Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 127
February 24, 2015
Purges and Schisms, by Bryan Caplan
Purges and Schisms
When I was working this summer at the Institute for Humane Studies, I
spent many hours reading old libertarian periodicals -- especially those
from the late 60's, 70's, and early 80's. And one of the things that
struck me was the frequency and violence of the purges and schisms. Of
course, I'd been familiar with the Rand-related purges and schisms for a
long time. But I had no idea that there had been so much bad blood in
the broader libertarian movement as well.
Now I bring this up not to point fingers at this or that faction.
Rather, I want to discuss the harmful effects of purges and schisms, and
propose some tentative remedies. Secondarily, I'd like to open up
further discussion on ways to avoid future purges and schisms.
The Damage of Purges and Schisms
First of all, purges and schisms take up a lot of time and energy that
could be better spent on constructive tasks. I can't tell you how many
issues of various libertarian publications that I read were devoted
exclusively to falling-outs, betrayals, and selling-outs. Every one of
these articles could have been turned to some positive task, whether
current events in the world, or history, public policy, philosophy, or
what have you. Oftentimes, those writing the book-length
purge-statements were great minds, who produced excellent work before
they embroiled themselves in in-fighting.
Second, purges and schisms prevent great minds and schools of thought
from teaching one another. "Cross-fertilization" is the term that comes
to mind. Frequently, the best ideas lie scattered in the works of many
thinkers. In an open and tolerant intellectual atmosphere, everyone
would feel comfortable to bring the best ideas together, to synthesize.
Every new idea would have the benefit of criticism from many
perspectives. Purges and schisms tend to put a stop to this beneficent
process. Of course, it is conceivable that a person might be
purged, but not his or her works. Conceivable, but rare. I noticed
that every side in every schism tended to re-write history, downplaying
or even scorning the works of the intellectual exiles. Strange as it
sounds, Ayn Rand's treatment of Nathaniel Branden was actually better
than average. At least she kept his essays in the Virtue of Selfishness
and Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, though of course she and his inner
circle never cited him again (to my knowledge). It was more typical for
former friends who eagerly referred to one another's work before a
schism to forever afterwards ignore it completely, or even scorn it.
Third, purges and schisms seriously turn off newcomers. When someone
first acquires an interest in libertarianism, he or she wants to learn,
listen, and discuss IDEAS. When they see that more seasoned
libertarians seem more interested in PEOPLE, they will understandably be
turned off. At its worst, it makes libertarians seem more like a cult
than a community of thoughtful people who value individual liberty.
Fourth, only very rarely did I find a purge or schism based on some REAL
horrible "sell-out" or defection to another political philosophy.
There were roughly two kinds of fallings-out. The first kind was the
clash of personalities. Obviously some people, especially passionate,
ideological people, can get on each others' nerves. This often led to
schisms and purges. Especially if one of the people involved was
well-known in the libertarian movement, they usually dragged all of
their followers and supporters into the fray, creating permanent
ruptures.
The second kind of falling-out was genuinely based on ideological
differences, but blown all out of proportion. There seems to be an
instinct to assume that those who disagree with you, or -- even worse --
who change their minds and cease to agree with you -- MUST do so out of
sheer wickedness. Throughout all of the battles that I studied, it is
difficult to remember a single case where I was convinced that someone
had dishonestly taken on a new intellectual stance. Of course, I
often agreed with one side and disagreed with the other, but that is
not the point. The point is that all of the sides seemed like they were
probably sincere, yet libertarian thinkers and activists who had often
known each other for years jumped to the conclusion of willful
intellectual dishonesty.
Now of course a concern for ideological purity in SOME sense can be
quite reasonable. If Lyndon LaRouche called himself a libertarian
(which I don't think he ever did), it would upset me, and I would surely
tell others that he wasn't. But in all of the cases I studied, the
disagreements never took any of the participants outside of the
classical liberal tradition. Their disagreements might not have been
minor (though some were), but they definitely remained disagreements within
a body of thinkers with many shared beliefs and concerns.
