The Economist fights for right in Chicago

Forbes magazine listed her among its 100 “World’s Most Powerful Women.” A graduate of Harvard and Oxford and, since 2014, the first female editor-in-chief of The Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes is in Chicago to host the Open Future Festival, “a global summit on the role of markets, technology and freedom in the 21st century” this Saturday at Union Station.

Though when we spoke, I put a different spin on it.

”A day of speeches in a train station ...” I ventured. “That sounds very 19th century in this social media age. What do you hope to accomplish?”

”I hope it’s 19th century married to 21st century,” she replied. “We were founded in 1843 and started the first Open Futures Festival marking our 175th anniversary. We wanted to have a chance to re-make the case for open society and open markets. We want to do it by engaging in a global conversation with both supporters of our worldview and our critics.”

Speakers range from Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to Ryan Fournier, co-founder of Students for Trump. From Bhaskar Sunkara, author of The Socialist Manifesto, to Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 and is now a gun control advocate.

“It’s important to get different people of different ages in a room together to discuss the future of technology, capitalism, free speech and identity politics,” Minton Beddoes said. “We want to engender the discussion.”

What discussion? It seems discussion is the one thing that isn’t happening in society today.

“I think there are some people who are looking for new solutions, who are debating,” Minton Beddoes said. “There is an awful lot of polarization, a lot of people in their own echo chambers shouting at the opposition. That’s really who we are trying to address.”

She forces herself to watch MSNBC and Fox News, if only for 15 minutes, whenever she visits the United States.

“Two different sets of people having two different conversations with very little willingness to reach across and have an intellectual debate,” she said.

Not to single out the U.S. — extremism is on the march worldwide. Sometimes I try to comfort myself regarding the disaster here by reflecting on how much worse it is in Britain.

“The similarities are very striking,” she agreed, noting that in Britain “there are different kinds of anger and polarization.”

The first Open Future Festivals were held last year in New York, London and Hong Kong; it comes to Chicago with the requisite puffs of praise.

“This year we wanted to move away from capital cities, coming to the great city of Chicago,” she said. “Obviously a fantastic city, a diverse city, a center of trade, economically very important.”

Yes, yes, I said, but is it a “world class city?” I explained how periodically local pooh-bahs work themselves into a lather over whether Chicago is “world class.” From her empyrean at The Economist (“straddling the globe like a colossus” is how I phrased it) she could settle the question.

Alas, she did.

“Definitely a globally focused city,” she said, tactfully. “Very forward looking. A very globally oriented city. And what’s a global city?”

Not us, apparently. Granted, I don’t think she’s wrong. It’s just a tad deflating to see where we stand (53rd, on one list I checked, between Ahmadabad and Xian).

I confessed my concern that the very notion of nations being run in a thoughtful fashion by impartial leaders is a fantasy, seeing how universally corruption, egomania and ignorance are given the whip hand. What if rationality is just another delusion?

“I clearly don’t believe that,” she said. “I think that’s exactly what we fight against at The Economist. We were founded to push open societies and the idea of progress.”

She quoted lines from the first issue of the newspaper (as they call themselves), reprinted on the Contents page of every issue: its purpose is to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”

“They wrote that in 1843, and it’s still very apt,” Minton Beddoes said. “The world has come a long way, thank God, but what we are doing is more important than ever. Believing in progress and reasonable discussion, in fact-based analysis, is something incredibly important. We lose that at our peril.”

The Open Future Festival starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at Union Station. Tickets are available at the door for $49.