Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 89

Borjas, Ideology, and #ForeignLivesMatter, by Bryan Caplan

Shikha Dalmia and George Borjas' immigration debate in Reason manages to be intriguing and aggravating at the same time.  For me, the highlights are when Borjas leaves technical economics and lays his ideological cards on the table.  Borjas is in blockquotes, I'm not.

My research was never motivated or influenced by
what I thought about individual liberty or the rights of people to live
anywhere they want. My personal experience with Communist
indoctrination when I was 10 and 11 years old left me very wary of
thinking about anything in ideological terms.

Most victims of Communism, in my experience, take away lessons like, "Human rights matters," "Government should respect individual liberty," "The fact that government does something doesn't make it right," "Forbidding emigration is monstrous," or just "Socialism is evil."  Borjas, in contrast, takes away the lesson that "Ideology is bad."  Which is simply bizarre.  Castro ruined Borjas' native Cuba because his ideology was totalitarian.  If Castro's ideology had been pro-market and pro-freedom, Cuba would be a great place today - and Borjas might be at the University of Havana writing books to keep immigrants out of Cuba instead.

In any case, you can't not have an ideology.  Borjas finally reveals his in his closing sentence:

When push comes to shove, I will side with policies that improve the well-being of the American worker.

This is no less "ideological" than siding with policies with improve the well-being of whites, women, Germans, or the international proletariat.  And like all of these ideologies, Borjas' is subject to devastating counter-examples.  Like: Suppose enslaving the whole population of Cuba would improve the well-being of the American worker.  When "push comes to shove," would you favor that?

I'm confident that Borjas, a self-styled pragmatist, would reply, "Of course not.  Yes, #ForeignLivesMatter somewhat."  But this concession/hashtag has a life of its own.  Borjas has long claimed that existing immigration greatly helps foreigners with roughly zero net effect on Americans.  So if he grants that #ForeignLivesMatter, he should enthusiastically bless the immigration that's already occurred.  And while his pragmatism would restrain him from endorsing anything like open borders, Borjas has every reason to advocate gradual deregulation of migration until American workers seriously start hurting.

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Ten Points on the Wrong Side of History, by Bryan Caplan

In the last few weeks, several critics have told me things like: "History will not be kind," "History will judge you," and "You are on the wrong side of history."  My initial reaction is sheer puzzlement.  If my critics can't persuade me with the evidence they currently possess, do they really think they can persuade me with evidence they claim they're going to acquire in the future?  One carefully-tailored bet would be worth a thousand of their Cassandra cries.

My considered reaction, though, is more elaborate.

1. "History," an abstract object, never thinks or says anything.  So if these claims are meaningful, they're about historians.

2. The underlying assumption of these warnings is: What historians think in a century is a very strong predictor of what's actually true.

3. This is a reasonable claim for narrow factual matters.  The passage of time doesn't just give historians more opportunities to collect evidence.  It also cools their emotions.  This is why I'd far rather read history than news.

4. For the Big Picture, however, historians' consensus is questionable at best.  Most obviously, their liberal bias is overwhelming, with over 30 Democrats for every Republican at top U.S. history departments.  And while you could argue reverse causation, you can't argue it with a straight face.  The vast majority of historians were very liberal years before they began seriously studying history.

5. When I actually look at historians' Big Pictures, they're even worse than their liberal bias suggests.  Economic illiteracy is rampant.  Social Desirability Bias rules the day.  And moral relativism reigns supreme.

6. Historians take little notice of me today, and I expect future historians will do the same.

7. If current or future historians did notice me, they would probably assess me negatively, because my Big Picture starkly diverges from their Big Picture.

8. But since I disrespect historians' judgments on such matters, why would I care?

9. If my critics really wanted to get my attention, they would predict that I myself will eventually revise my views.

10. I'm happy to bet against such claims, though admittedly my critics have to trust my honesty for such bets to work.

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Why I'm Not Freaking Out, by Bryan Caplan

Until recently, I thought I'd steered clear of what Scott Alexander calls, "the toxoplasma of rage."  Now, sadly, I'm at the point where people are getting angry at me for failing to be properly angry about Trump's election.  This will probably only make them angrier, but in case anyone's genuinely curious, here's my thinking.

