"Five Myths about How Americans Vote"

Bryan Caplan reiterates some of the arguments from his book about the rationality of voting behavior:

5 Myths About How Americans Vote, by Bryan Caplan, Commentary, Washington Post: We're barely into the primary season, but millions of Americans are already sick of hearing about the 2008 race. Bad as the torrent of news is, I find the repetition of myths about voters and voting even more galling. Whether you're arguing with friends or watching the news, you hear many claims about how American democracy works that just aren't true.

1. People vote their self-interest. In fact, there is only the tiniest correlation between income and party. The country is not divided into two camps: the poor, who vote Democratic, and the rich, who vote Republican. If you consider your own experiences, this is hardly surprising: Are your rich friends really Republicans and your poor friends Democrats?

Self-interest is also a bad predictor of views about specific issues. Yes, the elderly heavily support Social Security and Medicare, but so does almost everyone else. ... And so on. Pollsters have found a few exceptions where self-interest really matters, such as smoking restrictions... But overall, where voters stand has little to do with where they sit. [...continue...]

Update: Robert Waldmann says Bryan Caplan's rticle is interesting, but he "overstates his case in two ways."

Comments

[hari]

Mark -

What Caplan is not dealing with (here) is the impact of demographic changes or immigration.

I've a feeling that the political spectrum is definitely changing with Spanish becoming more or less a second language - - - including its impact on so-called "natives" --- food habits and whatnots.

Caplan doesn't minimize the political pitfalls - in his book on American voter's behaviour - but in this article he's definitely doing it and focusing on what the media is also doing.

My fear is the polarizing of opinion on "left" and "right" as immigration becomes a serious issue. The centre is the essential political play ground in America, as far as my reading of recent history goes.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Ah yes, the little people are stupid. Caplan says so.

If only the little people listened to the brilliant economists of academia (sorry Mark).

[Gil]

Furthermore, Neil Ferguson has argued that Monarchies are better than Democracies because the Monarch has to take the long-term outlook. Back to the farm ya miserable s(m)erfs@

[robertdfeinman]

Having demonstrated his weak grasp of economics Caplan now goes on to show how little he knows about sociology.

Blogger Paul Rosenberg has been analyzing the General Social Survey for some time using a variety of statistical tools. Here's one of his most recent essays:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2981

What he has found is that attitudes don't match what (biased) pundits claim for them. "Self interest" is very important to people, but it means more than just economic factors. Libertarians are so obsessed with taxes that they think this must be important to everyone else.

[Holly W.]

Happy New Year, all!

I'm with STR on this one: Caplan's sneering tone turns me right off. It's nice to know that whatever my opinion is, he probably thinks it's misguided.

[Callahan]

Hey Kap'n Kaplin, ... stuff it.

[lonesome moderate]

People don't vote their self-interest by economic class, but they certainly do by geography. In this country at least, most people identify much more other people of their town or state than with their economic circumstances.

[Callahan]

Lonesome, not me man, I vote with my wallet, for me it's the economy stupid. May have other issues from time to time, but I always look in my wallet first.

Call it self interest, I call it survival.

[Bruce Wilder]

I thought his list was pretty good, even though I agree that his arrogance is off-putting.

I don't see, in his list, much deep thinking about what the function of mass voting is, in a large-scale democracy. Maybe, that will come, after Bryan grows up.

I especially liked it, when he pointed out that voters often divide, not on "values", but on "facts". Facts matter a lot, and lots and lots of voters are terribly misinformed. I dare venture that Bryan Caplan is more misinformed about the minimum wage than the typical voter.

The "selfishness" of voting requires careful qualification, if only because people are most typically voting for and against candidates for office, and the instrumental quality of such a vote is always objectively weak (for voters outside the candidate's or the party's patronage system, at least).

Most voters, I suspect, are voting worldview, personal identity, and attitudes. It is the heavy psychological filters on information, which maintain worldview and personal identity and the low-information content of attitudes (together with the corruption and incompetence of news media) that account for the high level of voter misinformation.

Some worldviews/personal identity paradigms/attitude clusters tend to be associated with promoting objectively better government and better public policy, and others do not. A conservative libertarian worldview/identity/attitude is not one I would associate with good governance, generally, though libertarians can and do play constructive roles as critics.

