Francisco Lou��?���§��?���£, Ant��?���³nio Jos��?���© Teixeira, me, and
Filipe Teles (one of the organizers)
I think that I did rather well in my debate with Francisco LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£ (his website), a leader of the Portuguese Left Bloc, member of parliament, and professor of “economics” (meaning, history of thought) in Lisbon. He had no evidence, no coherent arguments, but lots of invective (he referred to the “lies” I offered in my remarks and the “falsified statistics” on which the “lies” were allegedly based), lots of foaming at the mouth about unrelated topics (why the U.S. should not attack Iran, for example), and strange excursions into the history of economic thought, especially how Leontief had shown that additional investment in capital-rich economies represented a “paradox.” I don’t think he made many converts, or even any.
The debate was sponsored by the Centro de Estudos de GovernanÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§a e PolÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?Âticas PÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?ºblicas of the University of Aveiro. It was very fairly and smoothly moderated by AntÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?³nio JosÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?© Teixeira , a journalist from from DiÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?¡rio de NotÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?Âcias. (I submitted a paper — from which I drew a number of graphs for a PowerPoint presentation — to the conference of which the debate was an element; the paper may be published later.)
An outstanding description of our “beloved leader” of the Lefts (not the portuguese lefthanded people). When debating with you he nade his usual number: LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£’s behaviour with us, natives, is also shameless. Among his followers he is a god, but even among “non-believers” the opinion is that “he has ‘his’ ideas, but he is good, he is excellent at what he does”. Apart from his adversaries, noone dares to question what he foams at the mouth.
Dear RMR,
Picking up on the lively discussion going on at O Insurgente, let me add once again that I think LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£’s positions are mostly deeply wrong and even dangerous.
That said, he is obviously a much smarter cookie than most people from the same ideological area and I have no problem recognizing that. I certainly expect Dr. Palmer’s solid and reasoned argumentation to have helped some people move away from LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£’s ideas but it would be foolish to think that LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£’s (relative) success is simply due to the fact that no one dares to question him.
Underestimating one’s opponent is one of the biggest mistakes someone can make in any battle, no matter how good it may make us feel.
Dear Tom Palmer,
I don’t know if Francisco LouÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?§Ã?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?£ made many converts if any. What I do know is that a lot of people in the audience went there to listen to him. His party is a party of academics like him. I fail to understand, however, is how supposedly intelligent people, who use their minds for a living, refuse to see the facts and the evidence, a lot of which was part of your presentation.