1. Policy will be terrible under Trump.  But in my view, policy is always terrible.

2. Policy will probably be even more terrible under Trump than it was under Obama, or would have been under Clinton.  As a champion of open borders, he has given me many reasons to fear he will make U.S. immigration policy even more draconian than it already is.  And as a pacifist, Trump's odd blend of dovish and hawkish statements, combined with his extreme inexperience, make me fear he will murder an unusually large number of innocent people for a U.S. president.

3. But I could be wrong - and not in a cop-out, "I can't be absolutely sure" kind of way.  I think there's a 20% chance Trump will, in the end and overall, be noticeably better than Clinton would have been.
 
4. How can I say such a thing? 

For starters, there are the generic reasons: Presidents promise a lot more than they even try to deliver, the U.S. political system has severe inertia, the world is complex. Furthermore, disasters are very rare, and our ability to forecast them is poor. 

For Trump, we have more specific doubts: He's a reality t.v. star who adopted most of his political "convictions" quite recently.  If he'd promised to adopt policies I favor, I would not trust such a man fulfill his promises.  So why should I trust him to fulfill his promises to adopt policies I oppose?

5. If you think I'm in denial, I'm open to bets.  Indeed, if you want to change my mind, the mere offer to bet is vastly more persuasive than emoting on me.

6. But how can I be so blase?  To repeat: In my view, policy is always terrible.  So I have to choose between being miserable all the time, or striving to be happy when policy is terrible.  I have long made the latter choice.  I will continue to make this choice even if additional very bad things happen to mankind.

7. How can anyone with my bleak view of the world possibly be happy?  By creating a Bubble - a small corner of the world that works the way I think the whole world should work.  Futile anger has no place in my Bubble, but nobility does.

8. What if very bad things happen to me or my family personally?  Then I'll cope as best I can, taking concrete actions likely to protect my family.  Getting angry about U.S. politics plainly doesn't qualify.

9. But don't I sympathize with the potential victims of Trump's policies - the immigrants he'll deport, the would-be immigrants he'll exclude, the Middle Eastern civilians he'll kill?  Of course I sympathize.  If I could save them, I would.  But I almost certainly can't.  All I can do is hope for the best.

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How Castro is Like the Minimum Wage, by Bryan Caplan

How many people did Castro murder?  The authoritative Black Book of Communism blames him for 15-17,000 executions.  More speculative estimates put the blood of another 80,000 Cubans on his hands - everyone who perished trying to flee his doleful paradise.  And the man was guilty of many other evils.

Still, by the bloody standards of Communist dictators, Castro's rule was mild.  Castro's Cuba doesn't even look like the biggest charnel house in modern Latin America.  The Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996) probably claimed more innocent lives.  Indeed, multiple U.S. Presidents have killed more civilians than Castro - though of course they had the power to murder vastly more.  Why then should we dwell on the horrors of Castroism - or make a point of dancing on Fidel's grave?

Here's why: Because Castro is a symbol of larger evils - evils that claimed many millions of lives - and could do so again.  Castro symbolizes the idea that backwards countries can and should take the following path to modernity:

1. Wage civil war by any means necessary to overthrow existing regimes.

2. After victorious civil war, hand total power over to Marxist intellectuals.

3. Cheer while these Marxist leaders expropriate business, expel foreign investors, and try to run the whole economy.

4. Use this centralized economy to build up a mighty military.

5. Deploy this military (and military-industrial complex) to help Marxist intellectuals in other countries copy your path to modernity.

Any person of common sense would have foreseen the fruits of this demented recipe: mass murder, slavery, war, famine, and poverty.  But common sense is, alas, not so common.  The horrific Marxist-Leninist "experiment" spread from Russia to Eastern Europe, China, southeast Asia, Africa, and Castro's own Latin America.  And while most of these regimes were far worse than Cuba, Castro did great evil - and continues to do evil - by charismatically inspiring sympathy for this psychopathic path to a glorious future.

