As rumors of war smolder, the question becomes even more important: Between two states who issue contradictory statements, which one is it safer to believe? The economic answer is, of course, the one that has the lowest incentives to lie. Keep in mind that states don’t lie, only their rulers do, and we know that it is often in their interest to, but the question remains. Answering it is not difficult, at least in some cases.
In a free or just open society, the incentive for rulers to lie is much lower, because the probability that the liar will be denounced and perhaps punished is higher.
The first reason for this is the free press and all the journalists chasing a Pulitzer prize. Partisans often forget that a free press is not one that says what they want, but one that is not going to be punished, and hopes to be rewarded by its readers, for saying what it wants.) In a freer society, also, more independent powers, judicial or quasi-judicial, exist to prosecute state criminals.
The second reason is that, in a free society, the number of moral individuals, including in the government, is much higher, whether they act by deep conviction or by habit. Fewer people “have learned to live with the lie” like under the Nazis (or, for that matter, the Communists). The beautiful review of the film A Hidden Life by our colleague Richard Reinsch at Law and Liberty is a must-read, if only for this reason. Finally, as Gen. Paul Silva told a Senate committee, “we take our values to war”—even if others in the US government seem to have forgotten that or what these values are.
So the conclusion from this brief economic analysis is that, between the government of a freer and that of a more authoritarian country, the latter is more likely to lie. Which does not mean–on the contrary–that its citizens should let their guards down and descend into blind patriotism.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Jan 10 2020 at 10:25am
I expect this is accurate. But if you really want a government that won’t lie to you, elect Thanos–someone who has such confidence in his power that he has no reason to lie because he has no reason to care about your opinion. In contrast, elected leaders have every reason to care about your opinion, and thus have every reason to try to influence it–fairly or not.
Thus, democracies that defend free speech face some asymmetric risk against governments that don’t: They must worry about public opinion. This can impair their ability to pursue policies that have high initial costs and only long-run benefits. Wars are one example.
Or we could think of Carter, who appointed Volcker to the head of the Fed, knowing that Volcker would clamp down on the money supply to kill inflationary expectations, even at the cost of a short-term spike in unemployment. Carter paid the price at the ballot box; his successor reaped a windfall. Succeeding administrations have faced the option of doing unpopular things in the short run to achieve a long-term benefit of reducing the deficit. You can investigate how many have been willing to make that trade-off.
More to the point, democracies are vulnerable to propaganda campaigns, which readily spread with the benefit of free speech. Cowen calls on states to keep elections free from foreign interference–yet most of the foreign interference the US has confronted consisted of propaganda a/k/a free speech. And in that regard, I see little difference between foreign and domestic propaganda.
On the other hand, I don’t mean to exaggerate the differences. As a practical matter, totalitarian regimes ALSO engage in propaganda–because it’s cheaper than trying to rule via force alone–and ALSO suffer from false stories circulating. Given these facts, maybe the asymmetries aren’t all that significant.
Fred
Jan 10 2020 at 10:43am
Interesting take. However, I think that this view might be glamorizing the US system a fair amount and overlooking some real deviations from a free and open society that we have. To some extent geopolitics might be like a poker game. Many of the real assets of the players are visible to all like the face up cards, and other assets are hidden to others like the hole cards. The players have to glean information from the known demeanor of their opponents and the size of the bet that the other guy makes. In that situation, the personal morality of the players would not be relevant to the strategy chosen to win. Is the player with the larger reserve of chips more or less likely to bluff than the player with a smaller pile? I wonder if there has been an analysis of the utility of bluffing comparing the player with lots of chips versus the low chip player. If my view is correct, then our nation’s ideals are not always congruent with winning.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 11 2020 at 12:32am
@Fred: Many points in your answer. One is represented by your first sentence. Note that my comparison was between “freer” (and perhaps even just “more open” instead of freer) and “more authoritarian.” And who lies more is, as I said, a matter of higher or lower probability. Like you, I don’t want to glamorize. Another point: the poker bluff is partly modelized by the Chicken or Hawk-and-Dove game, and game theory is used in military strategy. Your last question is whether the freer has more chances to win, an issue I did not consider in my short post. That’s an old and valid question. I would answer yes for a couple of reasons: freedom (and the attendant morality) brings entrepreneurship, wealth, and technological wizardry, which are the nerves of war; and recall that it is the Soviet empire that crashed first.
Alan Goldhammer
Jan 10 2020 at 2:27pm
The current US President seems to contradict this statement. If one accepts the estimates of his support, 40% of the American public seem to think lying is alright.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 11 2020 at 11:48am
@Alan Goldhammer: You are right to point this disturbing fact or trend. But note that I did use the words “lower” and “probability.” I also wrote “others in the US government seem to have forgotten … what these values are,” and I was not referring only to the military.
Thomas Sewell
Jan 11 2020 at 7:42pm
Interesting that in today’s connected world, even a free press in a place like the United States can put pressure on a dictatorship like Iran.
After their initial denials, doubt Iran’s government officials would’ve admitted to shooting down the Ukraine flight without a free press elsewhere publishing authenticated video showing a missile hitting it.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 11 2020 at 8:26pm
Yes, Thomas, that is a remarkable fact that must have wide-ranging implications.
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