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**tLO0hFNy** · 07-09-2007, 03:30 PM

It’s always a bit dodgy to comment on a review of a work one hasn’t read. That said, I implicitly trust the New Yorker (*).

I think the reviewer’s critique of Caplan’s book is, if anything, fairly gentle. Ever since economists like Becker et al. have expanded the use of incentive-reaction, cost-benefit-analysis heuristics (that’s economics to the rest of youse **) to other aspects of social sciences, all the academic econ types are trying to come across as “Freakonomists”.

IF (big if), Caplan’s points are fairly represented in the review, his Analysis is superficial and ultimately specious, even from a purely economic standpoint.

First of all, his data set is highly selective to the point of being specious. Secondly, a lot of his meta-facts relate to what people say they believe and say they vote for. We know very well this bears little resemblance to what people actually do. Furthermore, he fails to mention the counterfactual of non-representative forms of government often performing ‘even worse’ than electoral democracies in economic policy terms. He also misrepresents voting as a system-negative externality in several respects; although he is right in saying that voting is not subject to an efficient market. I could go on and on.

My biggest beef with him is that (better) economists can take a contribution to political structure through their work. For instance, the problem of bundling is a serious issue in electoral politics and government re-structuring to reduce this might be beneficial. I would even argue that on some issues/fields of control a modification (read: restriction) of the franchise may be more utility-efficient than automatically having so-called universal suffrage.

What, conversely, Caplan seems to be suggesting is that economic policy be run by economists and other technocrats. That was tried before, largely in command economies, and it did not work well, as I recall. Just because the academic economics orthodoxy happens to be ‘pro-market’ currently it does not mean that economists have unchangeable or indeed monolithic views on things like free trade, etc.

Take that, for instance. I’m 100% for free trade, but it is undeniable that a substantial portion of people in richer countries have been affected negatively by it. Resolving what takes precedence (their jobs or cheaper imports) or how to compensate the ‘losers’ in such a situation clearly is something for the broader polity to agree on, albeit with contributions from social scientists.

07-09-2007, 03:30 PM	#3
tLO0hFNy Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 511 Senior Member	It’s always a bit dodgy to comment on a review of a work one hasn’t read. That said, I implicitly trust the New Yorker (). I think the reviewer’s critique of Caplan’s book is, if anything, fairly gentle. Ever since economists like Becker et al. have expanded the use of incentive-reaction, cost-benefit-analysis heuristics (that’s economics to the rest of youse *) to other aspects of social sciences, all the academic econ types are trying to come across as “Freakonomists”. IF (big if), Caplan’s points are fairly represented in the review, his Analysis is superficial and ultimately specious, even from a purely economic standpoint. First of all, his data set is highly selective to the point of being specious. Secondly, a lot of his meta-facts relate to what people say they believe and say they vote for. We know very well this bears little resemblance to what people actually do. Furthermore, he fails to mention the counterfactual of non-representative forms of government often performing ‘even worse’ than electoral democracies in economic policy terms. He also misrepresents voting as a system-negative externality in several respects; although he is right in saying that voting is not subject to an efficient market. I could go on and on. My biggest beef with him is that (better) economists can take a contribution to political structure through their work. For instance, the problem of bundling is a serious issue in electoral politics and government re-structuring to reduce this might be beneficial. I would even argue that on some issues/fields of control a modification (read: restriction) of the franchise may be more utility-efficient than automatically having so-called universal suffrage. What, conversely, Caplan seems to be suggesting is that economic policy be run by economists and other technocrats. That was tried before, largely in command economies, and it did not work well, as I recall. Just because the academic economics orthodoxy happens to be ‘pro-market’ currently it does not mean that economists have unchangeable or indeed monolithic views on things like free trade, etc. Take that, for instance. I’m 100% for free trade, but it is undeniable that a substantial portion of people in richer countries have been affected negatively by it. Resolving what takes precedence (their jobs or cheaper imports) or how to compensate the ‘losers’ in such a situation clearly is something for the broader polity to agree on, albeit with contributions from social scientists.
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