(That Caplan does not fully appreciate that his own political and policy judgment tends to be terrible lends his critique of democracy an unintended comical quality.)

Voting is an individual act in a social and collective context. Voting, plural and as a mechanism, is a collective, social choice.

The biggest myth about voting is not one Caplan tackles: it is that voting does not matter.

Aside from the winning candidate, who votes for herself, no one ever gets what he wants from voting. It is inherently frustrating, requiring always a compromise of values and hope and, often, a big dose of self-deception, and comes with a serious risk of feeling alienated from a society, which clearly believes and wants someone and something quite different from what one's self wants.

Identifying with power in society, or feeling alienated from power in society, clearly plays a major, dynamic role in aligning political attitudes and coalitions.

This kind of social dynamic is not something I would expect someone with Caplan's intellectual commitments to tackle adequately.

[Callahan]

I say a vote for the lesser of two evils, is not necessarily a sound one anymore. Might better flip a coin, that is if you still have one.

At anyrate, I'd also venture that many voters are better informed than those "representing" them in WASH-A-DC.

[Bruce Webb]

You don't know where to start. First of all the fundamental divide between the party's does not break down neatly by rich and poor. It does however divide rather clearly between capital and labor. The GOP appeals to small business owners, big business owners, and people who for whatever reason control capital. The Democratic party appeals to poor workers and rich workers and to people who for whatever reason are disadvantaged by controllers of capital. If you put the income spectrums of the respective parties side by side I have little doubt that the bias is to the GOP. The fact that Bill Gates and Alec Baldwin are both rich and liberal doesn't materially change the overall dynamic. Caplan simply has his framing wrong here.

And to answer his actual question, well the rich people I know do vote Republican. That is because they are all in one way or another in construction or real estate and decisions about land use and environmental restrictions on building break down clearly on party lines. In Washington State the biggest money players in state and county politics are the Master Builders of Washington. They donate to and vote for candidates who are willing to shape legislations and regulations in ways that suit their interests, and those candidates are way more often than not Republicans. Methinks Prof. Caplan needs to get out more. Or perhaps less. The fact that working class people have been induced by social arguments or outright lies about the benefits of tax cuts or free trade doesn't mean they are voting against their self interest. Due to the work of Caplan et freres they may not understand where their self interest actually rests. The New Deal coalition that dominated politics for most of the last century didn't exist because people were irrational. Instead they understood which party stood with the working man and which one didn't. The Reagan Revolution that cemented social and economic conservatives into one group simply served to blur that line. The current meltdown of the Republican Party in the face of a Huckabee victory simply highlights the fact that social conservatives are tired of being taken for a ride by people who care a lot more about their tax bill than the state of their souls.

"people who know a lot of economics are avid free-traders." Sigh. People who know a lot of economics in the classical form it is taught at Chicago and George Mason are avid free traders. Because everything becomes simple when you privilege aggregate efficiency to distributed equity. On average the former employees of S-T-Rs Ohio factories share the benefits of free trade with tenured professors at GMU who are paid to teach those benefits. Which doesn't help much when they shutter the factory door and send the jobs to Mexico.

And talk about framing issues. On the minimum wage question if you suggest that research shows that increasing minimum wages causes very large job losses than people are likely to disapprove, If you show through research that in fact those losses are minimal in comparison to the benefits gained by lower income workers they are likely to approve. If you systematically set out to sell people basket of fallacious ideas the fact that some people bought doesn't validate the ideas within the basket. It's called 'Marketing' and they probably teach it at GMU.

"All the big components of the federal budget enjoy broad support." Well this is a little over broad. And ignores the fact that one party is on record wanting to strongly cut certain components of the budget like social spending and federal support for education while boosting defense spending while the other is on record wanting universal coverage and a less aggressive military policy. That neither gets what they want is not a sign of consensus but rather of gridlock.

The whole piece is a bunch of reductionist garbage. Everything in the world is simple if you ignore the complexities. Caplan is a complete fraud. In his Intellectual Autobiography of Bryan Caplan he rather brazenly shows that he has only contempt for his former colleagues and professors at Princeton, that he didn't fundamentally even care about his dissertation work, simply seeing it as a ticket out, but willing to break it up and publish it in pieces to pump his CV. That is is proud enough about how he thoroughly and cynically gained the system for his own ends to publish it openly for all to read tells you pretty much all you need to know. To me this passage thoroughly encapsulates Caplan's mindset.