In my mind, then, Castro is a lot like the minimum wage: something we must stubbornly decry even though there are far greater ills in the world.  My words: 

The minimum wage is far from the most harmful regulation on the
books.  Why then do I make such a big deal about it?  Because it is a
symbol of larger evils.

From the standpoint of public policy, the minimum wage is a symbol of
the view that "feel-good" policies are viable solutions to social ills:
"Workers aren't paid enough?  Pass a law so employers have to pay them
more.  Problem solved."...

We need to get rid of the minimum wage.  But that's only a first
step.  Our ultimate goal should be to get rid of the errors that the
minimum wage has come to represent.

We need to get rid of all sympathy for Castro.  But that, too, is only a first step.  Our ultimate goal should be to get rid of the errors that Castro has come to represent.  Castro was a villain straight out of 1984.  And in a just world, Orwell's words would adorn his tombstone:

One does not establish a
dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the
revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

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Trump Bets: One Actual, Ten Potential, by Bryan Caplan

An anonymous reader and I have agreed to the following bet on Trump's presidency:

If Donald
Trump resigns, is removed  by the Senate after impeachment, or otherwise
is permanently removed as per the the 25th Amendment, or if it never happens
that he takes the Oath of office as POTUS on Jan 20, 2017, the BC owes [redacted] $350.
Otherwise, [redacted] owes BC $100".

Given Trump's unprecedented age, the most likely losing scenario for me is that he dies in office of natural causes.  Since he seems to be in fairly good health, this still seems like a good bet.

By the way, whatever you think of Scott Alexander's verdict on Trump's racism, give him credit for ending his musings with a bundle of possible bets:

1. Total hate crimes incidents as measured here
will be not more than 125% of their 2015 value at any year during a
Trump presidency, conditional on similar reporting methodology
[confidence: 80%]

2. Total minority population of US citizens will increase throughout Trump's presidency [confidence: 99%]

3. US Muslim population increases throughout Trump's presidency [confidence: 95%]

4. Trump cabinet will be at least 10% minority [confidence: 90%], at
least 20% minority [confidence: 70%], at least 30% minority [30%]. Here
I'm defining "minority" to include nonwhites, Latinos, and LGBT people,
though not women. Note that by this definition America as a whole is
about 35% minority and Congress is about 15% minority.

5. Gay marriage will remain legal throughout a Trump presidency [confidence: 95%]

6. Race relations as perceived by blacks, as measured by this Gallup poll,
will do better under Trump than they did under Obama (ie the change in
race relations 2017-2021 will be less negative/more positive than the
change 2009-2016) [confidence: 70%].

7. Neither Trump nor any of his officials (Cabinet, etc) will endorse
the KKK, Stormfront, or explicit neo-Nazis publicly, refuse to back
down, etc, and keep their job [confidence: 99%].

8. No large demographic group (> 1 million people) get forced to sign up for a "registry" [confidence: 95%]

9. No large demographic group gets sent to internment camps [confidence: 99%]

10. Number of deportations during Trump's four years will not be greater than Obama's 8 [confidence: 90%]

If you disagree with me, come up with a bet and see if I'll take it.

On reflection, I might want to bet against Scott on a few of these, but he's in the right ballpark.  Disagree?  Why get angry when you can profit - materially and reputationally - from his obtuseness?

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If the Angry Could Hear What the Calm Do Not Say, by Bryan Caplan

Dear Angry Person,

I can tell that you're angry at me again.  I think I understand your complaint, though I have trouble understanding why this specific issue is upsetting you on this specific day.  But based on past experience, asking for clarification will only make you angrier, without helping me avoid your future anger.  As usual, then, I plan to appease you.

But in the silence of my mind, I've got a question for you.  In all the years we've known each other, how many times have I expressed anger at you?  By my count, the answer is... zero.  Question: Do you think that's because your behavior is above reproach?  Do you imagine I'm entirely satisfied with the way you've treated me?  Well, I'm not.  Your emotional abuse aside, you've failed to meet my expectations more than once.

So why haven't I ever raised my voice at you?  Indeed, why do I normally act as if everything you do is unobjectionable?  Seven main reasons.

