Move Over, Haile Selassie

How a left-wing economist became the messiah.

Comments

[Barry O]

It's really frightening to see how a group of well meaning but delusional individuals will cometimes worship and glorify a mediocre individual.

Thos tea baggers are a great example.

[Ezra Kline]

I beg to differ...

[Jason]

Maybe Reason should review his book.

[Winter Soldier]

He's not the Messiah . . . he's a very naughty boy.

[Russ R.]

Quoting Monty Python is among the most effective methods of birth control.

[Ska]

Forget it, just pass me the cutchie.

[barfman]

Patel's career ? spent at Oxford, LSE, the World Bank and with thinktank Food First ? has been spent trying to understand the inequalities and problems caused by free market economics

*barf*

[Joshua]

well maybe just maybe he's criticizing the subsidy & tariff distorted world food market that some people CALL "the free market"

What can I say? I'm a Pollyanna.

[proud libitard]

I agree and I also believe there's a difference in trying to study something like this and using government to force implementation

[Seamus]

He's not the messiah; he's a very naughty boy!

[Seamus]

Oops. I skimmed the comments too fast, and missed the fact that Winter Soldier had beat me too it.

[Inkblots]

Here, have a coupon.

[tkwelge]

"His first book, Stuffed and Starved, rips through the problems in global food production and examines how the free market has worked to keep millions hungry..."

There is a free market in food production and distribution? This is news to me.

[Steve Nash Equilibrium]

Hold on, are you saying subsidies and tariffs are NOT free market? I call bullshit!

[PapayaSF]

As opposed to the non-free market economies like Cuba and North Korea, where nobody goes hungry?

[Xeones]

trying to understand the inequalities and problems caused by free market economics

And not, apparently, succeeding even in the basic task of figuring out what that "free market" bit means.

[Xeones]

Quick, someone start a cult that worships me as its Messiah. If i had a bunch of blindly obedient disciples i'd get some shit DONE, yo.

[ed]

But can you handle the responsibilities of the Presidency?

[Art-P.O.G.]

+LOL

[Episiarch]

"Free market" == "Evil". Duh. Once you understand this, everything is clear.

[proud libitard]

Epi, you must be a software developer, huh?

[Warty]

He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

[Isaac Bartram]

This cannot be said often enough, apparently.

[Jesse Walker]

The important thing is that they're all punctuating it differently.

[Warty]

I hoped someone would pick up on that. Jesse wins.

[Pro Libertate]

Brian. . .the babe they called Brian,
Grew. . .grew grew and grew,
Grew up to be
A boy called Brian.
A boy called Brian.

He had arms and legs and hands and feet.
This boy whose name was Brian.
And he grew, grew, grew and grew,
Grew up to be
Yes, he grew up to be
A teenager called Brian.
A teenager called Brian.

And his face became spotty.
Yes, his face became spotty.
And his voice dropped down low,
And things started to grow
On young Brian and show
He was certainly no
No girl named Brian,
Not a girl named Brian.

And he started to shave,
And have one off the wrist,
And want to see girls,
And go out and get pissed.
This man called Brian.
This man called Brian.

[Ken Shultz]

"People are very ready to abdicate responsibility and have it shovelled on to someone else's shoulders," he said. "You saw that with Obama most spectacularly, but whenever there's going to be someone who's just going to fix it for you, it's a very attractive story. It's in every mythological structure."

Well, that's better than a lot of messiahs.

[SugarFree]

Patel: The question is: why are there markets of food at all?

Because farmers aren't your slaves?

[Episiarch]

Don't be absurd. We must all work for the common good.

[SugarFree]

"This 5 Year Plan is totally different! Only 49% of the population starves! Socialism FTW!"

[Episiarch]

That's the next installment of Sid Meyer's Civilization.

[Warty]

Which I'm going to have to get another desktop for so I can waste a few months playing it. Fuck you, Sid Mier. You cockhole.

[Very Naughty Boy]

He's not me.

[Messiah]

Ditto.

