Myth of the Rational Voter
02 May 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, economics of education, economics of information, economics of regulation, election campaigns, energy economics, environmental economics, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, managerial economics, market efficiency, Marxist economics, minimum wage, organisational economics, personnel economics, politics - USA, population economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, resource economics, theory of the firm, transport economics, urban economics, welfare reform Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, regressive left
The Myth of the Rational Voter
16 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, rational irrationality
Public Opinion for Libertarians – Bryan Caplan (2010)
10 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of information, economics of regulation, income redistribution, international economics, labour economics, law and economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, rational irrationality
The Myth of the Rational Voter – Bryan Caplan
08 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, econometerics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, macroeconomics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Museum of Neoliberalism
10 Nov 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, F.A. Hayek, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, Karl Popper, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, Milton Friedman, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, The Great Enrichment
4 Ways Economists Think We’re All Wrong – Econ Chronicles – Learn Liberty
16 Feb 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, unemployment Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, rational irrationality
Public Opinion for Libertarians – Bryan Caplan (2010)
20 Jan 2019 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of education, economics of information, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, pessimism bias, rational irrationality
Union uses social media to protest ICT displacing checkout operators but not posties and handbills
02 Aug 2018 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle, unions Tags: automation, creative destruction, make-work bias, regressive left, The Great Enrichment
@NZGreens @nzlabour @uklabour @berniesanders bite a gift horse in the mouth when complaining about the ignorance of the average voter
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of information, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, Bryan Caplan, Deirdre McCloskey, make-work bias, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labour, pessimism bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, votor demographics
Fascinating. Yawning chasm between why Labour members think they lost and why voters think they did. From @thetimes http://t.co/MvhZYI2CTr—
Joe Watts (@JoeWatts_) July 23, 2015
Left-wingers do whinge about voters not understanding; about how if only the voters understood better their arguments than they do now. The Left thinks voters just keep getting it wrong.
They do not know how lucky they are. Rational ignorance and rational irrationality are a rich harvest for the policies of Labour and the Greens.
Most of the policies of Labour and the Greens are premised on cultivating the rational irrationalities of voters. These lead to Bryan Caplan’s pessimism bias, an anti-market bias, an anti-foreign bias and make-work bias:
The evidence—most notably, the results of the 1996 Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy—shows that the general public’s views on economics not only are different from those of professional economists but are less accurate, and in predictable ways.
The public really does generally hold, for starters, that prices are not governed by supply and demand, that protectionism helps the economy, that saving labour is a bad idea, and that living standards are falling.
Politicians mindful of re-election must pander to these four biases.
Fortunately, for the New Zealand Labour Party and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, voters have no rational reason to correct these four biases. Voters are rationally irrational. As each individual counts so little, why spend any time correcting biased political beliefs?
Anti-market bias: The tendency to underestimate the benefits of the market mechanism. The typical voter equates market phenomena such as profitability and interest as examples of unbridled monetary confiscations by ‘greedy’ businesses. This biased against the market, despite all its successes, is a rich field to till for both Labour and the Greens
Anti-foreign bias: The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with foreigners. This antagonism towards such trends as outsourcing employment overseas, or selling raw materials to faraway traders, is reminiscent of the mercantilism Adam Smith so brilliantly demolished but it still lives on today in the hearts of the voting citizenry. Labour and the Greens play to that bias shamelessly.
Make-work bias: The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits from conserving labour. Those who look to the visible face of job losses overlook the job gains (often by those who lost their jobs) to be made tomorrow in emerging industries. The Greens and Labour are sure-fire enemies of creative destruction.
Pessimistic bias: The tendency to overestimate the severity of economic problems, and to underestimate the recent past, present and future performance of the economy. In The Progress Paradox (2003), Gregg Easterbrook ridicules abundance denial:
Our forebears, who worked and sacrificed tirelessly in the hopes their descendants would someday be free, comfortable, healthy, and educated, might be dismayed to observe how acidly we deny we now are these things.
Many average voters seem to feel that Malthus was correct in diagnosing the allegedly poor prospects for the market economy.
Where would the voting base of the Greens be without a pessimism bias? They are professional pessimists and doomsday prophets from their earliest days. Labour assumes working class Tories are dupes of what is left of fading media barons such as Rupert Murdoch.
Note from @paulkrugman to @BernieSanders @JeremyCorbyn and their supporters
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, labour economics, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, antiforeign bias, antimarket bias, British politics, Leftover Left, make-work bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, renegade Left, Twitter left
Why @NZGreens @nzlabour @GreenpeaceNZ hate applied welfare economics
21 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, health economics, international economics, labour economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: antiforeign bias, antimarket bias, expressive voting, Greenpeace, Leftover Left, make-work bias, methodology of economics, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labour Party, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Quotation of the Day from French Economist Frederic Bastiat in the 1850s http://t.co/2ECWtb6m9u—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 14, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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