Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 129

The Lone Collectivist, by Bryan Caplan

When you're a normal member of your society, the appeal of collectivism is easy to understand.  Most people believe what you believe and enjoy what you enjoy.  So wouldn't it be great if society as a whole continuously celebrated your worldview and lifestyle?  When you fit in, walking on eggshells to spare minority sensibilities is most tiresome.

If you're weird, in contrast, the appeal of individualism is easy to understand.  Most people neither believe what you believe nor enjoy what you enjoy.  You already feel isolated and alone.  Public celebrations of popular values add insult to injury - especially when these celebrations are infused by the presumption that "These are the values that we as a society hold in common."

Strangely, though, weird people often hail collectivism and scoff at individualism.  Marxists do it.  Greens do it.  And reactionaries do it.  They're totally out of sync with their societies, but they nevertheless lament their societies' lack of community spirit and common purpose.  "A country shouldn't just be a bunch of people living next to each other" is a typical lament.  But weird collectivists rarely ask themselves, "What would happen if I couldn't live next to anyone who didn't share my identity?"  The unwelcome answer, of course, is that Marxists, Greens, and reactionaries would have to recant or relocate.

I'm tempted to say that this is just another mark against the claim that self-interest drives political views.  But I sense more sinister motives.  Namely: Weird collectivists have a three-step daydream. 

Step 1: Seize power. 

Step 2: Use that power to tendentiously claim to "speak for society." 

Step 3: Force their worldview/lifestyle on their recalcitrant societies in society's name. 

Think of these three steps as the revolutionary version of "Society, stop hitting yourself.  Stop hitting yourself.  Stop hitting yourself."

Perhaps this is overly negative.  But what else could the lone collectivist be thinking?  His true feelings about the community in which he resides must be, at best, mixed.  In a thousand ways, the lone collectivist's community keeps telling him, "You... don't... fit... in."  If he isn't fantasizing about a world where he can authoritatively speak in society's name, why else would the lone collectivist openly yearn for cohesive community?  Stockholm Syndrome?

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The Bolshevik Czar, by Bryan Caplan

From Stephen Kotkin's new Stalin :

Peasant expectations of a total land redistribution were intense, and the wartime tsarist government had helped spur them, confiscating land from ethnic Germans living in imperial Russia, which was supposed to be redistributed to valiant Russia soldiers or landless peasants. The army, on its own, promised free land to winners of medals, spurring rumors that all soldiers would receive land at the war's end.  Total tsarist government confiscations of agricultural land during the war - which was seized with minimal or zero compensation from some of the empire's most productive farmers, and contributed to the severe shortage of grain in 1916 and the bread riots in 1917 - amounted to at least 15 million acres.

From context, 15 million acres seems to be roughly 15% of contemporary Russian farmland.  I've long known about the many continuities between czarist and Bolshevik policy, but I never before heard that the last Czar of Russia spear-headed massive expropriation of farmers whose only "crime" was membership in a successful outgroup.

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Foreigner Day, by Bryan Caplan

Robin Hanson proposed a Capital Day to complement Labor Day. In that spirit, I suggest a Foreigner Day to complement the world's ubiquitous National Days and Independence Days.  Here's how Robin explains the point of Capital Day:

[J]ust
as on Labor Day we may pause to notice the busboy who would usually
escape our notice, today let us notice the capital around us, without
which we would be impoverished and uncivilized.   Let us also wonder if
we take capital too much for granted.  Do we neglect the ways in which
we may discourage its creation or maintenance?

Similarly, just as on National Days you take the time to appreciate your nation's virtues and accomplishments, the point of Foreigner Day is to appreciate other nations' virtues and accomplishments.  What can we learn from foreigners?  In what ways should we emulate foreigners?  It is possible that we take foreigners for granted - or even mistreat them? 

Foreigner Day is not about self-hatred, but the quest for self-improvement.  Suppose your country is the best on Earth.  It would still be miraculous if your country were the best in every respect.  So why not examine the planet in all its variety and see how yours can improve?  And needless to say, half the world's countries are, by definition, worse than most countries on Earth.  Foreigner Day, for them, is a time to humbly look beyond their borders for solutions their own culture has failed to originate.

Foreigner Day is a simultaneously a celebration of both multiculturalism and Western civilization.  Like multiculturalism, it takes seriously the fact that almost every culture has something of value to share with the world.  But it also embraces Western civilization at its best: Universalism, or, as I call it, openness to awesomeness.