1. Nobody's perfect.  I take a moderate amount of bad behavior for granted, and count myself lucky it's not worse.

2. Assessing behavior is surprisingly ambiguous.  Real life is not a math exam.  While bad behavior plainly exists, even decent people frequently see the world differently - an insight that inspired game theorists to develop the notion of trembling-hands equilibria.  In such an environment, interpreting people's actions charitably is advisable - especially people with a long, admirable track record.

3. While getting angry often changes behavior for the better, getting angry also often changes behavior for the worse.  Net effect?  Unclear. 

4. Getting angry is far from the only way to change behavior for the better.  So in the subset of situations where anger is an effective motivator, you still have to ask: Does it motivate better than these alternatives?  The answer, once again, is unclear.

5. Even when anger is the best short-run strategy, it damages long-run relationships.  And I value these long-run relationships more than I value winning any specific dispute.

6. Getting angry clouds your thinking, leading to intellectual and moral error.  And two of my chief life goals are being right and acting rightly.

7. All else aside, getting angry is aversive for me.  I don't "love to hate" anything or anyone.  I wish to live in harmony with others, especially people I know personally.

As I rattle off these points in my head, I nervously visualize you getting angrier.  So as usual, I'm not going to tell you what I'm really thinking.  Still, after making full allowance for (2), here's a harsh truth: When you kill the messenger, your ignorance is culpable.  Your obliviousness to my concerns is a vice.  Calm People like me deserve better.

Sincerely,

Calm Person

(10 COMMENTS)

Xenophobia and Canada, by Bryan Caplan

Are Americans racist and xenophobic?  As usual, two package deals angrily competing for our attention.  The first says: Americans are obviously racist and xenophobic.  The second says: No, you're just being paranoid. 

Neither package deal sees America clearly.  For racism, Avenue Q has it right: while (almost) everyone's a little bit racist, the key word is "little."  How little?  In the United States in recent decades, race has minimal effect on earnings once you correct for obvious measures of worker productivity - and minimal effect on incarceration once you correct for obvious measures of law-breaking.  While these aren't the only possible metrics of racism, they are the main ones people get angry about.  And there's not much there.

Xenophobia, in stark contrast, is rampant.  With apologies to Johnny Carson, let me put it this way...

How xenophobic are Americans?

[dramatic pause]

Americans are so xenophobic, they don't even favor open borders with Canada.

Think about all the popular arguments against immigration.  Immigrants hurt low-skilled Americans.  Immigrants abuse the welfare state.  Immigrants commit crimes.  Immigrants don't learn English.  Immigrants refuse to culturally assimilate.  Immigrants vote for Sharia. 

Now ask yourself: How do any of these arguments even remotely apply to Canadians?  But the sound of crickets changes nothing.  If a Canadian asks to live and work in the U.S., America's default answer remains: No.

Historically, yes, opposition to immigration was closely tied to racial and ethnic bigotry: first against Asians, then against Southern and Eastern Europeans.  And anger about immigration continues to be racially enhanced: Americans gripe far more about an illegal Hispanic immigrant from the South than an illegal white immigrant from the North. 

Still, when xenophobia conflicts with racism, it is xenophobia that prevails.  U.S. law genuinely grants citizens, regardless of race, the basic human rights to live and work anywhere they choose - and denies these basic human rights to everyone else on Earth - even if they're the spitting image of Ozzie and Harriet.  We bitterly joke about DWB - the de facto "crime" of Driving While Black.  But WWF - Working While Foreign - is literally illegal... unless, of course, the U.S. government feels like making an exception.  And even if you're Canadian, the U.S. government rarely feels like making an exception.

This doesn't mean, of course, that Americans spend much time decrying Canadians, or even thinking about them.  But if you broach the subject, Americans' xenophobia is plain as day.  Why not let Canadians live and work here?  Well, why should we?  What's wrong with Canada?  Why can't Canadians just stay there?  A fellow human being from Canada wants to rent a U.S. home from a willing landlord and accept a U.S. job offer from a willing employer - and Americans favor prohibition for no identifiable reason whatsoever.  If that's not xenophobia, what is?

