Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 21

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism Book Club Update

Here’s the plan for my new Book Club.  After each segment, place your thoughts and questions in the comments and I’ll post an omnibus response later in the week.

On January 18, I’ll cover Chapter 1: “Ignorance Is Strength” up to the sentence “The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time.”

On January 25, I’ll cover Chapter 1 up to the sentence “This demands a continuous alterat...

Against Apology Perfectionism

After last week’s post on apologies, a few readers sent me links on the psychology of effective apologies.  Maximally effective apologies include the following elements:

Expression of regretExplanation of what went wrongAcknowledgment of responsibilityDeclaration of repentanceOffer of repairRequest for forgiveness

A similar piece elaborates:

Taking responsibility means acknowledging mistakes you made that hurt the other person, and it’s one of the most important and neglected ingredien...

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism Book Club

George Orwell’s 1984 contains excerpts from a fictional book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.  Orwell provides a short passage from Chapter 1, entitled “Ignorance is Strength” and a much longer passage from Chapter 3, entitled “War Is Peace.”  Although 1984 is a work of dystopian fiction, TPOC has long struck me as a profound work of social science.   The book is a wonderful meditation on not only totalitarianism (especially Stalinism), but politics itself.

The upshot: I’ve...

Sorry for Whatever

Last week, I posed the following question on Twitter:

Why is “I don’t really understand what I did to upset you, but I’m sincerely sorry for whatever it was” so ineffective?

If you respond, “Because figuring out how you upset someone is easy,” you are crazy!!!

— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) January 1, 2021

Few of the responses impressed me, but perhaps that’s because I failed to flesh out the hypothetical.  I’m picturing a scenario where:

a. The speaker speaks in a sincere tone of voice.

b. Th...

Betting vs. the Nuclear Option

I have a long-standing dispute with Tyler Cowen about the epistemic value of betting.  To my mind, my position is modest: Bets advance our knowledge by clarifying contentions and raising the price of error.  While isolated bets don’t “prove” anything, they tip the argumentative scales in favor of the winner.  And a long track record of successful betting is a strong sign of reliable judgment.  Furthermore, the refusal to make bets at all shows that deep down, you know that you don’t know what yo...

Gramm’s Post Office Speech: A Critique

Whenever I lecture on privatization, I bring up the following quote from Senator Phil Gramm:

And last year, in the darkest hour of the health care debate, when it looked like Bill Clinton was about to convince America that it made sense to tear down the greatest health care system the world had ever known to rebuild it in the image of the post office…

Gramm’s opponents angrily denied that Clinton planned to rebuild the health care system “in the image of the post office.”  For my purposes, howev...

Racism and Sexism: Keep Your Hands Clean

Suppose someone accuses me of being a pickpocket.  I respond, “I have picked no pockets, therefore I am not a pickpocket.”  My accuser could naturally retort, “Oh yes you are, I have video evidence of you picking pockets on three separate occasions.”

Imagine, though, if my accuser instead declared, “There’s a lot of pickpocketing in the world.  You’ve personally done nothing to stop it.  That makes you a pickpocket!”

I submit that this is an absurd and unjust position.  You lead with a basele...

My Hands Are Clean

Suppose someone accuses me of being a pickpocket.  I respond, “I have picked no pockets, therefore I am not a pickpocket.”  My accuser could naturally retort, “Oh yes you are, I have video evidence of you picking pockets on three separate occasions.”

Imagine, though, if my accuser instead declared, “There’s a lot of pickpocketing in the world.  You’ve personally done nothing to stop it.  That makes you a pickpocket!”

I submit that this is an absurd and unjust position.  You lead with a baseless ...

When May We Be Happy?

2020 felt like a bad year.  I was definitely less happy than normal.  Yet every day, I tried to be happy.

You could question the realism of the goal.  “Be happy during a pandemic?  When over a million human beings are dying?  When the global economy crashes?  When billions lose their freedom?  When immigration restrictions go from draconian to suffocating?  When police murder innocents in broad daylight?  When fanatics riot in the streets?  When friends lose their minds?  When they lose touch wi...

Escaping Paternalism Wins the Szasz Prize!

This July-September, I ran a book club on Rizzo and Whitman’s magisterial Escaping Paternalism.  Now I’m pleased to announce that Rizzo and Whitman have won a much-deserved Szasz Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties.  From the prize announcement:

The professional Szasz award goes to Mario J. Rizzo, a professor of economics at New York University, and Glen Whitman, a professor of economics at California State University, Northridge. Their book Escaping Paternalism: ...