As I digested the stock of libertarian insight, I noticed a phenomenon central to my mature research: Most people violently rejected even my most truistic arguments. Yes, I was a shrill teen-ager, but it seems like anyone should have recognized the potential downside of drug regulation once I pointed it out. Instead, they yelled louder about Thalidomide babies. True, it was not a complete surprise - I had already experienced the futility of trying to convert my family and friends to atheism during the prior year. But I was frustrated to find that human beings were almost as dogmatic about politics and economics as they were about religion and philosophy.

Well pot meet kettle.

[robertdfeinman]

I had an insight the other day when I was discussing politics with my college student nephew. His way of selecting a candidate is on the basis of his "trust" in the candidate. So, he favors McCain because he sees him as honest and uncompromising in his positions.

What emerged from the discussion is that he pays no attention to the issues, nor does he know anything about McCain's voting record or political history. His choice is strictly on the basis of an emotional connection through TV.

This leads to the insight that those who use such mechanisms for choice do so because it is easier than becoming informed. Everyone can have an opinion about another person, no knowledge is required. That this is well known by political operatives is shown by the amount of money and effort they expend on fostering an "image".

The dangers in this approach get demonstrated time and again. Sociopaths like Mussolini or Hitler appeal to people's emotions and gain power without those supporting them understanding what their ultimate goals are.

This is not an irrational choice as Caplan would have it. Such people can claim that knowing more about the issues wouldn't help because most of the relevant information is unknowable. Can anyone really say how any of the current candidates will respond when the next catastrophe arises?

The best you can do is pick by analogy. So and so did X last time so they are most likely to do something similar next time. In other words, we pick on the basis of trust and faith even when we do follow current events.

[TGGP]

Having demonstrated his weak grasp of economics
When did that happen?

"Self interest" is very important to people, but it means more than just economic factors.
I scanned through your link, but didn't notice any demographic factors, which Caplan closely analyzes in the surveys he looks at. It's hard then to establish whether people are supporting something because they think it is good for them (relative to the other people in the survey) or "the greater good".

[Eyes Wide Open]

>People vote their self-interest.

Obviously not true. What's fascinating is the difference here between the two parties.

Democrats who vote against their own self-interests do so because it's the right thing to do.

Republicans who vote against their own self-interests do so because they're idiots.

[ken melvin]

RDF - I think that you are right. Unless someway is found to counter this talking heads will run the country. Ronnie knew how to handle TV. McCain knows how to handle Matthews, Russert, ... The internet/blogs may be the best hope at this point.

[Callahan]

Eyes wide open, man that was very, very well said.

[Bruce Webb]

TGGP. It is clear from Caplan's autobiography that he clearly identifies 'Rationality' with 'agreeing with Bryan Caplan'. That is not an attempt to be flip, he openly claims to be able to identify the 'deep truths'. For example take the following:

Reading the standard libertarian rebuttal - delaying beneficial drugs kills far more people than approving ineffective or even harmful ones - made my head spin. If I asked my teachers “Is there any argument an intelligent person might make against the FDA?” I doubt one of them could have articulated this retrospectively obvious objection.

Note that Caplan doesn't present any particular evidence that delay actual kills more people than approving harmful ones. It sounded true to him and proof that any person that opposed it was simply not intelligent. After all they were rejecting an "obvious objection". Meaning obvious to Bryan Caplan. There are serious arguments to be made for regulating drugs, moreover I am not aware of studies that have seriously made the case that delays create more mortality than screening out dangerous drugs save. Off the top of my head I can't even think how you would go about quantifying this. The ability to divine truth in advance of evidence would be troubling enough in a philosopher, it is practically disqualifying for a research economist. How can you read the following and have any respect for Caplan at all?

Like all top departments, Princeton econ was long on math and short on economic intuition. .

There is a reason why top programs are a little leery of 'economic intuition', 'if it feels right go for it' not being a really sound organizing principle for research. I like my economics a little less faith based.

[James Killus]

Interesting. I find that I agree with the labeling of Caplan's five statements as "myths" and then find that he is approximately wrong on every single argument he uses to justify his claims.

That obviously says something about both him and me. I don't actually care what it says about him, but the part about me is disturbing, and I'll have to think about it.