But aren't people in every country - Canada included - similarly unreasonable and unfair?  Sure.  Xenophobia - not racism - is the unrepentant bigotry that rules the world.  People in every country on Earth take it for granted.  But as we teach our children, "Everyone else is doing it" is no excuse for bad behavior.  Almost everyone is is extremely xenophobic.  And everyone should stop.  Starting with you.

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Memory of Credibility, by Bryan Caplan

The more I learn, the more I'm amazed by people who claim to base their views on "the data alone."  It's a noble dream, but ponder these harsh realities:

1. Carefully studying data is enormously time consuming and question-specific.  If you really hold yourself to this standard, you won't be able to responsibly hold opinions on more than a handful of questions.

2. As a result of #1, people who claim to base their views on "the data alone" end up outsourcing most of their data work to others.  There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this, but note the bait-and-switch: People who claim to rely on "the data" are in fact relying on their own judgments about which sources are credible. 

3. Data analysis and credibility assessment are radically different skills.  Yes, you could perform a careful audit an expert's data work on one issue, then broadly trust whoever performs well.  But that's only one approach.  We're at least as likely to evaluate credibility based on demeanor, word choice, and mood.  And this seems reasonable.  I delete spam because the senders radiate crazy, not because I carefully audit any of their statements.

4. On further thought, direct data analysis and credibility judgments rest on a more fundamental faculty: memory.  Even people who conduct their own data analysis don't re-do their work before speaking.  Instead, they rely on what they remember about their data analysis.  The same goes, of course, for credibility.  When we decide to trust someone, we rely almost exclusively on our memory of their trustworthiness.

5. The big lesson: Truth-seekers spend far too little time assessing the tools that underlie almost all of their judgments.  Data analysis is great, but knowing who's credible is even better - and measuring the reliability of your own memory is paramount.

6. Betting simplifies this seemingly Sisyphean process in two keys ways. First, betting is a good, clean way to evaluate credibility.  Second, betting constrains selective memory: If you want to objectively judge a person's reliability - including your own reliability! - don't go with your gut.  Check out his life-long betting track record.  It's not the best possible measure, but it's probably the best feasible measure.
 
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Breaking Conformity Equilibria: The Case of Mormon Polygamy, by Bryan Caplan

Polygamy was Mormonism's most controversial theological novelty.  Critics casually equated it with slavery, dubbing them "the twin relics of barbarism."  Whatever you think about the wisdom of polygamy, its emergence in 19th-century Mormonism raises a deeper question.  Given human conformity, how did such a radical break from social convention ever get off the ground?  John Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet provides an intriguing window into the sales process:

By April, Nauvoo buzzed with tales of adultery, "spiritual
wifery," and apostasy. At the church's annual conference, Hyrum Smith felt
obliged to contradict rumors " about Elders Heber C. Kimball, Brigham
Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alleging that a sister had been shut
in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to
believe in having two wives." The sister in question was Martha
Brotherton.

While individuals
often responded with disbelief and disgust when church leaders taught them the
doctrine of celestial marriage or approached them about becoming plural wives,
Brotherton was somewhat unusual in making her disillusionment with the church
and its leaders a matter of public scandal. She did so because of John C.
Bennett. The mercurial Bennett lost his church membership in June following
allegations of his own sexual indiscretions, and he soon began assembling evidence
he could use -- as one unsympathetic newspaper put it -- "to glut his
revenge upon the Prophet." Bennett met with Brotherton in St. Louis, where
the young woman and her parents had relocated, and persuaded her to detail her
travails in a letter, a notarized copy of which was published in one of the
city's newspapers and later included in Bennett's expos�� of Mormon polygamy,
political power, and sacred rituals.

In the affidavit, Brotherton
stated that Young and Kimball persuaded her to meet with Joseph Smith in the
upper room above Smith's store, the same room in which Young had officiated at
two of Smith's plural weddings and in which he received his endowment.
According to Brotherton, Smith and Kimball left her with Young, who then
"arose, locked the door, closed the window, and drew the curtain"
before asking her if she would marry him "were it lawful and right."
Young then explained the prophet's teaching on the matter:

brother
Joseph has had a revelation from God that it is lawful and right for a man to
have two wives; for, as it was in the days of Abraham, so it shall be in these
last days, and whoever is the first that is willing to take up the cross will
receive the greatest blessings; and if you will accept of me, I will take you
straight to the celestial kingdom; and if you will have me in this world, I
will have you in that which is to come.

