The Economist editorial stance

The Economist was first published in September 1843 by James Wilson to "take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress". This phrase is quoted on its contents page. It has taken editorial stances on many issues over the years.

The publication's own self-documented history states this about its editorial stance:

What, besides free trade and free markets, does The Economist believe in? "It is to the Radicals that The Economist still likes to think of itself as belonging. The extreme centre is the paper's historical position." That is as true today as when former Economist editor Geoffrey Crowther said it in 1955. The Economist considers itself the enemy of privilege, pomposity and predictability. It has backed conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It has supported the Americans in Vietnam. But it has also endorsed Harold Wilson and Bill Clinton, and espoused a variety of liberal causes: opposing capital punishment from its earliest days, while favouring penal reform and decolonisation, as well as—more recently—gun control and gay marriage.

The magazine opposed the provision of aid to the Irish during the Great Famine. The Economist argued for laissez-faire policies, in which self-sufficiency, anti-protectionism and free trade, not food aid, were in the opinion of the magazine the key to helping the Irish live through the famine which killed approximately one million people.

In the 19th century the editorial stance of The Economist drifted away from supporting laissez-faire policies. In January 1883, for example, one editorial noted that:

[...] it required very little observation of current politics to see that the principle of laissez-faire is no longer in the ascendant.

In September 1883, another editorial noted that

When once it has been conceded that the functions of the State are not to be strictly limited to those simpler duties [...] it is wonderful how soon and how rapidly the number of the outlets in which it is thought that State aid may be advantageously applied becomes increased and multiplied.

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