A Proposed Remedy for Purges and Schisms
Now I am convinced that this plague of purges and schisms is one of the
most serious long-run problems within the libertarian movement, and I
want to do something about it. Moreover, I think that any viable
solutions must have two properties.
1. Any individual who adopts the solution will (marginally) make purges
and schisms less common, acrimonious, and harmful to the libertarian
movement.
2. And if the solution were to become widely accepted among libertarians,
the problem of purges and schisms would for the most part disappear.
(Those familiar with game theory will see why the two are not necessarily
linked.)
What then is my proposed solution?
1. In the event of a disagreement, to always criticize only the ideas,
never the person; and moreover, to always criticize in a polite and
ecumenical way.
2. If another libertarian fails to live up to #1, to STILL refrain from
making any sort of personal attack, or responding in a similar way. I
realize that this will be contrversial. Initially, I balked at this
idea myself; it seems to go against everthing Robert Axelrod said in the
Evolution of Cooperation. (Namely, the best way to get Golden Rule
behavior is NOT by following the Golden Rule, but by playing
tit-for-tat.) But this impression is only superficial. Oftentimes,
those who make personal attacks get pleasure out of in-fighting for its
own sake. So responding in kind may just encourage them. Moreover,
there are many better sanctions to impose -- loss of reputation, loss of
credibility on serious (i.e., non-purge/schism) issues, etc. And on top
of this, remaining polite and respectful ON PRINCIPLE is somewhat likely
to get others to respond in kind. It is hard to keep calling someone
names if they just ignore it and answer your real argument. On top of
this, there are third-party effects. When you refuse to engage in
personal attacks even when you seem to have every justification to do
so, on-lookers will be impressed by your commitment to discuss only
ideas and listen only to reasonable arguments.
3. To never initiate a purge or schism. If you don't like someone,
don't hang around them; if you disagree with their work, criticize
it or ignore it. But don't go beyond this. Don't write denouncements,
don't discourage people from at least reading their works, and don't
make people feel like they are either for you or against you.
Now when I first considered this idea, I was worried that the
libertarian movement would suddenly be filled with every sort of nut --
followers of Lyndon LaRouche, Holocaust revisionists, the works. But
then I thought again. Is there not a spontaneous ordering in
ideological movements as well as in society? Indeed there is. No one
is going to start calling himself a libertarian unless he has SOME
interest in libertarian ideas. No one is going to take the trouble to
engage in dialogue with libertarians if they completely disagree with
us. There are "market forces," if you will, that automatically create
a reasonable degree of uniformity within every ideological movement,
whether there are purges and schisms or not. What are these market
forces? Simply the affinity of like-minded people for each other's
company and association. And I think that this force is more than
strong enough to give the libertarian movement all of the cohesiveness
that it needs.
4. If YOU are the victim of a purge or schism, refuse to acknowledge its
importance. Continue to read and cite the valuable works of those who
purged you; continue to encourage others to read them for themselves.
If you have "followers," don't drag them in, or treat it as a personal
betrayal if they retain an interest in the works of those who purged you.
Just continue your normal steady stream of positive, constructive work
and don't worry about it. No reasonable person will think less of you
if you refuse to get into the fray. Naturally, you may respond to
criticisms of your ideas; and if some specific factual charges are made
against you (e.g., that you are a plagiarist, or embezzled funds), by
all means issue a reply. But keep it short, and concentrate on ideas,
not people.
I'm not certain that my solution is perfect, but it seems to me to be a
necessary first step. The more I read old periodicals, the more the
present seemed to look just like the past. And the more the present
groupings of libertarians began to make historical sense. As a small,
minority voice, libertarians can't afford to waste their energy on
anything other than building a complete intellectual alternative to the
status quo.
February 23, 2015
Who Cares About Park Yeon-mi, by Bryan Caplan
On the surface, there is nothing uniquely libertarian about her journey or her views. Virtually every mainstream thinker, regardless of ideological standpoint, would agree that the North Korean regime is diabolically evil, and cheer Park's successful jailbreak. But libertarians are still exceptionally interested in her story - and eager to embrace her as a heroine. It's very hard to picture her receiving a major speaking offer at a liberal or moderate convention. And it's not even clear that many conservatives would be interested, either.