[btg]

people may not always vote their self-interest, but rarely will they vote for someone who overtlyadvocates policies that directly challenge their self interest... there aren't too many millionaires who would support communism, there aren't too many iowan farmers who will support a candidate who made strongly argued that corn-based ethanol is a boondoggle.

as is the case with rdfeinman's nephew, people vote for reasons that have little to do with the reality of the candidate or the candidate's policy or actual record. charisma and the emotional impact of the message have much to do with this - which is why in small states like owa od nh where people can actually meet the candidates, obama, edwards, huckabee, or a bill clinton, can do well, because they have a charm and a positive message.

this has been obvious at least since reagan won the presidency in 1980 - and was driven home by gwb's victory over gore in 2000. as a canadian, i was dumfounded at how reagan or bush42 could get elected, but then, anyone following our politics would equally be puzzled by our choices.

few people read newspapers or pay much attention to politics, what matters more is those 15 second clips on tv and whether a candidate makes a good consumer product - would you want to have them over for a backyard barbeque, would they make a good pitchman, are they believable as a talking head, ignoring the content of what they say.

caplan's "5 points" wasn't worth the time i spent reading it.

[Brian]

"Note that Caplan doesn't present any particular evidence that delay actual kills more people than approving harmful ones."

Which isn't his claim. He's not saying that harm from delays is "obviously" worse than harm from insufficiently tested drugs, merely that it's a reasonable idea to consider and he was surprised that it wasn't discussed by his teachers.

[Cynthia]

Caplan's myth #1: The poor vote Democratic, whereas the rich vote Republican.

Now I don't think anyone (with any sense, that is) would question that this is a myth... But to me, the real question is, why does this myth lie within mythology and not within reality?

While I don't have a complete answer to this question, I do have a partial one: Leaders of the GOP, over the last several decades or so, have been using every trick in the book to make sure that middle-class-and-below Americans don't unite as a block vote. GOPers know perfectly well they can't win elections without enticing a nontrivial number of Americans from the middle class and below to vote Republican!

[calmo]

"You want 5 in the eye?"...I was young then (12?) and didn't recognize it (a 14 yr old?) for the threat (she was a martial artist and I, somewhat less) it was.
So I'm partial to Webb's read of Caplan (it B so important that adviseds pay attention to advisers and don't just nod along, hoping)...the nerve of the Cman to just stuff himself down our throats!

It is clear from Caplan's autobiography that he clearly identifies 'Rationality' with 'agreeing with Bryan Caplan'.

Bloody rights. Give no quarter to irrationality no matter how well turned the phrases (or ankles). No one else is going to shower you with accolades (or fishnet stockings) about your incomparable legs rationality...leaving the (non-mom) audience with the suspicion that there is some insecurity here that needs to be aired...despite the dragons out there just waiting for the tiniest little misstep...one must take that courageous first step and proclaim your rational superiority at all costs. Hope for the best.
So, the act of presenting this demythification might be tainted with modesty no matter how immodest the tone.

So the Caplan Mission:

Whether you're arguing with friends or watching the news, you hear (not "see", even if you were watching...with the sound off, examining the body language without needless distractions) many claims about how American democracy works that just aren't true. (so itiz: the ear hears the truth, the eyes are so unreliably gullible)

Can you imagine "arguing with friend BCaplan"? (..how could he engage such a shrivelled up brain as yours that might not even be persuaded by that: It just isn't true?) So it must be the other side of that disjunction: " [you] watching the news"...so all these claims are about (Caplan's perception of) the media's perception of the American Voter...not Caplan's perception of the voter as he walks the streets caucassing for our enlightenment...he needs to jam down our ungrateful and somewhat irrational throats!
The "5 in the eye" as a perception of the media's impersonation of the voter worked a lot better for me than Caplan's own perceptions as a self-proclaimed elitist viewing his lesser (but of course worthy) participants in the democratic process.
The glaring omission from Caplan's account: the miserable participation rate that tells us the American democracy is not working.
Ok, waiting to be readvised...

[TGGP]

It is clear from Caplan's autobiography that he clearly identifies 'Rationality' with 'agreeing with Bryan Caplan'.
He seems to think Bill Dickens is rational, though they disagree. The premise of his book (which, as Daniel Klein or Walter Block will tell you, is not a defense of libertarianism) is that economists are on average more rational about economics (though he thinks they are too hawkish, I don't know if that's relative to the general public) than the general public, even though he admits they disagree about a lot.

