Two EconLog readers’ comments on yesterday’s post struck me:
Caplan’s point is a good and striking one. His conclusion is fairly extraordinary, though: He is apparently claiming that all (or a plurality) of the major decision makers in the American government are power-hungry demagogues who deliberately decided to channel money into stimulus rather than research because they are bad people.
I like a powerful contrarian claim, but this one is a little too far for me.
Fair question, Phil. I doubt many politicians are explicitly thinking, “Research is better for society, but stimulus is better for my career. I don’t care what happens to human lives or the economy as long I can be king of the ashes.” Instead, I doubt politicians are doing much thinking at all. They go with the herd – and their own arrogance.
However, as I’ve previously argued, anything less than Vulcan rationality in a major leader is extremely morally wrong, because with great power comes great responsibility. Normal backroom observers would probably say, “Well, these politicians are just playing the game.” I puritanically reject such excuses.
The problem lies in the failure to acknowledge the importance of institutions and structures, and to assign everything to individual actions. Do we really believe that all of the leaders of China are “good” people, and that’s why they responded more effectively to the crisis? Is New Zealand’s good record a reflection of Ahern’s moral excellence?
I have an extremely overall negative view of the Chinese Communist Party’s behavior, and remain suspicious that they are hiding severe pandemic-related failures and crimes. But if I knew nothing except the standard coronavirus narrative, I would consider them better people. On the other hand, I suspect that the leaders of New Zealand are morally a cut above what Americans are used to, though of course as remote islands they have major advantages in disease containment.
My broader point, though, is that we should compare leaders to standards of common sense and common decency, and almost all fall woefully short.
There does seem to be a good case to make that the leadership of the USA has become paralysed by partisan infighting. The problem is that it’s now ingrained into the systems and institutions. Even if a Mr Smith went to Washington, that wouldn’t sort out the problem.
How does “partisan infighting” prevent such obvious measures as wide-scale voluntary paid human experimentation? I just don’t see it. If the parties can agree to fritter away trillions of dollars, they can agree to suspend pseudo-ethical rules that keep policymakers in the dark.
Hey Bryan — I had always read state capacity to include the capacity to make intelligent decisions. So a state with a big military or lots of spending power, but without wise politicians or experienced bureaucrats to know how to sensibly use them, it still lacks capacity in some sense. It lacks the capacity to achieve its goals.
The whole point of distinguishing between achievements and capabilities is that achievements normally fall short of capabilities. This is true for individuals and organizations alike. My achievements fall short of my capabilities; don’t yours?
So you can imagine a government that has the capacity to shut down its entire economy, but not the research ability to figure out whether it should — or decide on the right specific actions that are needed in order to stop a pandemic spreading. Such a state lacks essential capacities.
This might be an unhelpfully broad concept, but I think that’s how others use the term too.
Once you define “state capacity” this broadly, blaming failure on “lack of state capacity” is virtually meaningless. You might as well declare that “good government causes success” and “bad government causes failure.”
The real story, I think, is that state capacity researchers are willfully equivocating – yet another case of the motte-and-bailey fallacy.
When the audience is sympathetic, “high state capacity” means collecting lots of taxes, building a strong military, constructing roads, having universal public education, and so on.
When the audience is skeptical, “high state capacity” simply means being a government that rules over a rich, modern civilization.
The trick is to use the latter definition to legitimize the concept, then use the former definition to justify more resources and power for the government.
Or so it seems to me.
READER COMMENTS
Dylan
Apr 30 2020 at 5:36pm
I’ve not done nearly the reading on the topic that Bryan has, but that’s been my basic take.
I’m sure this is heavily biased by reading proponents of state capacity that are also libertarian leaning, but the arguments I’ve seen tend more towards increasing state capacity partly through decreasing spending.
One of the more useful takeaways for me from the state capacity discussion was the importance of trust in the government. Government that is not trusted by the majority of its citizens has low capacity, no matter the amount of resources that it controls.
John Thacker
Apr 30 2020 at 10:24pm
Trust in government in Spain is remarkably low, and yet they are extremely efficient at rail and transit construction. Trust in government in Japan on national surveys is even lower. The state capacity discussion seems divorced from reality if you’re summarizing its claims accurately.
Dylan
May 1 2020 at 9:19am
No idea if I’m summarizing accurately, as I mentioned, I’m not exactly well read in this area, but of the few pieces I read that seemed to be a thread running through, either explicitly or implicitly.
Here’s Tyler Cowen making the connection explicit.
