This is something that has astonished me for a long time:
People do a good job of managing their own lives in a complex, modern society. When they think about subjects like politics and economics, on the other hard, people tend take off their thinking caps and embrace pleasant absurdities...
He's too nice. They're not pleasant absurdities. (Or maybe they are if you're tenured university professor.) For the poor and vulnerable, such ideas are harmful, leading to unnecessary suffering and even unnecessary deaths.
It people were merely ignorant about economics, I wouldn't be worried. After all, if you never studied a subject, we'd expect you just to be agnostic about it. The real problem is that people have strong opinions about economics even though they've never studied it - and their strong opinions tend to be the opposite of what you'd learn in an economics class.
The people who are the most vocal about political economic policy tend to be, in my experience, those who have the most harmful ideas. Not those who simply don't know, but those for whom what they "know", simply ain't so.
Caplan goes on to expose four types of bias which he says underlie this bad thinking: dislike of free markets, dislike of foreigners, what he calls the "make-work" bias (subtler forms of the belief that governments can create economic wealth by having people cart a pile of dirt back and forth), and a refusal to recognize how good we have it compared to the past.
But how do these errors arise in the first place? And why are they all tied to the same political platform? He's unsure. After all, a Tennessee NASCAR voter isn't expected to know more about economics than a New York voter with a postgraduate degree -- but the later will tend to, on average, support the less intelligent economic policy. Answers like "evolution" don't explain this disparity. (Unless you believe the New Yorker more highly evolved, and economic stupidity our Darwinian destiny.)
I suspect dislike of free markets is rooted, in part, in two things: a low view of the wisdom and morality of others, and a high view of one's own. It's the belief that other people can not make agreements which benefit both parties: the worker is getting screwed when he agrees to a contract with his employer. The former is naive, and the later is greedy and evil. Since we're better than both, we can step in and straighten things out.
And the "make-work" bias has similar roots: things would work better if people who were like us interfered more. "Paternalism."
And I suspect Caplan's right when he suspects envy here as well: why should others be allowed to have more than we do? The tip-off here is that such people are more interested in (financial) "equality" than in discussing whatever works to improve the lot of the lowest members of society. My repeated impression is that they'd rather see the high brought down than recognize that the poor might be hurt, or even notice that the economic system they want to modify or replace has helped the poor immensely.
And it's natural to prefer people near us and like us -- family first and all. Yet I've always enjoyed the spectacle of watching people who claim we're too rich also protest most vigorously when our jobs move overseas -- allowing someone else get a chance at the economic pie for a change.
So why does the NASCAR voter have less of this? For one, he's probably benefitted from less college education than the New York postgraduate (or studied a more practical subject) and thus learned fewer harmful economic and social ideas.
For another, he's probably got a job doing something "real", like working in a factory, on a farm, or managing a store. People who create wealth tend to better realize the limits of governmental attempts to improve that process.
Lastly, I suspect religious and cultural values come into play: If envy is a factor, a big shot of "thou shalt not covet" (and thanksgiving) might be a good antidote. If you believe God will provide (and/or have strong family bonds), you're probably less like to demand the government do so. If you believe human nature is corrupt, you're probably less like to want to centralize all economic power under some goverment. And it's hard to be an elitist when you don't think of yourself as one of the elite.
'Anti-foreign bias' is used as a smear against patriotism and loyalty to citizens over foreigners, instead of engaging the arguments of the other side...
Yes, I noticed that too: I disagreed with the author entirely on that point. Good eye, "JSB".
He's undoutedly right that, if we didn't have a welfare state, moving more labor around would be beneficial. But we *do* have a welfare state (which changed even Milton Friedman's mind) and, unlike with moving money or products around, "human resources" eventually form influential politicial constituencies.
I probably should have made it clearer that I disagreed with some of the thrust of his column (sorry, Strunk & White). Indeed, if what you say is true, he provides his own illustration of how arrogance (use of "the smear approach") often combines with ignorance (his blinkered view of the impact of movement of peoples).
But his other points (in this column) seemed sound enough. Thanks for the heads-up regarding his broader approach.
Change the subject from economics to education and you have the same problem. In a county-wide school advisory committee meeting I heard it outright: Folks like us can be trusted to make good decisions about our children's education, but they (average parents) cannot.
I've seen decision after decision making it abundantly clear that school districts are so frantic to have all their schools "equal" they'd much rather have five poor schools than four good ones and one great -- or even four great ones and one good.
Posted by: SursumCorda on July 1, 2007 12:50 PM