What I mean by “strong imperfection” is that human beings and their societal arrangements are very far from perfect. We are nowhere close to utopia, and we cannot see how to get there.
A major reason for this is lack of knowledge. We know today much more than we knew one hundred years ago. It seems reasonable to expect that in another hundred years, today’s level of knowledge will seem low. If we look at all of the past beliefs that today seem wrong-headed, we should be hesitant to commit to what we believe now. On this topic of what we do not know, check out the econtalk podcast with Russ Roberts and Michael Blastland.
The implications of this are:
1. We should be humble about predicting the consequences of public policies. In an economics textbook, a single “market imperfection” is shown in isolation, with the implicit assumption that everything else is perfect. Under those assumptions, the right tax, subsidy, or regulation can reliably produce improvement.
Most economists are familiar with the “theory of the second best,” which points out that trying to fix one problem, when there are other problems or constraints, can make things worse. This is a useful concept, but it only scratches the surface of strong imperfection.
2. We should welcome trial-and-error learning. The economic and social progress we have made is largely due to trial and error, not central planning. Because of strong imperfection, we know that many flaws and problems still exist. It is likely that solutions will come from trial and error going forward, just as in the past.
3. We should try to limit the number of personal flaws that we see as inexcusable. Both as a society and as individuals we should try to extend tolerance and forgiveness. Given our current state, I do not think we can do away with prisons, but I think we should be aiming in the direction of limiting their use. I also think that we should be reducing the number of “firing offenses” in the work place, not adding to them. As individuals, we should aim to reduce the set of excuses for cutting people off as friends.
4. We should avoid the “nirvana fallacy,” which involves comparing the current state to a perfect state. The most realistic change is likely to be from an imperfect current state to another imperfect state.
5. We should resist becoming Manichean. The motives of opponents are usually not as bad as we are inclined to make them out to be.
“Strong imperfection” is a great phrase!
We are nowhere close to utopia, and we cannot see how to get there.
A major reason for this is lack of knowledge.
More than lack of knowledge is lack of status – all want to be above, or highly above “average”. This is related to winning in sports, including the sport of politics, and getting promotions at work. Related to virtue signaling, where those most loudly condemning the “bad”, whatever the bad is, they get more status.
Lack of knowledge is also important, especially lack of knowledge about how status-seeking as human drive affects human behavior in so many ways.
Facts include: Who, what, where, when, & how.
Google (or DDG – DuckDuckGo, which I now use) can give facts.
But “Why” is always an opinion. And usually, like polygenic scores, the Why of any action has multiple influences.
Knowledge is mostly facts. Wisdom is more about answering “why”. And predicting the future, correctly.
Like, will there be high inflation in the USA before 2030? Maybe – but also maybe not.
What people want knowledge for is the future – and we ain’t gonna ever get it.
Trial-and-error learning is essential at the personal and institutional level, but can be ruinous when practiced by a national government (see Depression, Great).
Central planning by a central government is similar to the trial-and-error process except for this distinction, that errors are locked in and made permanent, uncontested, in an infinite loop. So instead of trial-and-error you get error-error-error.
In the words of Kevin D. Williamson, “When the government does stupid, it does immortally stupid.”
Limits
by Ralph Walks Emerson
Who knows this or that?
Hark in the wall to the rat:
Since the world was, he has gnawed;
Of his wisdom, of his fraud
What dost thou know?
In the wretched little beast
Is life and heart,
Child and parent,
Not without relation
To fruitful field and sun and moon.
What art thou? His wicked eye
Is cruel to thy cruelty.
A bigger problem than lack of knowledge is knowing things that ain’t so, and being unwilling to consider evidence they ain’t so for essentially religious reasons.
Arnold, you forgot to define perfection and imperfection as the two extremes of a dimension that later you identify as knowledge. Oh, surprise, you don’t define knowledge. How can we discuss the perfection/imperfection of knowledge? We have a vague idea of the ideas that could be defined as knowledge by relying on chapter 1 of Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions, but I bet that many hateful people don’t want to read Sowell and therefore you should look for an alternative. Indeed, once we define knowledge we will be able to think about scientific knowledge –a very hot issue thanks to Joe Biden and other millions of hypocrites. I hope we discuss under what conditions scientific knowledge is the truth and nothing but the truth. Perhaps, you should ask Tyler Cowen, the Great Bayesian, or the Joker, depending on how serious you think he is. Note: reader Tom G is wrong when he proposes to focus on status rather than knowledge (if you think that defining knowledge is difficult, you can bet that defining status is even more difficult and most likely the reason few sociologists like to use it).
Anyone familiar with Econ 101 soon understands that you are denouncing the many economists that never mention the assumptions underlying the analysis. Those economists are very much inclined to defend assumptions of X-perfection when they develop and present “general” theories, but they know that the theoretical models cannot be directly applied to define an empirical problem and to find its solution. That definition requires a lot of additional work and the choice of a solution requires much more work, and all these works are relevant even when the problem seems very simple, like rationing vaccines. That’s why the market rewards good economists and punish bad ones.
For a long time, we have been trying to develop a theory of how individual beliefs change, in particular how they change by interacting with other people. This is a recognition that “in the old days” we had to focus on static analysis, and the relevant question is how fast we could advance in introducing change and determining the dynamics of social interactions and their implications. Well, maybe you can introduce your readers to the cobweb model and start from it to explain how difficult is to model dynamic processes.
