Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 63

Job Search and the Laws of Wing-Walking

When people examine the job market, they usually see vast inequality of bargaining power.  The job-seeker needs money to live; the employer, in contrast, faces only a minor inconvenience if a position remains vacant.

On reflection, this is oversimplified.  Some applicants – spouses of full-time workers, children of comfortable parents, older workers with comfortable nest-eggs – are quite secure even if they remain unemployed.  Some employers – small business owners, marginal managers, anyone...

Why Dodge the Question?

Politicians are notoriously fond of “dodging questions.”  But why would anyone do this?  If a wife asks her husband, “Where were you last night?,” dodging the question is practically his worst possible option.  After all, if he won’t answer, her common-sense reaction is to assume the worst.

What makes politics different?

The best explanation, once again, centers on Social Desirability Bias.  In plain English: When the truth sounds bad, people bend the truth.  When all straightforward answers...

My Quartz News Interview

Quartz News recently interviewed me about open borders.  Enjoy the show!

How You Can Find Socialism in a Capitalist World

Before and after my “Capitalism vs. Socialism” Debate with Elizabeth Bruenig, we had quite a while to chat.  While I was nonplussed by her case for socialism, she was quite gracious in person.  There are probably plenty of socialists like her: Nice people who find capitalism disgusting.  Which gets me thinking: If capitalism made my flesh crawl and I knew socialism wasn’t coming anytime soon, how would I cope?  What is the best way for a can-do socialist to find socialism in a capitalist worl...

My Scandinavian Tour

This month, I’m speaking in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm.  Schedule:

“The Myth of the Rational Voter” in Copenhagen for CEPOS on August 13.

“The Case Against Education” in Oslo for Civita on August 20.

“The Case Against Education” in Stockholm for Ratio on August 25.

If you attend, please introduce yourself!

Me on Student Loans in Newsweek

In The Case Against Education, I argue for the abolition of student loan programs.  But I also argue that student loan programs are one of the least dysfunctional parts of the status quo.  This week, I take my case to Newsweek – including the print edition.  Highlights:

[F]rankly, there’s no point in making college more affordable for students who don’t belong there in the first place. When the college degree was rare, there was little stigma against those who lacked it. Our dream should not...

Pro-Market AND Pro-Business

Both economists and libertarians often emphatically state, “I’m not pro-business.  I’m pro-market.”  What does this slogan really mean?

Sometimes, they’re just saying, “I oppose mandatory cartels, bailouts, subsidies, protectionism, licensing, and other government intervention on behalf of politically-favored firms.”  This is a perfectly sensible position.  But why anyone would call such favoritism “pro-business”?  Sure, these policies help some businesses, but they’re a burden on the rest. ...

“Disaster” and Construal Level Theory

Was the French Revolution a disaster?  Well, it did send Europe into 26 years of horrific bloodshed and misery.  Standard estimates put the body count of the Napoleonic era alone in the vicinity of 5 million victims.  Yet even well-informed people will often furrow their brows and muse that it was, on the whole, a good thing.  Or at least too complex to confidently condemn.  Ask people about the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the partition of India, or the decolonizat...

The Dynamic Case for Non-Compete

Here’s Peter Mannino’s Featured Comment on my recent post:

Isn’t the entire case against non-compete clauses exactly that they stifle dynamic efficiency? Imagine if the traitorous 8 couldn’t leave Shockley to found Fairchild semiconductors, or Noyce and Moore couldn’t leave Fairchild to found Intel. California’s hostility to non-compete’s is one reason why we have a tech sector… I guess the problem is that some business practices prevent the world from being a place where “entrepreneurs know...

How to Believe in Free Speech, by Bryan Caplan

Almost all libertarians earnestly say, "I believe in free speech."  Normally, though, this goes way beyond the right to speak freely.  Most libertarians also believe that free speech "works" in some sense - that given a free exchange of ideas, the truth will at least ultimately prevail.

On reflection, this is an awkward position.  Western countries don't have completely free speech, but they are amazingly close to this extreme.  Furthermore, the anonymity of the internet makes it easy to evade most of the lingering restrictions on free expression.  And yet, as you may have noticed, libertarianism has failed to become popular. 

Which raises an awkward question: If free speech yields truth, then shouldn't we infer that unpopular viewpoints such as libertarianism are simply wrong?

You could heavily lean on the caveat that free speech ultimately yields truth.  But modern libertarianism has existed for over half a century.  Its popularity probably peaked either just before September 11, 2001 - or perhaps just before the 2008 financial crisis.  Both of these peaks were modest at best.  If that's what ultimate victory looks like, ultimate victory is a small consolation.

Non-libertarians will naturally be tempted to infer that libertarianism is false.  But since no political philosophy has achieved decisive intellectual victory, that's playing with fire.  Perhaps staunch moderates could claim victory for every view that 80-90% of people accept, from Social Security to the War on Terror.  But staunch moderates are now so rare that it's not even clear if they outnumber libertarians.

At this point, it's tempting to backpedal.  When we say "free speech works," why assume that works means "ultimately leads to truth"?  People supply and demand ideas for many many reasons.  The desire to produce or consume truth is one motive.  But people also care about entertainment, tradition, fads, and much more.  Books and movies officially labeled "fiction" normally outsell books and movies officially labeled "non-fiction."  So it would hardly be surprising if people preferred to heavily adulterate their descriptive beliefs with drama and wishful thinking. 

If you backpedal this much, however, can you retain much enthusiasm for free speech?  Yes.  While free speech doesn't lead to the victory of truth, at least it allows the search for truth to continue.  As long as you have a large, diverse society, you're likely to have a rationalist subculture - or at least a bunch of subject-specific rationalist subcultures.  Free speech allows these truth-seekers to ask thoughtful questions and propose reasonable answers, even if the thoughtful questions are awkward and the reasonable answers are scary.  While the rationalists are likely to remain the minority, free speech preserves their existence.  And since the methods and fruits of rationalism appeal to the smart and curious, free speech allows rationalists to continuously skim off the cognitive cream of society.  Free speech doesn't make truth popular, but it does rescue the elect from abject error.

Thus, I can't honestly give three cheers to free speech, I can give it two.  The first cheer for free speech is deontological: People have a right to express themselves freely, even if their expression is erroneous or irrational.  The second cheer for free speech is elitist: Free speech lets the best and brightest produce and consume truth, even if most people hold the truth in disdain.  But we can't honestly give free speech a third cheer for making truth popular - because the claim that free speech makes truth popular simply isn't true.

And thanks to free speech, I'm free to say so!

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