 

When Brotherton demurred, Young, after demanding a kiss, went to
fetch Smith. According to Brotherton's affidavit, the prophet provided her with
glib encouragement: "if you do not like it in a month or two, come to me,
and I will make you free again; and if he [Young] turns you off, I will take
you on." Young proceeded more cautiously and seriously, asking, "Did
you ever see me act in any way wrong in England, Martha?" Brotherton
begged for time to consider the proposal. She and her parents soon left Nauvoo,
convinced that Smith and his apostles were "deceivers."

While this particular effort blew up in his face, Young was of course amazingly successful in the end.  He didn't just revolutionize Mormon family structure for six decades; he personally married fifty-five women and fathered fifty-nine children.  So let's break down the key components of his sales pitch.

1. Alpha status.  The supreme leader and his trusted lieutenants personally manage the persuasion.

2. Isolation. The would-be convert is physically separated from contrary influences by the believers. 

3. Slippery slope.  According to the account, Young leads with a hypothetical, "asking her if she would marry him 'were it lawful and right.'"  Once the hypothetical is on the table, he affirms the premise, invoking the teaching of the prophet.

4. Try and see for yourself.  After all this, the salesmen still don't expect a sudden conversion.  Instead, they urge Brotherton to try their proposal by emphasizing how readily she can back out.

My guess: The tactics of the Mormon inner circle well-tailored for their purpose.  But do they extend to non-conformity in general?  To take one pressing example: Could you use an analogous rhetorical steps to convince students to forego traditional brick-and-mortar college in favor of online learning?  I doubt it, but I'm curious.  Can our commitment to college really be more rigid than 19th-century Americans' commitment to monogamy?  Does society penalize educational non-conformity more than marital non-conformity?  Or what? 

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The Silent Suffering of the Non-Neurotic, by Bryan Caplan

Negative emotions like sadness, anger, and fear tend to come as a package.  Personality psychologists call this package "Neuroticism."  There's a spectrum, of course.  At the high end of Neuroticism, we have people like Seinfeld's George Costanza, who finds misery and outrage wherever he turns.  At the low end, we have people like Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer, who discovers amusement and excitement around every corner. 

Having a Neurotic personality is not fun, and Neurotics rarely let us forget it.  This doesn't imply, however, that they're victims.  By acting on their sadness, anger, and fear, Neurotics routinely make the people around them sadder, angrier, and more fearful.  Parallel claims hold for non-Neurotics.  They rarely complain, but that doesn't imply they're not victims.

How exactly does society victimize the non-Neurotic?  Look at the news - or, in an election year, politics.  It's a parade of stories crafted to make every onlooker feel sadness, anger, and fear.  It's a pan-ideological problem: Left and right disagree on many things,
but both tribes of activists want you to get upset about something every day.  Take a look at the stories your friends shared on Facebook today.  How many aren't a thinly-veiled demand for negative affect? 

If your Neuroticism is high or even average, you probably aren't even aware that you're imposing on others.  For you, calling on people to be sad, angry, or afraid is on par with asking them to walk with their eyes open.  And since non-Neurotics aren't prone to complain, it's easy to remain oblivious to their concerns.

Actually, as a self-identified non-Neurotic, I should say, "our concerns."  Though I loathe to complain, I can't stand to see my people suffer any longer.  Sadness, anger, and fear do not come naturally to us.  We don't "love to hate" things.  And though we are happy to lend a sympathetic and constructive ear to your concrete problems, we don't want to be part of the vicissitudes of your abstract offense.

I know Neurotics are highly unlikely to change their personalities.  But it would be nice if you showed us non-Neurotics a little consideration.  And we so rarely ask for anything!  Without reproach, I ask you this: Please, stop trying to make us feel what you feel. 

Thanks in advance!

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