I am not aware of studies that have seriously made the case that delays create more mortality than screening out dangerous drugs save.
You can start reading FDAReview.

Off the top of my head I can't even think how you would go about quantifying this.
We can look at drugs that were eventually approved by the FDA and how many people that had the ailment while it was being held up, and how effective the drug was after it was approved. Estimating the effect of drugs never approved would be trickier though. Studies in the link above discuss the measure I just mentioned and attempt to estimate other counterfactuals.

there aren't too many millionaires who would support communism
Communism isn't popular in general, but there have been millionaire marxists. I also thinks it's quite questionable to think communism benefits the proletariat.

[robertdfeinman]

The undoing of Caplan is that he postulates that people are rational economic actors (the libertarian creed) but totally irrational when they step into the voting booth.

The same tricks that can be used to make a moron look like presidential material are also used to sell snake oil. In both cases the appeal is to insecurity and the "product" will take care of the problem, whether it is dandruff or terrorism.

People are acting "rationally" in both cases they are just being fed misinformation.

[TGGP]

The undoing of Caplan is that he postulates that people are rational economic actors (the libertarian creed) but totally irrational when they step into the voting booth.
There was already a theory of "rational ignorance", but Wittman showed it to be insufficient and so it has been replaced with "rational irrationality". It costs the voter little to be rational when it comes to voting, so few do it. Political rationality is a public good that should be expected to be undersupplied.

People are acting "rationally" in both cases they are just being fed misinformation.
It is not considered rational to believe whatever one is fed. Caplan also states that people resist being told certain things and are overly credulous about others, as is the case with "confirmation bias".

[Bruce Wilder]

Bryan Caplan: "I think that other economists have failed to fully free themselves from anti-market bias; they are too hasty to declare 'market failure,' and too willing to take the public's complaints about markets seriously."

Yeah.

[Lafayette]

s-t-r: Ah yes, the little people are stupid. Caplan says so.

So does observation. Just look at Huckabee's success in Iowa. There is NO rational reason to mix faith and politics. None, zip, nada.

There is, however, a good tactical reason to do so in a presidential campaign. Parts of America, mostly rural, some city, are carried away by the fervor of evangelism. Making them, comparatively, little different from the idiot Taliban in the Middle East who are willing to kill for their beliefs. (After all, a woman who aborts multiple times, is she not a serial killer and deserves the death penalty?)

Freedom of religion is just fine. But, its place is NOT in politics. And yet, we've had a Religiously Right PotUS who has caused a disastrous war -- obviously having forgot conveniently his Sixth Commandment.

A woman's body is first and first most HER property and not that of a fanatic who thinks the chance collision of an ovum and sperm creates "life" that possesses a legal raison d'être.

Etc., etc., etc.

[Lafayette]

TGGP: There was already a theory of "rational ignorance"

It depends not upon theory but a definition-of-terms.

A person can be perfectly rational, for instance, in the way s/he conducts themselves at work. They do their job. Then, they get swept up in the media malarkey that says they can get a sub-prime loan with nothing down ... and they sign on the bottom line.

Which is rational and which is ignorance in the above example? Just when did the individual trespass the dividing line from rational behaviour to irrational behaviour, swept away with desire.

The answer is contextual. It depends upon the context within which the individual is being considered.

There is a component of our behaviour that sets aside rational controls and submits itself to passion. Passion is any moment when our emotions become uncontrollable. Like a tipping point where we take leave of our good sense and submit to our emotions.

It is evidently more prevalent than we think and affects individuals both smart and dumb, perhaps more the latter than the former. Intelligence can cause one to maintain control when others around us are losing theirs. Submitting to populist sentiments, which are largely emotional in nature, is another example of losing control.

But, just ask Bill Clinton if a bent for nubile interns cannot afflict even the sharpest of minds.

[Zxcvbnm]

Certainly one can point to millionaire Marxists, but there are many more millionaires of other political ideologies. You don't see well-funded Marxist think tanks, but you do see laissez-faire groups like Cato.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Caplan:

there is only the tiniest correlation between income and party.

As Waldmann points out, this could use some quantification.

