Davos Newbies

End of cohabitation

France’s long period of cohabitation is over. The results of the first round of parliamentary voting in France look like confirming a centre-right government, alongside the presidency of Jacques Chirac. I’m not a close follower of French politics, but three things strike me about the result.

First, it’s time for the right in France to put up or shut up. The slow progress on a range of reform measures has long been put down to the paralysis induced by cohabitation. Now, the nearly content-free campaigning of Chirac will either be exposed or he and his allies have to come up with an effective governing programme.

Second, what happened to the respect for the democratic process that the presidential embarrassment supposedly engendered? It looks like turnout was around 65%, which is high by Anglo-Saxon standards, but low everywhere else — including France.

Third, why was cohabitation such a problem? The US, notably, has thrived when executive and legislative branches are in different hands. That sounds like democracy to me.  

Computers and thinking

Lee Gomes has an excellent, short summary in The Wall Street Journal of the tussle between the MIT school of artificial intelligence and the Berkeley philosophers (subscription only, sadly). According to Gomes, Berkeley has won. “Even in Silicon Valley, one occasionally hears nightmare scenarios about genius-level computers running amok and giving the pink slip to their human creators. Lost in the discussion is the fact that the starting point of the argument — that intelligent, conscious machines are just around the corner — is looking more and more like silly ranting.”

Reviewing Stiglitz

Brad DeLong reckons Joe Stiglitz is a bit confused in his new book, Globalization and its Discontents. DeLong shows Stiglitz takes four different positions on the IMF’s involvement in Indonesia. His conclusion? “Until Stiglitz can figure out which of these four positions is truly his, we won’t know in which direction he thinks world economic governance should move. And we won’t know what to think of his book.”

Incidentally, I’ve only just found Brad’s weblog, the Semi-Daily Journal. Brad is an excellent, Berkeley-based economist, who also writes with wit and verve. It will unquestionably become a regular destination for me.