The assumption of self-interest does make sense as a starting point in analyzing economic behavior, because in modern societies, people are taught that self-interest is acceptable in their employment, business, consumer, and financial affairs. But they’re taught the opposite when it comes to government affairs. The standard, culturally accepted view is that public policy should advance the common good. So it’s not surprising that when non-economists talk about politics, the common good is what they talk about.
The essay is a valuable lesson in political science. Some key points.
1. People vote for what they think is best for the country. Of course, their thinking may be off base.
2. Ideas matter. Political scientists, like all social scientists, are prone to treating people as machines, so that only tangible things influence votes. But in fact people vote on the basis of ideas in their heads.
Tendencies in voting by age, class, or ethnicity are mediated by ideas. It is not that African-Americans are genetically disposed to vote for Democrats. They are acculturated to ideas that make it right to vote for Democrats.
3. People’s ideas about politics are influenced to some extent by the media. Of course, the causality runs also in the other direction–people’s choice of media is influenced by their political inclinations.
4. One study that Friedman cites suggests that the increase in polarization in recent years can be explained entirely by changes in the media environment.
I think that these observations tie in with the negative feelings that Russ Roberts and I have about the political environment. We agree that ideas matter. And the trends there look bad to us. First, a lot of bad ideas are gaining currency about economic issues. Second, people on both right and left have the idea that they are certainly right and that those who disagree are certainly evil, and the media environment is serving to reinforce this. Third, the ideas that seem to be prominent on college campuses seem particularly worrisome.
Another possible interpretation: People vote for what they think is best for the country, but only when their personal stake is very attenuated, or it is unclear what is best for them and their families. Imagine an election in which one candidate is in favor of cuts to social security payments to current recipients, and convincingly argues that it would be best for the country. How many votes would the current recipients who depend on social security payments to maintain their lifestyles cast for this candidate?
People vote based on ideas in their head, but the ideas they believe in are the ideas that they want to believe in. Usually, those are ideas that get them things they want, and if they are bad for society at large so be it. They might not phrase it that bluntly, but is coming up with a flimsy rationalization for an injustice that much different then openly advocating for an injustice.
The school administrator advocates for a budget increase that puts more money in his pocket even though it won’t improve education. He doesn’t say he’s looting taxpayers out of self interest. He may not even believe he’s looting taxpayers for self interest. However, if he has the evidence and experience to know he is, and tells himself and others just so stories to get around this fact, is that so different then naked self interest? Should we conclude that simply sitting him down for a nice conversation could persuade him to act against his interests?
As for blacks they vote for things they think will be good for black people, not society at large. Their in-group is their own people, not the country as a whole. How could it be? As a subgroup they are very different then the country at large.
What is good for black people and what is good for society are genuinely different matters. Affirmative Action is good for black people but bad for society. High taxes on white people to give free things to black people are good for black people. PC propaganda gives black people cultural and political power, even if its bad for white people.
The black state representative from my district (most ghetto west Baltimore and I’m on the very edge of the line) once voted to take money from blind industries to give to a program for ex-cons (basically black men from Baltimore). When my blind friend complained to her she told him he was just lucky not to have been aborted. And the ex-cons in question actually ended up working at my other friends company. He does work on rooftops, and the ex-con showed up high and passed out on a roof putting both of them in physical danger. You can decide whether you want to believe this yourself, but I was there and the bills in the Maryland state legislator are public record.
Stealing from the blind to give to drugged up ex-cons that put ordinary working peoples lives in danger. Good for society? No, but good for black people. That ex-con got paid money he wouldn’t otherwise have been paid, good sweet white tax dollars. I’m sure she tells herself some story by which what she is doing is morally right.
Even beyond zero sum, the mere fact that they are so genetically different means their societal needs and our society needs are so different.
This whole ideas vs interest thing just seems like a fundamental difference in viewing the world. I don’t see a lot of evidence for it. You can’t just take people at their word when they say they care about society.
I do think groups are genetically disposed to vote certain ways because they want to shape society in a way that maximizes their groups welfare, and that comes into conflict with the interests of other groups that want to shape society in a way that maximizes their welfare. These things can’t be reconciled if the groups interests are too different.
What we need is for people on the right to come to this conclusion (of the impossibility of reconciliation through debate because interest are fundamentally different) before demographic math means becoming second class citizens. Then they can fight and win before its too late. If they don’t the other side will not show mercy, there is certainly enough evidence to come to that conclusion. Vae Victis.
damn
just damn
Cantwell, is that you?
