Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 25

The Freedom to Do What Sounds Wrong

Friends of freedom routinely defend the right to do wrong.  “If you’re only free to do good things, what freedom do you really have?”  Yet on reflection, this sorely underrates the value of freedom.  Yes, the freedom to do bad things is important.  Much more important, though, is the freedom to do good things that sound bad.

Why is this so important?  Because Social Desirability Bias is ubiquitous; that’s why.   Long psych story short: When the truth sounds bad, human beings deceive and self-dec...

Reflections on Texas

My trip to Texas was a lifetime highlight for me.  Some thoughts:

1. I hadn’t flown since March.  I passed through the following airports: Dulles, Dallas, Amarillo, Austin, and Charlotte.  All of them were half-deserted, except for Charlotte, which was inexplicably packed.  Even in Charlotte, however, the level of fear was low.  Travelers lined up in pre-COVID fashion unless you made a point of distancing.

2. My trip took me on a horizontally-flipped-J route from Amarillo to San Antonio, then up...

Nudge: Welfare State Edition

Simplistic summary of a long debate on paternalism:

 

Hard Paternalist: Government should force weak human beings to do what’s in their own best interest.

Knee-Jerk Libertarian: No, that’s totalitarian.

Soft Paternalist: Government should nudge weak human beings to do what’s in their own best interest.

Thoughtful Libertarian: You define “nudges” so elastically that you still end up being pretty totalitarian.

 

Rizzo and Whitman’s Escaping Paternalism exemplifies the Thoughtful Libertarian pos...

My Texas Tour

Next week, I’m touring Texas with my sons.  I’m speaking for Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute in Lubbock on October 5, and at San Angelo State’s Free Market Institute on October 6.

Both events are in-person, and the Texas Tech event is, amazingly, open to the public!  (Though you do have to register).  If you come, please say hi.  And you can livestream from anywhere on Earth.

My route takes me on a swath from Amarillo, the Palo Duro Canyon, Lubbock, San Angelo, Texas German country, San Anton...

Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine

AEI’s Andrew Biggs has a totally reasonable piece arguing that Americans’ unhealthy lifestyles are a major cause of America’s high COVID mortality rate:

Americans entered the Covid pandemic in much poorer health than citizens of other developed countries. For instance, over 27,000 U.S Covid deaths list diabetes as a comorbidity, accounting for 16% of total Covid-related fatalities. But what if instead of having the highest diabetes rate among rich countries the U.S. had the same rate as Australi...

Orwellian Othering

I recently characterized “diversity and inclusion” as a deeply Orwellian movement – doublethink all the way:

Out of all the major political movements on Earth, none is more Orwellian than “social justice.” No other movement is so dedicated to achieving the opposite of what its slogans proclaim – or so aggressive in the warping of language.

For example:

1. The diversity and inclusion movement is nominally devoted to fervent “anti-racism.”  In practice, however, they are the only prominent openly ...

Business vs. Government: A Few Contrarian Thoughts

A few months ago, Mike Huemer published a pithy defense of business in general, and big corporations in particular.  Some highlights:

Now, I have had personal experience with individuals, corporations, and government. All three are, of course, sometimes unsatisfactory. But my experience with large corporations is way better than my experience with either individuals or government — better from the standpoint of my ending up feeling satisfied, or being made better off by interacting with them.

Th...

When Was This Written?

Western civilization is being forced step by step into a state of civil war by the rising assaults of a revolutionary movement known as [redacted].

This movement centers in the universities and spreads outward into every institution of today’s society.  It spreads in two ways: by indoctrination of those who are open to indoctrination, and by terrorization of those who are not.

Many observers are bewildered by the fact that the violence and terror have appeared suddenly in the midst of a scenario...

The Illogic of Collective Guilt

A while back, I ran the following set of Twitter polls on collective guilt.  Here’s what people think at the most abstract level.

How often are people collectively guilty?

— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) August 24, 2020

Overall, I was surprised by how few people said, “Never.”  I expected more like 70-80%, especially when phrased so baldly.  What really puzzled me, though, were people’s views about the sources of collective guilt.  People are about as willing to accept national collective guilt...

The Missing Right-Wing Firms: A Beckerian Puzzle

I teach the economics of discrimination every chance I get.  Why?  Because the analytical framework, launched by the great Gary Becker in 1957, mightily illuminates so many questions that we care so much about.  When you see that almost all garbage collectors are male, for example, what should you conclude?  Perhaps women and men are equally able and interested in collecting garbage, but employers in the industry dislike women.  Perhaps male garbage collectors don’t like working alongside women....