I could be wrong, of course. For all I know, Park's in multi-partisan, pan-ideological demand. But assuming I'm right, what gives? If almost everyone agrees that North Korea's government is horrible, why are libertarians so much more likely to take stories like Park's to heart?
P.S. My answer would start here.
(9 COMMENTS)
February 22, 2015
Why Pack for the Same Trip Twice?, by Bryan Caplan
There is a better way. Unless your family or friends live in very confined quarters, politely ask to permanently store one trip's worth of supplies at each destination. If your hosts appreciate you, they'll probably say yes. From then on, you can visit them without traditional packing. The out-of-pocket cost is modest. And in any case, if you have the means to travel in the First World, out-of-pocket costs should be secondary to your time, effort, and aggravation costs. Truth be told, you probably have several suitcases worth of clothes you rarely wear; why not pack them up and store them in several destinations you frequent? One fixed cost can save you years of marginal costs.
Sure, if everyone did this, it might cease to be good advice. You probably don't want to store twenty suitcases for your twenty closest friends - and your closest friends probably feel the same way. But so what? Hardly anyone follows my strategy now, and that's unlikely to change. And even if my idea caught on, triage is the obvious response. Store your stuff at the five places you visit most often, and reciprocate for your five most frequent guests.
Right now, I store a lot of stuff at my parents' house, and several useful items at Fabio Rojas' place. But I plan to take this a lot further. Next time I visit my parents, I'm leaving a week's stuff behind. I'll encourage them to do the same at my house. And when my kids have places of their own, I hope each will provide a few cubic feet for Grandpa Bryan.
Question: Why do so few people use my strategy? The awkwardness of asking? Hostility of the hosts' spouse? Or just plain old-fashioned status quo bias?
(20 COMMENTS)
February 19, 2015
Both Men and Women Overstate Sexual Frequency, by Bryan Caplan
I was intrigued, then, to discover strong behavioral evidence that both men and women overstate a different measure of sexual activity: frequency. In the New York Times, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz boils down the evidence:
I
analyzed data from the General Social Survey, a classic source.
Heterosexual men 18 and over say that they average 63 sex acts per year,
using a condom in 23 percent of them. This adds up to more than 1.6
billion heterosexual condom uses per year.Heterosexual
women say they average 55 sex acts per year, using a condom in 16
percent of them. This adds up to about 1.1 billion heterosexual condom
uses per year.Who is telling the truth, men or women?
Neither. According to Nielsen, fewer than 600 million condoms are sold every year.
Americans
may also be exaggerating how often they have unprotected sex. About 11
percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 say they are sexually
active, not currently pregnant and not using contraception. Even with
relatively conservative assumptions about how many times they are having
sex, we would expect 10 percent to become pregnant every month. But
this would already be more than the total number of pregnancies in the
United States (which is one in 113 women of childbearing age).Men
who have never been married claim to average 29 condom uses per year.
This is more than the total number of condoms sold in the United States
to married and single people combined.
Yes, Tyler can always say that both genders understate their number of partners but overstate their frequency. But did he - or anyone for that matter - ever predict such a thing before hearing the facts? If you know of such a source, please share in the comments.
February 18, 2015
Signaling in K-12, by Bryan Caplan
I'm sincerely puzzled by this subliminal defanging of The Case Against Education . My K-12 memories include thousands of hours studying material I knew I'd never use after the final exam. The three years in Spanish were especially traumatic, but they're only the tip of the signaling iceberg. How many years did you study poetry, art, music, history, and civics during elementary, middle, and high school? Even math often smells of signaling; honors math students usually have jobs that don't use advanced math.
Question: Why are people so willing to let K-12 off the signaling hook? It could just be Social Desirability Bias: Criticizing high school makes you sound like you hate children or something. But I suspect it's mainly lazy recollection. If you went to college, college memories leap to mind. You don't have to struggle to remember jumping through academic hoops. Recalling K-12, in contrast, requires more mental effort because it's a longer time span in the more distant past. As a result, people tend to substitute popular platitudes for first-hand experience.
