The Perils of Being “Clearer than Truth”
In his new book (see here for a post about it by Robin Hanson), Bryan Caplan argues that economists weaken the impact of what they say by surrounding their main messages with a bunch of caveats that are intended to make their answers more complete but that in fact serve only to ensure that they will be ignored.
Of course Bryan has a point here, no doubt effective communication is important, and some of that involves strategic simplification, but I don’t think the point is as strong as Bryan does. The main thing that Bryan would like to see economists stress is the virtues of markets, which Bryan has convincingly argued people tend to systematically underestimate. But would it be an improvement if everyone who took an introductory economics course just learned that markets are great? This would have some good effects; support for things like free trade and Pigouvian pollution/congestion taxes would probably go up. But it would also have the effect of convincing students (more than is already the case) that economic interventions of the kinds supported by lots and lots of mainstream economists, whether for correcting market failures, for redistribution, or for paternalism, must somehow necessarily be a bad idea. Of course Bryan doesn’t favor most of those interventions anyway, so this is not much of a cost for him. But would the total package be an improvement from the point of view of, say, the median economist?
I can think of two other problems with Bryan’s suggestion, both of which apply to educators in any field, not just to economists. First, educators should have a pretty big thumb on the scale in favor of the unvarnished truth, partly because truth is a value in itself, partly becuase even the most well-meaning strategic spin is bad habit for a thinker to get into, and partly because it will cause real thinkers to lose credibility when the spin is uncovered. Second, there are a bunch of people out there with a personality type such that they love to think of themselves are bold iconoclasts who courageously buck the conventional wisdom that the establishment had tried to cram down their throats. When such people stumble across an instance where what they had been taught is not quite right, they will congratulate themselves that they have made a big transgressive discovery that those ivory tower eggheads have got it all wrong, and they will trumpet that discovery to the heavens, which the media will help them do because stories like that are popular.
Stuart Armstrong said "[economists'] commitment to markets is pragmatic, not ideological."
I don't think this is true for Bryan Caplan; its certainly not true for me.
For me the argument for markets stems from my ideological commitment to individual liberty. Markets (broadly understood as any free exchange between individuals) are the best way to organize to a free society.
I also disagree that markets are tools. In fact I think the "markets are tools" idea leads to a great deal of dissatisfaction with markets. A tool is something that is used to achieve a purpose. So for example someone wants to own a house, but for some reason they are unable to buy one that is suitable, the "markets are tools" idea would lead them to think that as the tool has failed to help them get what they want, it must be broken - ie there must be a market failure.
I would hope that economics courses propagandize the good in Markets.
Harping on the good of markets sounds like a very bad idea. The public and journalists don't need to look far to find examples of market failure; if fed a diet of "markets are divine" from economists, then their rational conclusion will be that economists are wrong (I had that same problem myself, before finding papers by Rob Stavins that clarified the uses and limits of markets, and thus made me realise that markets were sensible tools, not ideological positions. I haven't looked back since).
But since we have to have the caveats, let's keep them simple. The message that economists should proclaim at every opportunity is:1) Markets are a source of great prosperity, and are the best choice in the majority of cases.2) Market failures do exist, but it is rare to find one where the cure is better than the disease.3) If we do find such a failure, economists will not object to the cure; our commitment to markets is pragmatic, not ideological.
as Al Gore says, fudge the facts because the cause is urgent.And what happens when a journalist or a fellow economist reveals that the facts are indeed fudged? It'll be suicidal to do so for something about which most of the public are already "wary and distrustful".