Look here and scroll down a bit to voting by income. With the exception of a blip in the $75-100K range the pattern is consistent. As income rose Bush's share of the vote rose.

[Bernard Yomtov]

We can look at drugs that were eventually approved by the FDA and how many people that had the ailment while it was being held up, and how effective the drug was after it was approved. Estimating the effect of drugs never approved would be trickier though.

For "trickier" read "next to impossible." You don't know what harm they would do directly, or if they were harmless in themselves how much harm they would do by displacing effective treatments. The idea that safety and efficacy are independent of one another is a mistake.

[SB]

Zxcvbnm says... "You don't see well-funded Marxist think tanks"

Some might point to U.S. universities.....

[Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD]

Iowa caucus
I loved this one. I saw the classrooms, hospitals, churches being used definitely for a good cause. I do not want to talk about politics as I am a lecturer in the economics, finance and management. But the classrooms. I loved these. Wish I could have the years to go back and sit in those classrooms and throw the pieces chalks at the teacher and pretend I was reading the comic book on the president to come here like 1984. I liked the classrooms. Politics. No. I am sorry I did not get that. I liked the classrooms. And voting here. I love the classrooms. Obama here? Clinton here? I love these classrooms. For that matter I love the janitors who keep the classes so clean. I love these classrooms.
Say, am I going bananas?
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

[Jean]

"People are acting "rationally" in both cases they are just being fed misinformation." rdf

Yeah, how to be "rational" when the political system is not? Politicians and political parties will say anything to get elected. How to decipher the mess: who ISN'T lying?
Going with a gut instinct is sometimes the only refuge from the deluge of sound bites, partisan commentators and (sometimes!?) biased media...WHO is biased? and Why? It's a shifting maze of contradictions.

[TGGP]

Which is rational and which is ignorance in the above example?
Economists use the terms "ignorance" and "irrationality" in different ways than others do. If people are ignorant about something, their beliefs are all over the place but should not be different on average from the truth. Wittman showed that if people are merely ignorant, ignorance on all sides of an issue will cancel out and the convergence will be on the truth. Caplan claims that people are wrong on average, there are far more people who overestimate the percent of the budget that goes to foreign aid than people who underestimate it.

Making them, comparatively, little different from the idiot Taliban in the Middle East who are willing to kill for their beliefs. (After all, a woman who aborts multiple times, is she not a serial killer and deserves the death penalty?)
How many honor killings are carried out there? And how many abortionists are killed here? I'd say there's a huge difference even though as an atheist I think they're all goofballs.

You don't see well-funded Marxist think tanks, but you do see laissez-faire groups like Cato.
Marxism is less popular in general in the U.S, I would say the majority of its adherents here are from academia. I don't think there's a Marxist equivalent here to Koch, Scaife or Soros (though I have heard people call him and Buffet socialists). According to Wikipedia Cato's budget is $19.4 million and they raised $20.4 million, in comparison Heritage raised $29.7 million, AEI more than $30 million (I'm pretty sure that makes their neoconservatives more overrepresented than Heritage's conservatives), I didn't see figures for CAP, IPS or EPI but Brookings has assets of over $258 million and spent $39.7 million. As a paleolibertarian I favor the Ludwig von Mises Institute (according to Media Transparency they receieved $ 172,931 from 1998 through 2005) and Lew Rockwell Center over Cato (though I have come to the latter's defense against attacks from the former's partisans). I'm also partial to the Rutherford Institute (according to Media Transparency they were granted $ 180,500 from 1998 through 2004), which might be more analogous to the ACLU (raised $85,559,887 in 04 according to Wikipedia, though according to Harper's Magazine and USA Today it is not they but the Southern Poverty Law Center who are the wealthiest civil rights group). The really puzzling thing is why people give so much money to Ivy League universities with already huge endowments. Yale has $2.8 million per undergrad, Harvard has more and you better believe they still charge admission. Becker and Posner have discussed the behavior of non-profit organizations that depend on large endowments on their blog http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/01/charitable_foun_1.html http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/01/charitable_foun.html
They have also discussed billionaires giving money away
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/11/billionairesbec.html

For "trickier" read "next to impossible." You don't know what harm they would do directly, or if they were harmless in themselves how much harm they would do by displacing effective treatments.
Did you read the link?