Robin suggests celebrating Capital Day half a year away from Labor Day.  In the absence of a better idea, I suggest celebrating Foreigner Day every January 4th, half a year away from the 4th of July.

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More on the Modality of Monogamy, by Bryan Caplan

Tyler:

I say both men and women are understating their number of sexual partners. 
Contrary to what is portrayed in this chart, I postulate an American
male average of about four.  I do not agree with the common claim that
American men will overstate their number of partners.

In the GSS, males report an average of 14.19, women an average of 4.76.*  If you mean the median, then males report a median of 3, woman a median of 2.  For men, 4 partners is the 62nd percentile.  So perhaps the results are compatible with your guesses.

P.S. The modality of monogamy is not an artifact of age.  Monogamy is modal for 25-44, 30+, and 40+, for both men and women.

* Excluding the "989 or higher" bin.

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The Modality of Monogamy, by Bryan Caplan

After running last week's abortion regressions, I looked at the General Social Survey's histograms for reported numbers of sexual partners.  They're weird.  Here are the distributions of opposite-sex partners for men and women.

Figure 1: Men's Reported Lifetime Number of Opposite-Sex Partners

Figure 2: Women's Reported Number of Lifetime Opposite-Sex Partners

Notice: The most common number of lifetime partners for both genders is 1!  This is not an artifact of the binning, because the "1 partner" response is in its own bin. 

Of course, people could be lying.  But in what direction would they lie?  Conventional wisdom says that men overstate and women understate.  For men, then, the modal monogamy result is probably even stronger than it looks.  Furthermore, to overturn the modal monogamy result for women, we would have to imagine that women have markedly more partners than men claim to have.  Possible, but definitely weird if true.

What do you think?  Can monogamy truly be modal?  My guess is that the pattern is real.  It seems weird because people with lots of partners are vivid and memorable.  Think about how many popular adult t.v. characters are in the 21-100 or even 100+ bins!  The obvious explanation is that the media is desperately trying to pique and hold our interest. 

The latter observation may tempt you to blame the media.  It's easy to believe that the media amplifies our biases.  The root bias, though, is overestimating the frequency of the vivid and the memorable.

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The Sheepskin Nightmare, by Bryan Caplan

Have you ever dreamed that you're suddenly one class, credit, final exam, or semester short of graduation?  Many people, myself included, have this recurring nightmare.  There a whole reddit on it.  A typical case:

I've had this kind of dream very frequently over the past several years.
Even though I graduated college 10 years ago, I dream that I'm back in
college but not the one
I went to (oftentimes several credits short of graduating) and
begrudgingly have to do one more year or semester, and feel very
disappointed. In my dream I'm back in school at my current age, with
kids who are at least 10 years younger and I feel uncomfortable.

In contrast, I've never ever heard of someone dreaming about suddenly forgetting whatever job skills they learned in school.

How should we interpret these stylized facts about the dream world?  Most plausibly: Belief in the sheepskin effect is extremely deeply rooted.  When you're stuck in this nightmare, you're often confused by the discovery that you failed to cross the educational finish law.  But the idea that failing to cross the educational finish line has dire consequences doesn't confuse you at all.  Whether awake or asleep, you take the power of the sheepskin effect for granted (unless, like many labor economists, you're struggling to talk yourself out of the obvious). 

Furthermore, people also have a deeply rooted belief that crossing educational finish lines has a big effect on employability but little effect on job skills.  The nightmare isn't that you suddenly can't do your job.  The nightmare is that you're the same person you were yesterday, but society throws you into limbo because your papers aren't in order.

Dream evidence is obviously easy to dismiss.  Human capital purists may even say I'm desperately grasping at straws.  But these reactions strike me as dogmatic.  At minimum, sheepskin nightmares highlight the fact that educated humans, no matter how competent, have pronounced anxiety about their official educational status.  Why would they have this anxiety if they firmly believe that competence, not credentials, rule the social world?

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Against Recent Events, by Bryan Caplan

There are many tell-tale signs of a demagogue.  Perhaps the clearest, though, is when someone states the words, "Recent events show X."  Which recent events?  Virtually any recent events!  Yes, every century has a few mighty outliers that sway the fortunes of billions, like Hitler's sneak attack on the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  But the overwhelmingly majority of recent events are sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Serious thinkers don't base their worldview on what happened yesterday, or last week, or last year.  Instead, they endlessly ponder the totality of human history, a body of evidence that makes all recent events combined look small and hollow.