A Country Farmer
Apr 30 2020 at 5:37pm
I think you should add thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to each of your posts because I sense a tinge of self-doubt in your last sentence, “Or so it seems to me.” I assure you that your view seems eminently correct, as with most of your points, but many readers won’t take the time to lodge their agreement in textual form (since it seems a bit superfluous to pollute the comment section with “I Agree.”).
Thomas Hutcheson
Apr 30 2020 at 6:01pm
I think there is sense in which it takes more capacity to act with nuance (let’s say for example, although I’m not sure this would have been optimal, that a state could rapidly provide cities with data on what kind of interactions transmitted the virus more and less and let them in turn regulate how business could operate — crowding, mask-wearing, etc.) takes more capacity than just shutting down everything “non-essential.
PhilH
May 1 2020 at 2:23am
Today I saw this post and Tyler Cowen posting a sharp response to him; reminds me why I read these sites. Thank you, BC for being so responsive and open to randoms on the net.
The issue I have with Caplan’s position, which he explains with wonderful clarity, is that it seems to be completely correct as a critical perspective; but it seems to be unhelpful as a way of seeking solutions. Examining the institutions that produce outcomes naturally points to possible solutions. I don’t know any way to make people morally better, so examining personal failures doesn’t seem to even begin to sketch out what kind of measures might bring about better outcomes.
KevinDC
May 1 2020 at 10:03am
Hey Phil –
This part of your comment stood out to me:
This is a sentiment I’ve seen you express many different times in the comment section here. Someone will offer a diagnosis to some issue, and you’ve on several occasions conceded that their assessment fits the data and explains all the observed facts, but then countered that it’s not actually useful for seeking a solution to the issue at hand. But treating “availability of solutions” as though it’s a relevant factor is deciding if an explanation is true is practically an engraved invitation to engage in motivated reasoning.
“Does this explanation give us useful solutions?” provides exactly zero reason to favor or disfavor an explanation. I’m reminded of a dynamic that played out often on a medical drama I rather enjoyed, House. Fairly often, hard headed Dr. House would say the evidence points to Condition X, while one of his softer headed team members would insist it could be Condition Z. And they’d often say “But Condition X is untreatable! If that’s the diagnosis, there’s nothing we can do to help! If it’s Condition Z then we can still help!” But, of course, the disease is whatever the disease is, regardless of whether or not the diagnosis gives you useful solutions.
And I think it’s really important to not prefer explanations based on whether or not they give solutions. Apathetic people may prefer explanations where problems are intractable, and highly engaged people may prefer explanations where problems are solvable, but both are doing something very wrong. Having a solution is a great thing, of course. But to stick with the medical metaphor for a bit, if you prefer the Condition Z diagnosis due to it being treatable, and you perform medical interventions on the patient to treat Condition Z, but they don’t actually have this condition, you are virtually guaranteed to be making their problems worse, not better, and create new problems in the process. Treating the injured and healing the sick is an important obligation of doctors, but the primary and overriding obligation remains – “First, do no harm.”
Phil H
May 1 2020 at 9:10pm
Hi, Kevin. You’re right. If it’s a systematic bias in the way that I (or Caplan) looks at the world that I only allow myself to see solvable issues, then that could stop me from seeing the truth clearly.
However…
Actually, no, no however. I’m just going to cop to it. I think a bias in favor of practical reason is the right bias to have! After all, economics in particular is not a hard science. It’s a social science – a practical science. The very function of economics is not to describe an independently-existing reality, but to inform social action, so that money/resources can be used more efficiently.
KevinDC
May 2 2020 at 12:22am
Hey Phil –
I don’t think you understood what I was saying, or maybe I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t speaking to a mere tendency to “only allow [yourself] to see solvable issues.” That, in and of itself, is pretty benign – actually, as stated, it’s a good thing. Focus on the things that can actually be fixed – I’m basically cool with that! That’s just good life advice.
But there is a world of difference between “only seeing solvable issues” and “seeing all issues as solvable,” and even more so when that becomes “treat solvability as though it constitutes evidence in favor of a conclusion.”
Even if we grant your contention that the goal of economics is “to inform social action, so that money/resources can be used more efficiently,” a bias in favor of seeing problems as solvable would make no sense. You can’t effectively solve a problem without understanding what the problem actually is.