Rival stories?
(29 COMMENTS)
February 17, 2015
Signaling Tension, by Bryan Caplan
Josh Barro shined his spotlight on signaling last week:
I could be wrong about Barro's intent, but he seems to be accusing education skeptics like me of living in denial.How many of the people talking down college as "mostly signaling" learned about signaling in a college economics class?
-- Josh Barro (@jbarro) February 13, 2015
The thrust of his rhetorical question is that most people who believe in signaling's importance wouldn't hold their position if they hadn't learned it in college. Hence, college plainly teaches one important lesson. While this isn't a knockdown argument against the power of signaling, it's suspicious. Are we really supposed to believe that signaling is an isolated exception to the rule that schools teach little of practical value? If you have to go to school to learn reasons why school is overrated, you probably have to go to school to learn lots of great stuff. Signaling isn't exactly self-refuting, but it definitely seems self-undermining.
Assuming I correctly divine Barro's intent, do I have a rebuttal? Yes, a three-part rebuttal.
1. Suppose it's really true that signaling's fans were first exposed to their idée fixe in college. Before you "sense a tension," remember that the signaling model never denies that students learn stuff in school. What it claims, rather, is that much of that stuff fails to yield practical job skills. To demonstrate a troublesome tension, you need to show that learning about signaling markedly increases worker productivity.
Unless you're a professional intellectual, it doesn't. You don't need to understand the signaling model to succeed in business. You don't even need to understand the model to succeed in school. Once students know that doing well in school leads to career success, and employers know that good students are good workers, consciously grasping the signaling model conveys little additional selfish benefit.
Thus, the tension is illusory. The signaling model typifies the non-vocational focus of the curriculum. It's like history or foreign languages. The knowledge is genuine, and good grades help you get the career you want. But the labor market doesn't mind if you forget such material as soon as you submit your final exam, because you rarely if ever use it on the job.
2. If signaling is socially wasteful, and students discover this truth in school, doesn't this at least show that education has major positive political externalities? It would if education heavily undermined political support for impractical education. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Most students never learn about signaling, and most of those who do learn it never accept that a lot of education is socially wasteful. Economists who teach signaling normally treat this contrarian implication as a curiosity, not a deep policy lesson.
The central flaw in the positive political externality argument, though, is that signaling is a microscopic subset of the overall curriculum! Run-of-the-mill K-12, college, and graduate classes strive to convince students that education is awesome and should be subsidized to the skies. If signaling is true, this amplification of students' pro-education bias is another big negative political externality of education as we know it.
3. In any case, the main thing students learn about signaling in economics classes is its technical name. Virtually every child swiftly grasps the idea of signaling from first-hand academic experience. That's why students love class cancellations, seek out easy-A's, happily forget material right after the final exam, and don't think cheating is "only cheating yourself." Sure, most kids are inarticulate - and few voters grasp signaling's policy implications. But resigned awareness that, "To get ahead in life, I have to learn this useless material" usually emerges long before college.
P.S. Although I think Barro's rhetorical question is misguided, I commend him for appealing to people's first-hand pedagogical experiences. Economists would see education much more clearly if they spent less time desperately searching for instrumental variables and more time vividly recalling all the junk they had to study in school.
(2 COMMENTS)
February 16, 2015
Always Keep Your Eye on Production: A Wartime Priority, by Bryan Caplan
Once the U.S. entered World War II, however, the Roosevelt administration asked for - and received - the famous No-Strike Pledge. Unions promised not to strike for the duration of the war, and their real wages eroded in the face of high inflation. The reasoning behind the Pledge was clear: The war effort depends on production, strikes reduce production, so strikes are bad. What about all those arguments about the hidden wonders of militant unionism? Whatever - we've got to win the war.
If government eagerly keeps its eye on production during wartime, why not during peacetime? A cynic would say that politicians care a lot more about winning major wars than fostering economic growth. A bigger cynic would add that politicians are just following the voters' anti-market, pro-government worldview. When they identify with an system's motives and aims - like militarily crushing evil foreigners - voters stop trying to make water run uphill. Productive societies are victorious societies. The rest is details.