Most people who minimize recent events do so because they don't like what recent events seem to show.  These folks are doing the right thing for the wrong reason.  The right reason to minimize recent events is that recent events aren't probative enough to show anything, welcome or unwelcome.  Eschew Social Desirability Bias and you will know this to be true.

The demagogic connection is straightforward.  The intellectually lazy masses have no patience for thoughtful arguments or big picture surveys of the evidence.  So how are you supposed to persuade them of anything?  Simple.  Cast all epistemic scruples aside.  Wait around for recent events to go your way.  Then loudly claim that these events "show" the very thing you've long yearned to make the masses believe. 

Such demagoguery is hardly fool-proof.  It couldn't be, because your intellectual rivals are using it too!  But it works well.  That's why almost every politician and pundit uses it.  Deplorable, but hardly surprising: If the totality of human history proves anything, it's that demagogues rule countries and dominate discourse. 

I know some smart people who react to these insights with a cynical, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."  On consequentialist grounds, they could be right.  My considered judgment, though, is that winning is far from everything.  If I can't be persuasive without pretending that recent events are decent evidence for anything, I choose to be unpersuasive.

P.S. You know what our latest "recent events" are.  But I'm writing for the ages.  Whatever happens in future years, I promise not to claim vindication by recent events.

P.P.S. Yes, a bet's resolution is also a "recent event," so the way a specific bet turns out doesn't show much either.  But people's ubiquitous reluctance to bet shows something very big: Deep down, most demagogues don't even find themselves convincing - and neither do the masses who lionize them.

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What Are You Saying, Scott Aaronson?, by Bryan Caplan

Scott Aaronson's effort to mediate the virtual war between feminists and nerds has gotten a lot of attention.  But only a handful of people have remarked on a rather strange belief Aaronson has avowed:

I believe there still exist men who think women are inferior, that they
have no business in science, that they're good only for
sandwich-making and sex.  Though I don't consider it legally
practicable, as a moral matter I'd be fine if every such man were thrown
in prison for life.

A few possibilities:

1. This is a joke.  Maybe, but it sure doesn't seem like it.  Nothing else in Scott's list of beliefs sounds jokey.

2. It's not meant to be taken literally.  Perhaps, but highly unlikely.  Scott seems like a careful, literal-minded guy.

3. He spoke in haste, and doesn't really believe it.  Happens to the best of us.

Which brings us to the scarier stories:

4. He is signaling loyalty to intolerant feminists, even though he doesn't really agree with them.

5. He said what he meant, and meant what he said.

My question for Scott: Where does the truth lie?  Thanks in advance.

P.S. If you're tempted to reply, "He admitted that jailing men for their retrograde views is legally impracticable, so who cares?," you should read Mike Huemer on the power of hypothetical reasoning.

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The Pigovian Minarchist Tax Formula, by Bryan Caplan

Glen Whitman sees a big hole in my Pigovian minarchist tax idea.  He's in blockquotes, I'm not.

Pigovian taxes on genuine negative externalities are
definitely better than other kinds of tax as a means of funding
government, inasmuch as they eliminate dead weight loss rather than
creating it. But I see a problem with the argument you're making here,
that such a tax would both violate no rights and raise revenue.

1. Suppose the tax is per unit of output or activity, as is
generally the case with Pigovian taxes. Then the tax will be paid on
every unit, regardless of whether it's above or below the efficient or
non-rights-violating level. If the tax is set perfectly, so that the
equilibrium level of activity is the ideal level, then the *only* people
paying the tax will be those whose activity is efficient or
non-rights-violating (depending on how you define ideal).

True, this is not my proposal.

2. One way to avoid the problem above is to institute a
discontinuous tax, which would be zero up to the ideal level and
positive thereafter. This would generate the same marginal incentives
and thus the same outcome as the regular Pigovian tax. But in
equilibrium, again assuming the tax is set so as to generate the ideal
outcome, the tax would generate zero revenue, since total activity would
never rise to the tax-triggering level.

Perfectly true if the discontinuity is at the individual level.  If the government charges me zero for the first ton of carbon I emit, and a prohibitive tax on all additional carbon emissions, I will never emit more than one ton, and will pay zero tax. 

