Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 6

Law is Hell

Huemer’s new Justice before the Law is full of memorable passages, but this is the one that stayed with me:

There are few threats more frightening to Americans than the threat to embroil someone in legal trouble. An illustrative case occurred at a nursing home in California in 2013. An 87-year-old woman living at the facility had stopped breathing, and a nurse on staff called 911, the local emergency services. The 911 dispatcher pleaded with the nurse to start CPR, knowing that the resident woul...

Climate Shock Bet: Daniel Reeves Responds

Daniel Reeves has written this reaction piece to my write-up of our bet.  I’m in blockquotes; he’s not.

By the way, I will be in Guatemala from November 11-16.  I’ll be doing a bunch of events at Universidad Francisco Marroquín on Friday, and speaking for the Mont Pelerin Society on Monday.  I’ll be at Tikal over the weekend.  If you see me in any of these places, please say hi!

Now here’s Daniel.

Bryan seems to start by acknowledging that 6 degrees of warming (we’re approaching 1 degree so far...

I Win My Climate Shock Bet

Two months ago, Daniel Reeves offered me a remarkable bet.  The terms:

1. Bryan reads Climate Shock.  But feel free to skip the parts about short-term extreme weather events — that’s probably least compelling and least relevant to the long-term cost/benefit analysis.

2. Danny puts up $500 to Bryan’s $250 on Bryan doing a 180 on some important policy question related to climate change, such as supporting carbon pricing or subsidizing clean energy or carbon capture tech.  (Merely increasing Bryan’...

A Nobel Bet

Substacker Nathan Brooks thinks he has a shot at the Nobel prize.  In particular, he says that he can explain some puzzles about the U.S. labor market by appealing to employers’ demand for higher employee effort.

I’m not convinced.  I don’t know whether he’s right or wrong.  But even if he were clearly correct, this doesn’t look close to a Nobel-prize-winning insight to me.  And even if it were, Brooks is not an economics professor, so the Nobel committee is highly unlikely to consider him regar...

You Had Two Jobs

I’ve long been critical of local government.  Yes, local officials are “closer to the people.”  And yes, moving to a new town is a lot cheaper than moving to a new state or a new country.  Yet local governments are still far inferior to for-profit businesses.

Recently, however, I’ve realized that I’ve been too generous.  The two main things that local governments do are:

1. Provide K-12 education.

2. Regulate construction.

 

And on reflection, local governments do both of these things terribly. ...

How Thoughtful Torture Beats Plea Bargaining

Mike Huemer’s new Justice before the Law is predictably excellent. I’ll eventually discuss it in greater depth, but for now I’ll focus on Huemer’s critique of plea bargaining.  The heart of the critique is that plea bargaining is coerced confession:

It is universally agreed in legal theory that coerced confessions are unacceptable. The main reason is that to accept coerced confessions would conflict with the central purpose of the court system… Coerced confessions do not establish the truth, nor...

How Democrats Can Save Democracy

In 2020, Trump tried to ignore the results of the election.  His efforts were incompetent, but he was plainly searching for the button that says, “President for Life” – then push it.  And despite my blanket view that politicians are extremely power-hungry, I think that Trump was much more eager to become President for Life than any major U.S. presidential candidate in living memory.  The other candidates over the last century, in contrast, were basically normal Americans who happened to be extre...

The Goalposts of Consent

People routinely justify government on the basis of “consent.”  As in: “There’s a social contract, and you’re obliged to follow it.”

If you deny consent, they just move the goalposts of consent very close.  In fact, they usually give the government an instant touchdown.

How exactly do they move the goalposts?

 

Step 1: Switch from explicit to implicit consent.

If you say, “I never signed this social contract,” they reply, “The social contract is implicit.”

Step 2: Switch from implicit consent to...

A Hitler Hypothetical

On December 11, 1941 Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States.  Almost everyone who has analyzed this decision has been puzzled.  Why go out of your way to antagonize the United States when it’s consumed with fury against Japan?

The leading reply: At this point, Hitler saw that war was inevitable, so he might as well take the moral high ground for propaganda reasons.

I’m unconvinced.  In the absence of Hitler’s war declaration, there must have been at least a 5% chance that the U.S. would ...

The Abused Friend of My Enemy Is My Friend

When I play Sid Meier’s Civilization, as I have thousands of times, I have an eccentric strategy.

When other civilizations demand tribute – or just attack me with without provocation – I give them what they want.

I sue for peace.

And then, I propose an alliance.

The AI almost always accepts the offer – and the subsequent alliance is almost always fruitful.  It’s almost as if the programmers never imagined that anyone would try my self-abasing approach.  Sure, humans will grovel in the face of su...