[Bruce Webb]

TGGP: "Estimating the effect of drugs never approved would be trickier though." Bingo. You can quantify one and not the other, mainly because you have no way to know how long the product stayed on the market before it was recognized to be a net negative. Pharmaceutical companies have a long track record of litigating to keep things like Vioxx on the market for as long as possible despite evidence of harm.
____________

Brian. First of all I am not addressing the book, instead I was discussing Caplan's general approach as revealed by his Autobiography. Yours is a very charitable reading of this:

Most people violently rejected even my most truistic arguments. Yes, I was a shrill teen-ager,

. The key is 'truistic', he is not calling for a reasoned discussion, instead he insists that he has the ability to identify truth when he sees it. And to force it onto others, even admitting he was shrill in doing do. Equally troubling was that this teen thought he had thought deeply enough about the world that he could come to a position of atheism, but thought he was entitled to 'convert' his family and friends. Not convince them to a reasoned conclusion mind you, instead he would convert them to the truth (as seen by Caplan on the Road to Damascus, or perhaps the Road to Huntington Beach).

This theme pops up time and again in the course of the Autobiography It is worth a read because it is so illustrative of the typical Ayn Rand fanboy you encounter out and around the blogosphere. Caplan doesn't have informed opinions, he doesn't seem to come to reasoned conclusions, instead he recognizes truths. And if you don't recognize them in the same way you do you are by definition irrational.

That is not science, that is zealotry. Economics is not, or at least should not be a matter of Revealed Faith.

[Lafayette]

Zx: You don't see well-funded Marxist think tanks, but you do see laissez-faire groups like Cato.

That is, just about everything

Your comment cited depends upon where you are looking. Come to Europe and I'll show you some. (Try this on for size, and it is only in the UK.)

Not Marxist, perhaps, because that doctrine is dead. But Socialist, yes. It is only in the US that the word "socialist" carries with it the same ignominious connotation as "AIDS".

Which is a shame, really, since elsewhere socialism is all about Income Inequity, by means of higher taxation and well-funded Public Services programs. No Katrina human injustice, no sub-prime mess, hot-meal program for all primary/secondary school children, free university education, free trades apprentice programs, near-free health care, ... etc., etc., etc.

That is, just about everything that is lacking in "Greatest Country on Earth".

[Jim]

In the non-statistical world of singular events for which we choose our leaders, there is no way to test sweeping ideas beforehand. Choosing a leader who is not insane would be a good first step. In this election, though, it seems there is a mandate for 'change', be it for better or worse. Hold on to your hats.

[Lafayette]

Jim: In the non-statistical world of singular events for which we choose our leaders, there is no way to test sweeping ideas beforehand.

I'd put the challenge a bit more differently.

This group of candidates have very little pedagogical skill. They are, I think, fairly well adept with the challenges that face America -- but lack the skill in articulating them in a manner that Americans can understand/accept.

How do I know this? Because I live in France, a country which, up to this year's presidential election, was stuck in the mud of immobility. Its entire political class was unable to explain to the French that the paradigm had changed and that a rupture with the past was necessary for New Thinking to take root.

The candidate of the Right, Sarkozy, was a brilliant pedagogue. He was able to explain, in common terms, what had happened and he summed it up in one slogan. "Work more to earn more and live better". He went on to be elected President of France.

Now, one need not tell the Americans that they must work. That they know well from a culture that inculcates the Work Ethic. But, they must be driven by a foresight that sets goals clearly and provides the necessary leadership.

And, all we are getting is "Change!, change!, change!" thrown at us 24/7. But, dammit, What Change?

Be specific! Sell it. Get the people to buy into it. Then, just do it.

If Kennedy could articulate and move a nation with his Moon Program, cannot a present candidate do the same - but across the board to Reform and Renovate America?

I should hope so. And, so should the rest of Americans.

[Lafayette]

TGGP: How many honor killings are carried out there? And how many abortionists are killed here? I'd say there's a huge difference even though as an atheist I think they're all goofballs.

How many "killings" (PERIOD) are committed here, by "goofballs" that hang a court sentence around the word "death penalty" to make it easier to swallow? How many of those sentences were based upon race and not criminal evidence?

You the pot calling the kettle black? Great advance in argumentation, that. But, it gets you nowhere.

Thou shalt not kill. Period. (OK, put them in a cell and throw the key away. They forfeit living, but not life.)