This is why measurable results are so important and why dismissing them so dangerous. If you can hew to the results, you have a better chance of fulfilling your wants, even if they are not all you want; eschew them for political solidarity and you end up with loss and waste. This requires openness to change and new ideas and willingness to abandon dysfunction old ones as much as adherence to valid verities. It also requires recognition that we don’t all want the same thing but we want the same thing more than we don’t and we are more likely to get it if we do. Politics is division but citizen and other should be a more important division than left and right. Politics can be unifying as well.
The correct vote is to vote for insurance against inaccurate voting.
Better words. Since we are likely to screw this up, better to do it less and hold some reserves against our screw ups.
“When in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever behaved in accord with his own interests?” -Dostoevsky. Underappreciated political scientist?
“People vote for what they think is best for the country.” That’s a charitable assumption or inerpretation, but I don’t think that it withstands much scrutiny. Even the concept of “the national interest,” is impossible to nail down in anything but the most clear, existential circumstances (and sometimes not even then.)
Certainly people like to make the claim that their proposals are “in the national interest” but that’s often just a cover story to portray personal interests or controversial personal preferences as accomplishing some kind of universally agreed upon, objective good.
People diverge, in a sincere way, over what the notion of a common good looks like. To an outside observer it all has the atmosphere of petty self-interest and a LACK of a common good. But this isn’t the same thing as economic self-interest masquerading as altruism.
Maybe sometimes, but there’s no good test to tell the difference. And when one can’t distinguish between two theories, one must rely on an epistemic rule to help pick between the two. For example, Occam’s razor would tell us to pick the simpler, more parsimonious explanation. A principle of charitable interpretation would assume that everyone is being sincere and acting in good faith all the time, unless there was clear evidence to the contrary. A principle of skepticism would require all claimants to bear the burden of demonstration, proof, and argument. A principle of cynicism would say that all people – from the time they were learning to talk at all – lie (and also deceive themselves) whenever they perceive there is an incentive to do so. Perhaps a meta-principle could be “empirical political sociology”, which might tell us that the determination of the best or optimal rule depends on the specific cultural character of a particular social group, time, and place, i.e., maybe some cultures are more reliably trustworthy and genuine while others are more often manipulative and deceptive, and it also depends on the context and what is at stake, and one can adjust one’s “claim security settings” appropriately.
My own impression of contemporary political claims is that the meta principle favors skepticism and cynicism in our particular context. And consistent with that skepticism, if you’ve got a good argument and evidence in favor of increasing trust and lowering my security settings, then I’d be happy to read it, but in my judgment that’s a long row to hoe these days.
Ideas matter.
And “does the candidate care about people like me” matters hugely. Hillary learned that lesson to her great cost in the last election. This is also the danger of “identity politics” – if you’re one of the “not deemed to be useful” identities, you’re going to figure that the candidate – by definition – won’t “care about you”.
Stated policies usually don’t matter, except as manifestations of ideas. Most people know that the chances of a stated policy actually being enacted as the candidate wants are vanishingly small. This is why the “347-point plan to save the children” approach used by Hillary was such a loser – there’s not a chance of heck of a complex policy getting through the Washington sausage factory unchanged, so trying to say “vote for Hillary because of all the awesomeness you’ll get with Point 218 of this policy” doesn’t fly.
Yeah, Mushroom Politics is much more effective. Just as long as a politician is willing to use it and voters are willing to accept it.
Only two rules:
1. Keep them in the dark.
2. Feed them full of sh!t
An obvious example of this is:
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” People covered under the law “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.”
I can tell you miss “the most transparent administration ever.” Weirdly, even though I liked my doctor I didn’t get to keep him.
So you lost a doctor(if what you say is true), and what are millions going to lose now?
All about you.
Btw,
If you had said you lost your plan you might have a point. But you said you lost your doctor, and somehow that is the government that caused it. No, the free market caused it.
Your doctor chose to enroll in an insurance network by his own free will. You chose an insurance plan by your own free will that your doctor was not in that plan’s network.
Now, you can still use that doctor, but it will probably cost you more money. So that is your choice.
All free market decisions by you and your doctor.
If it actually happened.
Sometimes I just don’t even know.
I always have to roll my eyes when the news interviews the person on the street about who is going to win his/her vote: “I’m voting for X because I think it is time for change. We need someone who will represent the people and I think X will represent us in {Washington/the state capital/city hall}.”
OMG.