insect species die Insects are indicators of ecosystem health. Their decline is a
out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, warning to pay attention to it—before it really is too late. 7