Hey EB – I’m usually happy to read your comments, and actually would like more on Chile, Argentina, Spain, and HK. I’m especially sad about Chile wanting to get rid of its fine forced savings pension system for more of a common paygo system.
But my comment was about the focus on utopia, and why we’re not close AND don’t see how to get there. We are nowhere close to utopia …
Why not? Why don’t have a world where there are no serious problems, or woe? Isn’t there someplace, over the rainbow perhaps, or maybe Lake Woebegone, where “all the children are above average”?
No.
https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect
In utopia, we get what we want – but what we want is to be above average. There isn’t such a place, and can’t be, and it’s not because of knowledge. Status is zero-sum.
Thus, it doesn’t depend on absolute levels of materialism. Reality is that some half of the people will be below average, no matter how much they have.
However, with practice, we can all be good at somethings, and better than avg. at those things. More specialization helps.
‘5. We should resist becoming Manichean. The motives of opponents are usually not as bad as we are inclined to make them out to be.’
to endorse this i need to make a clear distinction between what the intellects on a side really believe, and the talking points they perpetrate. does chuck schumer really believe republicans are KKKnazis? no. we’re supposed to think: “i know i’m not as malicious as they say i am, so probably they are not as bent on grinding me down as i *think* they are”. this is a fallacy. it’s proper to compare what you would say about them if you had power with what they’re saying about you when they have it.
Perhaps projecting, but doesn’t there appear to be a tension here between this skepticism and the willingness to accept the historical explanations of North and He in rich expressed earlier? Been revisiting Popper and Strauss’s criticisms of historicism, which have never been more timely, and see them as consistent with “We should be humble about predicting the consequences of public policies.” Perhaps not so much consistent with North and Heinrich who maybe evince a more deterministic attitude. Just gut intuition but it would be interesting to get a big brain type’s read.
I have a significantly stronger view of “strong imperfection”. We cannot see utopia, because it does not exist for us. If we went there, it wouldn’t be utopia anymore.
We were forged over aeons of starvation, disease, war, and betrayal. Pride, lust, wrath, sloth, and the rest evolved just as much as love and happiness, and are just as essential to our nature. We are not fallen angels; we are the cutting edge in apes.
And an important corollary to this is that we should be more hesitant to blame unhappiness on imperfect politics (or take it as evidence of political imperfection). The misattribution of unhappiness or discontent to politics is probably a big drive of radicalism.
True. Another important corollary is that maintaining society requires constantly struggling against human nature, and that is always uncomfortable.
Arnold, this is a good example of potential strong-imperfection in the use of knowledge that is becoming a reality:
https://www.oocities.org/projectfortress/new/usr/Technofascism.htm
Yes, we should humble about predicting the consequences of our decisions, in particular public policies. I bet you missed it when it was published in 1998 (it’s not mentioned in your post about the influence of Net-heads).
“Both MAGA and BLM are anticipatory reactions to the coming political consciousness of Asian and Hispanic immigrants; the new groups will not conform to the strictures of either movement, they will do something different as yet unspecified”
– Welsey Yang
I keep having more thoughts about “Strong imperfection”.
#1. Humble about policy predictions – it’s 2021. 20 years after 7 UN climate models (IPCC) were publicized showing global warming at an alarming rate. The models predicted future paths of world temp ranges. Each model has been falsified – yet climate alarmism is stronger now.
I predict another decade of US deficits funded by low interest borrowing – and increasing stock market prices plus good-location house prices, yet with low milk – bread – clothes cost increases. And without a major depression or even further non-pandemic based recession. Yet I won’t be surprised if some event causes a big drop – with a gov’t response of bigger deficit and attempts to spend its way out of the worst of the problems.
Part of any policy proposal, in the detailed write up portion, should be an explicit review of incentives. What is being incentivized. What likely, or even possible, unwanted behaviors are being incentivized. [In my “support family” policy, it might be to keep some married folks staying in a high crime area, getting gov’t cash, rather than move to a better area without the policy] Every policy might fail – perhaps due to the weakest link. Just about everything has a weakest link. [Roberts talk in text is good]
#2 Welcome trial and error in personal life, and in business life. LOTS of trial. In public, it is even more inevitable, but there needs to be a stronger recognition that many changes which try to improve things are in error, and overall make things worse. The huge gov’t problem is the lack of good feedback on specific programs showing that those programs are in error. Democrats vs Republicans is not enough correction, tho it’s far better than waiting for Commie Party Chair to die.
#3 “Personal flaws” We need to focus more on actual behavior, and less on presumed intent as inferred from tweets or other words.
#4 “Nirvana fallacy” is so important, yet so difficult to discuss with True Believers. Real capitalism, or any reality, will never look as good as Nirvana socialism, or feminism, or even Libertarianism.
#5 “motives of opponents are usually not [so] bad” This is especially true among those you meet, and know. Including a spouse! Anybody who is angry with you, or with whom you are angry, it is easy to feel that they are angering you, by hurting you with words, deliberately. Usually there is some real, uncomfortable disagreement AND some miscommunication.
We need to have a society where honest disagreements can be discussed publicly without accusations of, usually unprovable and often false, bad intent.
I often have tried to do this by clearly stating a goal – I want to reduce poverty; I want Blacks in America to be less poor. Is some policy or another a good or bad way towards that good goal. Most Americans mostly agree on the mostly good goals – but it also needs to be accepted that it should be OK to have different goals.
Finally, “Strong Imperfection” also implies that the project of “perfecting society” is not only going to fail, but usually make things worse in many ways.