(14 COMMENTS)
Always Keep Your Eye on Production, by Bryan Caplan
Laymen often criticize economics for its arcane complexity. When I talk with non-economists, though, so many gravitate toward Rube Goldberg stories. Random example: Yesterday someone suggested to me that failing to fire under-performing government employees is actually economically beneficial, because secure jobs sustain the middle class, the crucial bedrock of our economy.
When I encounter stories like this, I reply with an adage I urge my fellow economists to adopt: "Always keep your eye on production." Whenever analyzing an economic problem, you should, by default, ignore longs chains of social causation and ignore distribution. Instead, remember that mass production is the root cause of mass consumption. Then ask yourself, "How will whatever we're talking about change the total amount of stuff produced?"
Application to yesterday's random example: What happens to production when lots of skilled workers enjoy pay and employment even if they're unproductive? Production falls, impoverishing society. Subtler analyses must strive to keep sight of this basic truth.
"Always keep your eye on production" superficially sounds free-market or right-wing. But it's non-ideological. Think about tax policy. The adage urges us to forget distributional effects and focus instead on how taxes alter behavior - which along many prominent margins, they plausibly don't. "Always keep your eye on production" also reminds us to think long and hard about what "production" really is. When pondering pollution policy, for example, the saying makes us reflect, "Is clean air, like a car, a valuable consumption good?"
As a moralist, I freely admit that my proverb could be misused. As a social scientist, however, I find "Always keep your eye on production" wonderfully clarifying. Productive societies are rich societies. The rest is details.
(19 COMMENTS)
Happy Presidents Day, by Bryan Caplan
In honor of Presidents Day, I'm going to start the day hopeful and optimistic, then end it disillusioned and funding a war.
-- Daniel Lin (@DLin71) February 16, 2015
(1 COMMENTS)
February 12, 2015
The Basics: A Socratic Dialogue, by Bryan Caplan
Socrates: Cool. What do you say?
Glaucon: I'm a pragmatist. We should do whatever maximizes human welfare.
Socrates: So the main point of the book is to advocate open borders?
Glaucon: No, no, no, Socrates. I said I'm a pragmatist.
Socrates: You don't think allowing low-skilled immigrants to get jobs in the First World would sharply raise human welfare, on balance?
Glaucon: I suppose it would. But voters wouldn't accept it.
Socrates: But if your thesis is correct, they are morally obliged to do so, no?
Glaucon: Well, who's to say? You think you've got a hotline to moral certainty?
Socrates: I'm struggling to understand your thesis. You begin by asserting we should maximize human welfare. But when maximizing human welfare is unpopular, you back off. Then when I point out the inconsistency, you accuse me of unwarranted confidence in my moral judgments.
Glaucon: I bet you're one of those deontologists, who thinks we should follow moral rules regardless of the consequences.
Socrates: [scowls]
Glaucon: Look, we just have to start with popular moral intuitions, and weigh them against each other. You may not care what other people think, but I do.
Socrates: Glaucon, I've listened to you long enough. Frankly, you need to stop writing, learn the basics of moral philosophy, and start over.
Glaucon: [stunned] There's no need to get personal.
Socrates: It is nothing personal. But you're conflating an array of moral distinctions. Almost any philosophy professor who teaches ethics would be appalled.
Glaucon: [laughs] Why don't you tell me what you really think, Socrates?
Socrates: [laughs] Happily. Let's start with the first distinction: moral realism (also known as moral objectivism) versus moral relativism (also known as moral anti-realism). Moral realism holds that at least some moral claims are literally true. Moral relativism holds that all moral claims are literally false.
Glaucon: Then no one's a moral relativist, because everyone makes moral claims.
Socrates: Not exactly. The smart moral relativist will reply, "Relativism is a meta-ethical claim, not an ethical claim. Sure, I concede that murder is wrong. But that claim is still literally false."
Glaucon: I don't know anyone who says such things.