Suppose there is social problem X, and suppose that X is unsolvable, because reasons. Some people, however, insist X isn’t the problem, it’s actually Z, and Z is solvable. If your goal is to “describe independently-existing reality,” then it’s better to know the problem really is X. But if your goal is to “to inform social action, so that money/resources can be used more efficiently,” it’s still better to know that the problem is X. Treating the problem as if it’s Z just because Z could be solved doesn’t do anything to solve the actually existing problem. It just means you’ll be wasting resources trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and prevent those resources from being used somewhere else where they would actually do some good.
Part of doing the most good possible is recognizing what can’t be done, so you don’t waste resources and time chasing dead ends. Hayek spoke to this in the opening lines of the first volume of Law, Legislation, and Liberty:
Phil H
May 2 2020 at 9:40am
“Suppose there is social problem X, and suppose that X is unsolvable, because reasons. Some people, however, insist X isn’t the problem, it’s actually Z, and Z is solvable.”
I don’t think the world is anything like this. Single factors do not cause outcomes (of the type that we’re interested in here). I think there is a situation X, which some/all people regard as a problem. The factors that cause X to come into being are many and various. Adjusting any one of them could cause X to become some other X’.
Caplan suggests that if certain people in positions of power had “Vulcan rationality,” then X would not be, and instead we would have X’. I agree with his claim. (I also agree with his claims about the moral values of X, X’, and Vulcan rationality.)
However, if certain institutions were set up differently, then X would also be changed into some other X”.
So, yes. If there were insoluble problems, or problems that could only be solved by applying strict Caplanian morality, then it would be a mistake for me to attempt to see them as otherwise. But (my claim is) there aren’t. The miracles of the industrial revolution, green revolutions, democracy civil rights, and smart technologies were all achieved without perfectly moral people. The next set of miracles will be achieved without them, too.
KevinDC
May 2 2020 at 1:12pm
Hello again Phil –
I feel like some progress was made there in clarifying things. However, I also think you took my words a bit too narrowly. That’s probably my fault for not making clear that I was talking in terms of a very simplified thought experiment. When you say “I don’t think the world is anything like this. Single factors do not cause outcomes (of the type that we’re interested in here),” of course I agree with that. I was simply offering a thought experiment to narrow the focus of discussion to what (I thought!) was the essential issue, namely, does the “solvablity” of a proposed diagnosis provide any particular reason to suppose that diagnosis is therefore more likely to be true? I said, and still say, no.
But, to reform my thought experiment in more precise terms…
Social problem X exists. There are lots of potential contributing factors for X. Various social scientists have proposed A, B, C, D, E, and F as among these possible contributing factors, but there is a lot of disagreement about which factors are actually real and the degree to which they contribute to the problem and how they might interact with each other. Now, this is clearly a model that more closely reflects reality than my initial model. But nothing about adding these considerations in gives me any reason to reconsider my conclusions.
If you want to convince me that any factor A through F contributes to the problem, I’m all ears to hear the evidence. But if someone tried to tell me that one of those factors is more likely to be true because it has solutions available, I will immediately cease to take them seriously.
And this is what it’s seemed (to me) like you’ve been doing. You haven’t merely said “there’s lots of contributing factors here, some of which can’t be helped, so let’s focus on the ones we can help.” If that’s all you had ever said, I’d just nod along. But you have, on several occasions, in discussions where the factors of a problem were the specific issue under dispute, explicitly used the solvablility of a factor as if it was a reason to think that factor was true. You haven’t just said “We should focus on factor D because that’s something we can actually do something about.” You’ve said “If we think of the problem as being D, then there are solutions available.” But that leave entirely open whether or not D is actually a relevant factor! The fact that D has solutions whereas E doesn’t, counts as exactly zero reason to think D is true and E is not. If your goal is to convince someone that D (or any other factor) is actually contributes to the problem, then you have to actually make that case on its own merits. Otherwise it’s pure question begging. Appeals to the availability of solutions just won’t cut it.
Philo
May 1 2020 at 11:05am
Bryan is playing at being Mr. Smith. But in practice politicians cannot afford to contravene the wishes of the voters. For example, if the voters are misguided enough to embrace pseudo-ethical rules, political leaders cannot afford to “suspend” them. More generally, politicians are somewhat like actors, playing a role rather than speaking and acting *in propria persona*. True, almost everyone understands what the actor is doing, while many people are incredibly naïve about the politician’s behavior. But, I maintain, it is the voter’s responsibility to grasp the situation; if he is misled by politicians, it is his own fault. When politicians tell pleasing lies and institute unwise but popular policies, blame the voters: the buck stops there!
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