The Economist Magazine Cover For 02/01/2025

Cover Story: The revolt against regulation Inbox The Economist Unsubscribe 10:04 AM (3 hours ago) to me The Economist Read in browser February 1st 2025 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image The Economist If you think you have what it takes to design an Economist cover, enter our competition by February 3rd. You’ll be in with a chance of winning a copy of our new Cover Story annual, which assembles our covers of 2024 week by week. Edward Carr Deputy editor This was another week when the Trumpian news cycle imposed itself on our choice of cover—not on what we wanted to write about, but on how we illustrated it. I suspect that the remaining 206 weeks of this presidency will see plenty more covers go the same way. Our theme was slashing red tape and it is a heroic one. Javier Milei has wielded a chainsaw against Argentine regulations. Narendra Modi’s advisers are quietly confronting India’s triplicate-loving babus. Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor, wants to overhaul planning rules and expand London’s Heathrow Airport. Even Vietnam’s Communists have a scheme to shrink the bureaucracy. Done right, the anti-red-tape revolution could usher in faster economic growth, lower prices and new technology. Here is where that thought leads. We have Eugène Delacroix’s painting that commemorates the revolution of 1830 in which Liberty dispatched the reviled Charles X. In our version she is brandishing a sharp pair of scissors, ready to dispatch an equally pernicious web of red tape. Some of us thought that it was odd to evoke revolutionary France in order to illustrate a theme that has often been championed by the right. However, politicians on the left have realised that, with high interest rates and towering public debt, rapid growth is the only way to make welfare states affordable. Besides, the reason to cut rules is not just to enhance enterprise, but freedom, too. We liked this, but then along came Mr Trump’s sledgehammer executive orders—some of them weakened and rescinded within days. Because the president risks making deregulation seem reckless, our heroic imagery would not work. One alternative was the world swathed in red tape. It has the virtue of being accurate. Americans spend a total of 12bn hours a year complying with federal rules. The federal code runs to 180,000 pages, up from 20,000 in the 1960s. In the past five years the European Parliament has enacted more than twice as many laws as America. In Britain, well-meaning rules propounded by newt-fanciers obstruct, delay and raise the cost of new infrastructure. But we use a lot of globes and this one lacks drama. The Economist These two are better at getting across the scale of the problem. In much of the rich world getting anything built has become a daunting task, keeping house prices high. Highway projects suffer cost overruns and delays. Proposals to dig mines in America endure nearly a decade in permitting hell. Over-regulation most hurts small businesses, deterring newcomers. Incumbents sit back, knowing that they are sheltered. These ideas are downbeat. The figure lost in the forest has a chainsaw, but it is a lonely and forbidding place. We wanted to be more enthusiastic. You need only look at history to see that deregulation can pep up the animal spirits. Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, India in the early 1990s and southern Europe in the 2020s all sped ahead after their leaders undertook pro-market reforms. Under Mr Milei, Argentina is growing again; deregulation has brought the prices of some imports down by fully 35%. The marching scissors certainly convey efficacy. But they also have an unfortunate overtone of militarism. This is a portrayal in which the thickets of bureaucracy are being cut back by an overmighty state. That paradox is confusing. This paradox, by contrast, is amusing. The scissors are stuck to the wall by the very same red tape they are supposed to cut. It is a nod to the reality that reforms are often stymied by incumbent businesses, trade unions or lobby groups who stand to lose from deregulation, even if society as a whole will benefit. Our designers liked this image because it echoes the “Comedian”, an installation by Maurizio Cattelan that sold at auction for $6.2m in November. The editorial team was less sure, though. Even if you already know the story of this concave comestible, it is hard to work out what is going on. This was the idea that held our attention. Rules and government are essential in any society. Without them, and the bureaucrats to enforce them, life would be shorter and less secure. But this cover shows how the rules can proliferate until they are suffocating business and society. For the final design, we overlaid our masthead with the sticky stuff, we got rid of the words “red tape”—you don’t want to repeat the visual metaphor—and we made the tape itself into such a tangled mess that you are just itching to peel it back. A bit like all that bureaucracy. Cover image • View large image (“The revolt against regulation”) Backing stories → Milei, Modi, Trump: an anti-red-tape revolution is under way (Leader) → Many governments talk about cutting regulation but few manage to (Briefing) → Even in India, bureaucracy is being curtailed (Briefing) → Javier Milei, free-market revolutionary (The Americas)