‘The same guarded hopefulness applies to an Economist editor’s only true master: the liberal credo of open markets and individual freedom.’

This valedictory oration is made up of Neo-Liberal rationalizations, apologetics all framed in the self-exculpatory: a defense of freedom and Free Markets garnished by the current declinism made popular by Niall Ferguson and Mr. Fukuyayma, and a host scribbling epigones.
Call it shopworn at best, although Mr. Micklethwait writes with a certain ideological brio e. g. the foul calumny that a Capital set free by the Financial Reform of 1999, in America, is to blame for the Crisis of 2008. And other such injustices, and an unmentioned ‘Left’ that haunts this essay: it’s shade the ever-present Prof. Piketty.
This essay should take it’s place beside Mr Micklethwait and Mr. Wooldridge’s almost prescient The Right Nation.
Political Skeptic
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21641204-john-micklethwait-who-has-edited-newspaper-2006-leaves-today-these-are-his-parting