Editing Matt Ridley (section)

===Role of government regulation===
In a 2006 edition of the online magazine ''[[Edge – the third culture]]'', Ridley wrote a response to the question "What's your dangerous idea?" which was entitled "Government is the problem not the solution",<ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[The Edge]] |date=1 January 2006 |access-date=1 March 2008 |title=What's your dangerous idea? Matt Ridley "Government is the problem not the solution" |url=http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_11.html#ridley |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090201015534/http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_11.html#ridley |archive-date=1 February 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> in which he describes his attitude to government regulation: "In every age and at every time there have been people who say we need more regulation, more government. Sometimes, they say we need it to protect exchange from corruption, to set the standards and police the rules, in which case they have a point, though often they exaggerate it... The dangerous idea we all need to learn is that the more we limit the growth of government, the better off we will all be."

In 2007, the environmentalist [[George Monbiot]] wrote an article in ''[[The Guardian]]'' connecting Ridley's libertarian economic philosophy and the £27 billion failure of Northern Rock.<ref name="Monbiot"/> On 1 June 2010 Monbiot followed up his previous article in the context of Matt Ridley's book ''The Rational Optimist'', which had just been published. Monbiot took the view that Ridley had failed to learn from the collapse of Northern Rock.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The Guardian |date=7 June 2010 |access-date=7 June 2010 |title=The Man Who Wants to Northern Rock the Planet |last=Monbiot |first=George |url=http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/06/01/the-man-who-wants-to-northern-rock-the-planet/}}</ref>

Ridley has responded to Monbiot on his website, stating "George Monbiot's recent attack on me in the ''Guardian'' is misleading. I do not hate the state. In fact, my views are much more balanced than Monbiot's selective quotations imply."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=The Rational Optimist |last=Ridley |first=Matt |date=7 June 2010 |access-date=7 June 2010 |title=Monbiot's errors |url=http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/monbiots-errors}}</ref> On 19 June 2010, Monbiot countered with another article on the ''Guardian'' website, further questioning Ridley's claims and his response.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[George Monbiot]] |last=Monbiot |first=George |date=19 June 2010 |access-date=19 June 2010 |title=Ridleyed With Errors |url=http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/06/19/ridleyed-with-errors/}}</ref> Ridley was then defended by [[Terence Kealey]] in a further article published on the ''Guardian'' website.<ref>{{cite news |title=The state is crowding out successful market mechanisms |newspaper=The Guardian |date=31 October 2007 |access-date=31 October 2007 |last=Kealey |first=Terence |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/31/comment.business}}</ref>

In November 2010, ''The Wall Street Journal'' published a lengthy exchange between Ridley and the [[Microsoft]] founder [[Bill Gates]] on topics discussed in Ridley's book ''The Rational Optimist''.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=26 November 2010 |access-date=13 April 2011 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704648604575621122887824544 |title=Africa Needs Growth, Not Pity and Big Plans |last=Ridley |first=Matt}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |date=26 November 2010 |access-date=13 April 2011 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704243904575630761699028330 |title=Africa Needs Aid, Not Flawed Theories |last=Gates |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Gates}}</ref> Gates said that "What Mr. Ridley fails to see is that worrying about the worst case—being pessimistic, to a degree—can actually help to drive a solution"; Ridley said "I am certainly not saying, 'Don't worry, be happy.' Rather, I'm saying, 'Don't despair, be ambitious.'"

Ridley summarised his own views on his political philosophy during the 2011 [[Hayek Lecture]]: "[T]hat the individual is not – and had not been for 120,000 years – able to support his lifestyle; that the key feature of trade is that it enables us to work for each other not just for ourselves; that there is nothing so anti-social (or impoverishing) as the pursuit of self sufficiency; and that authoritarian, top-down rule is not the source of order or progress."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=The Manhattan Institute |title=Matt Ridley 2011 Hayek lecture |url=http://www.manhattan-institute.org/video/index.htm?c=092611MI |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128113334/http://www.manhattan-institute.org/video/index.htm?c=092611MI |archive-date=28 January 2012}}</ref>

In an email exchange, Ridley responded to the environmental activist [[Mark Lynas]]' repeated charges of a right-wing agenda with the following reply:

{{Blockquote|On the topic of labels, you repeatedly call me a member of "the right". Again, on what grounds? I am not a reactionary in the sense of not wanting social change: I make this abundantly clear throughout my book. I am not a hierarchy lover in the sense of trusting the central authority of the state: quite the opposite. I am not a conservative who defends large monopolies, public or private: I celebrate the way competition causes creative destruction that benefits the consumer against the interest of entrenched producers. I do not preach what the rich want to hear—the rich want to hear the gospel of Monbiot, that technological change is bad, that the hoi polloi should stop clogging up airports, that expensive home-grown organic food is the way to go, that big business and big civil service should be in charge. So in what sense am I on the right? I am a social and economic liberal: I believe that economic liberty leads to greater opportunities for the poor to become less poor, which is why I am in favour of it. Market liberalism and social liberalism go hand in hand in my view.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Mark Lynas |title=Debate with Matt Ridley on ocean acidification |url=http://www.marklynas.org/2011/07/debate-with-matt-ridley-on-ocean-acidification/}}</ref>}}

Ridley argues that the capacity of humans for change and social progress is underestimated, and denies what he sees as overly pessimistic views of global [[climate change]]<ref>{{cite web |publisher=thersa.org |date=31 October 2011 |title=Angus Millar Lecture 2011 – Scientific Heresy |url=http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/angus-millar-lecture-2011-scientific-heresy |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119091109/http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/angus-millar-lecture-2011-scientific-heresy |archive-date=19 January 2012}}</ref> and [[Western birthrate decline]].