But what if the discontinuity is at the aggregate level?  Suppose total carbon emissions over 1,000,000 tons a year violate rights.  Then the government can permissibly impose a Pigovian tax sufficient to get emissions down to a 1,000,000.01 tons a year.  Individually, people still have an incentive to pay, because you can pollute as much as you want as long as you pay the tax.

Why 1,000,000.01 tons, and not 1,000,000 tons?  Because then, Glen would be right again.  Once total emissions fell to 1,000,000, the morally permissible tax would revert to zero, and the government would raise no revenue.  The minimal state would have to tolerate an epsilon of rights violations.  Of course, given the fuzziness of the morally permissible thresholds, this is not a flaw of much practical interests.

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The Pigovian Minarchist, by Bryan Caplan

Many minarchists, most notably Ayn Rand, believe their minimal state should be funded by voluntary taxation.  As Rand puts it:

In a fully free society, taxation--or, to be exact, payment for governmental
services--would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government--the
police, the armed forces, the law courts--are demonstrably needed by individual
citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should)
be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance.

The rationale:

The principle of voluntary government financing rests on the following
premises: that the government is not the owner of the citizens' income and,
therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income--that the nature of the
proper governmental services must be constitutionally defined and delimited,
leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own
arbitrary discretion. Consequently, the principle of voluntary government
financing regards the government as the servant, not the ruler, of the
citizens--as an agent who must be paid for his services, not as a benefactor
whose services are gratuitous, who dispenses something for nothing.

Economically, there's an obvious objection to this version of voluntary taxation.  Namely:

1. If the government sells excludable goods, the free market will almost always offer a better deal. 

2. If the government sells non-excludable goods, people have no incentive to pay.

But there's also a persuasive rights-based objection to the general idea of voluntary taxation.  Namely:

1. Individuals shouldn't have to pay the government in order to use what they own.

2. Individuals shouldn't be allowed to pay the government in order to use what others' own.

Intuitively: If X doesn't violate rights, it should be legal; if X does violate rights, it should be illegal.  Either way, a government in search of revenue is out of luck.

Or is it?  Even the staunchest libertarian has to admit that rights violations are occasionally fuzzy.  The smoke from a small campfire violates no one's rights, but the smoke from a mile-wide campfire usually will.  Dropping an ounce of toxic waste in the ocean violates no one's rights, but dumping a billion tons of toxic waste in the ocean does. 

All this implies a golden opportunity for the scrupulous minarchist.  While the government has no right to totally ban fires or toxic waste, it has a responsibility to prevent people's rights from being violated by either.  Sure, it could discharge this responsibility with an outright ban on excessive emissions.  But there's another approach: Impose a Pigovian tax on excessive emissions - and keep raising the tax until emissions are no longer excessive.  This proverbially kills two birds with one stone - protecting rights and raising the revenue required to protect those rights.

What about the rights of the polluter?  As long as the government only taxes emissions severe enough to constitute a rights violation, the polluter has no legitimate complaint; the government is merely deterring him from doing what he has no right to do in the first place.  What about the rights of the pollutees?  As long as the government taxes emissions down to a level mild enough to not constitute a rights violation, the pollutee has no legitimate complaint either; the government is merely allowing people to exercise their rights to light a little campfire.

Note further that Pigovian taxes give government a revenue source without selling either excludable or non-excludable goods.  Instead of trying to make money by selling stuff, the government makes money by charging people for doing stuff they have no right to do in the first place.

From a minarchist point of view, the main strength of the Pigovian approach is also its main danger: the fuzziness of the rights the government is putatively trying to protect via taxation.  Once government gets its revenue from taxing morally impermissible pollution, it has a strong incentive to move on to taxing morally questionable pollution, and then perhaps expand to morally innocent pollution.  And due to the fuzziness, there will always be debate about whether the Pigovian tax authority is overstating its bounds.  Compared to most public choice problems, though, this seems pretty mild - especially assuming the minimal state stays minimal.

I'm not a minarchist.  But if you are a minarchist, Pigovian taxation should excite you.  A minimal state really can fund itself without begging for donations or politely robbing citizens at gunpoint.  In fact, a truly minimal state could probably run permanent budget surpluses.  What would minarchists do with their burgeoning sovereign wealth fund?  Interesting question.
 
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