Socrates: Look in a mirror. When I asked you if you favored open borders, you objected that voters wouldn't accept it.
Glaucon: So?
Socrates: Well, if we really should do whatever maximizes human welfare, and open borders genuinely maximize human welfare, then what moral difference does it make if voters disagree?
Glaucon: None?
Socrates: Right. None. Unless, perhaps, moral claims are never literally true in the first place.
Glaucon: Not sure if I follow.
Socrates: Well, suppose I say, "There are no unicorns, but here's what I think about unicorns."
Glaucon: Kind of silly.
Socrates: Indeed. But once I say that, you shouldn't be surprised if my claims about unicorns are internally inconsistent, even senseless. After all, my whole position is internally inconsistent - or, to be more charitable, "poetic." So is your book on moral philosophy actually a thinly-veiled work of poetry?
Glaucon: God no!
Socrates: Then you're a moral realist. That means you need to strive for logical consistency, even if most people don't.
Glaucon: Example?
Socrates: Once you say (a) we should maximize human welfare, and (b) open borders accomplishes this, you are logically bound to either revise your moral principle or embrace open borders. What people accept is irrelevant.
Glaucon: Oh, now I see where I went wrong. I don't actually think we should maximize human welfare to the exclusion of all other goods.
Socrates: But you think we're morally obliged to maximize some weighted average of goods?
Glaucon: Right. That makes me...?
Socrates: ... a consequentialist, but not a utilitarian. A utilitarian says we should maximize human welfare. A consequentialist says we should maximize some richer function.
Glaucon: Isn't that just a tautology?
Socrates: Probably not. Suppose two actions' consequences have equally valuable overall moral consequences. But one requires you to tell a lie. Should you tell that lie?
Glaucon: Uh... no.
Socrates: Then you're not a consequentialist. You're a deontologist.
Glaucon: Aren't deontologists those crazy people who think consequences are morally irrelevant? We shouldn't tell a lie even if it will save the world?
Socrates: Nope. Consequentialism is the polar position that NOTHING BUT consequences are morally relevant. Deontology is the rest of logical space. This is just standard usage among philosophers. Most deontologists hold that consequences are morally relevant, but aren't the whole story.
Glaucon: So where does my pragmatism fit in?
Socrates: Unclear. Some people treat "pragmatism" as a synonym for utilitarianism. Others treat "pragmatism" as deference to popular moral views. Sometimes "pragmatism" is a sugar-coated word for moral relativism.
Still, I suppose you could equate "pragmatism" with the moderate view that consequences and other stuff morally matters. But when a word is this muddled, it's probably best to avoid it.
Glaucon: [sigh] So you've got absolute moral truth?
Socrates: I wish! Sadly, noting that the word "pragmatism" is confusing fails to make me morally infallible.
Glaucon: I've listened to you, but I feel less able to write my book than before our conversation started.
Socrates: That's because you see the state of your knowledge more clearly. Now you know that you're not ready to write your book.
Glaucon: You're a piece of work, Socrates. What would your great treatise on moral philosophy say?
Socrates: It's complicated. But let me tell you what my book on moral philosophy would not say. It wouldn't equate moral realism, moral certainty, and moral indifference to consequences. It wouldn't equate utilitarianism, social acceptability, "pragmatism," and open-mindedness. And before proposing any general moral theory, I would test it against a wide range of hypotheticals.
Glaucon: Doesn't sound very pragmatic.
Socrates: If "pragmatic" means "appealing to intellectually lazy readers," you're right. You're a talented writer. If you just kick a bunch of half-baked claims toward the goalie of public opinion, you'll score. But Glaucon, you're better than that.
If you were writing a book about pool, you'd start by getting a clear grip on the basic concepts. You wouldn't equivocate between pocket billiards and swimming pools. You wouldn't assume that people who don't play 8-ball don't play pool at all. You'd be open to the possibility that shooting hard is a bad strategy, even though almost every novice does it. Moral philosophy isn't easy, dear Glaucon. But if you don't take the time to get a clear grip on its basic concepts, it's impossible.
(9 COMMENTS)
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