[QualityofLife]

ahahahahaha. love this shit.

[Tristan Band]

While I may disagree with his views, allow me to speak in his defense.

As Ken Schultz has stated, he doesn't want to be worshipped. He doesn't see himself as the man on a white horse. As the old expression goes, he is "refusing Caeser's crown." Whatever you can say about him, he isn't power hungry.

The crux of the article isn't his economic views; it is the blind worship foisted on him by some crank mystic, which is causing him great distress. Hell, I'd feel the same way if that happened to me.

[ap]

"He doesn't see himself as the man on a white horse."

except he does. he just does not want to be seen as their man on a white horse.

[Tristan Band]

Never mind all that talk about how people need to save themselves. But, whatever.

[ap]

his career has been spent with thinktanks, World Bank, and writing books on how to fix the world.

i don't know how much real world evidence contrary to his words you need, but i think i've give you a pretty good start.

[Jeffersonian]

Give that man some Old Spice.

[Pro Libertate]

Of course, Caesar likely refused the crown in public to test the Roman public's willingness to accept a monarchy, not because he didn't think it would so rule to have a crown.

[Episiarch]

Caesar thrice refused the crown because it looked good to the masses, dude.

[Tristan Band]

Okay then, bad metaphor. The point is that he doesn't like a bunch of kooks worshipping him. That says something good about his character.

[Episiarch]

Caesar specifically attempted to have accomplishments that allowed him to be deified after his death. You don't know your Caesar.

[Tristan Band]

What does that make Ayn Rand? What does that make anyone who accomplishes anything?

[QualityofLife]

Great Caesar's dead and on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself. (author?)

[Pro Libertate]

I think he was only partially defied at Rome (i.e., he was made into a demigod, and I think one of his virtues (clemency) might've been deified, too). May have been a god in the provinces--can't remember.

[T]

Hell, I'd feel the same way if that happened to me.

You just don't see the potential in having an army of disciples. The comedy value alone is immense. I'd be telling them things like "Mail Nancy Pelosi a live chicken" and "Paint rainbow stripes on your ass and ride a bicycle down the street naked". I figure after 6 months or so of insane requests, they'd leave me alone.

[Paul]

Patel's career ? spent at Oxford, LSE, the World Bank and with thinktank Food First ? has been spent trying to understand the inequalities and problems caused by free market economics, particularly as it relates to the developing world.

Stop right there...

[Tman]

Yeah, I looked up his book online, and then threw up a little in my mouth.

Reason needs to review this, and soon.

[Paul]

"I don't think a messiah figure is going to be a terribly good launching point for the kinds of politics I'm talking about ? for someone who has very strong anarchist sympathies

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

[Tristan Band]

Social anarchism, perhaps. Syndicalism and such.

[Paul]

Right, that brand of Anarchism where you "tear down the esablishment" so it can be replaced with a truly authoritarian one.

[Zeb]

Or replace it with a voluntary collectivism. Which may be impossible to bring about in the real world, but it is not logically contradictory or anything.

[Barack Obama]

There are those who say this man is the Messiah. Let me be perfectly clear: that post is filled.

I'm Barack Obama?

[skeptic]

Who typed a question mark at the end of the teleprompter? For the last time, Obama will read whatever is up there!

[prolefeed]

You're not an economist, pal, as the double digit employment should have indicated to you.

[johnl]

Isn't this what the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Lady In the Water" was about? A guy played by Shyamalan, living with his sister (Sarita Choudhury) in the USA, is writing what he tells people is a cookbook. Magical creatures reach out to contact him through a water spirit, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. The story is mostly told through the eyes of the handyman played by Paul Giamatti.

[prolefeed]

Has he considered just doing something that so blatantly and obnoxiously violates the prophesies that the stigma of Messiah will wear off?

Personally, I'd use my power as the anointed, were that to be foisted upon me, to request that true believers ship me the bulk of their assets, to dispose of as I pleased.

[QualityofLife]

give me all your Goobers.