My goal in sharing this is not to wholy convince anyone of Caplan's views. I'm not persuaded by all of them myself. But moreover, I understand how difficult it is to change minds on something so resistant to experimentation and clearly persuasive data. We're mainly left with theorizing. Caplan's list, to me, is a list of underrated explanations for things we observe. For instance, workers' standards of living. The conventional wisdom, that but for government regulation workers would still be dying in mines or there would be child labor, is one theory. And it's true to some (immeasurable) extent. But that would mean we could wipe out poverty by installing American workplace regulations the world over. That doesn't seem like it would solve the problem. Most labor economists would say that government regulation lags the real cause of rising workplace and living standards: "economic growth, which in turn is driven by technological progress, a market system, and a culture of entrepreneurship. As the economy grows, the demand for labor grows, and workers achieve better wages and working conditions." Greg Mankiw goes on: In response to Caplan's assertion that "large group differences persist because groups differ largely in productivity" you charge Caplan as ignorant of history and probably racist. I don't think he's either, but I'd ask you: Why do large group differences exist? That's a sincere, genuine ask. I think the conventional story--institutional and individual sexism and racism--is a theory that explains the state of things to some (immeasurable) extent. But Caplan alludes to another theory: groups have different preferences, affinities, and abilities, largely the result of cosmic forces no one is responsible for. Some of them are uncontroversial, like that women, not men, give birth to children because they have the reproductive organs. Or that men are more often in prison, or on death row, because they are more aggressive and prone to violence than women. More controversial: NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced plans to eliminate the test that apportions seats to the NYC elite high schools and replace with a system that would offer spots to the top students at every middle school in the city. The reason being that the composition of the elite schools does not mirror or even approximate the racial proportions of New York City's population. For instance, the city's public school are 70% African-American, while the most recent admitted class at Stuyvesant, the flagship of the elite high schools, admitted something like only 10 African-American students. That's a racial injustice, which ought to be remedied. However, Asian-Americans, who comprise 16% of students enrolled in city schools, are 62% of the students enrolled at the elite high schools. The composition of New York City's public schools and its elite high schools would seem to foreclose the argument that institutional racism is responsible, since Asian-Americans, the object of animus and racism for much of American history, are so "overrepresented." If invidious discrimination does not explain every disparity, what does? An underrated source of explanation are that there are differences in preferences or inclinations between groups. I'm hesitant to say exactly what they are because I would only be speculating, and it's controversial enough a point already. However, because something is controversial--radioactive, even--therefore it is untrue in principle? I doubt it. I don't follow Caplan's point on mating markets to speak knowledgeably about it. But, again, if the state of the world is not monocausal, then a full accounting would entail lots of theories and explanations, no matter the derision they're met with because of social taboos or political correctness.Economic studies of unions, for example, find that unionized workers earn about 10 to 20 percent more by virtue of collective bargaining. By contrast, real wages and income per person over the past century have increased several hundred percent, thanks to advances in productivity.
The danger of assholes like Caplan is he can bloviate a bilious bag of bullshit and what you say is "the conventional wisdom" is "one theory." This is the principle problem with economics: any given asshole, with the proper backing, can come up with the idea that "monopolies are good" and a whole bunch of chin-stroking American Enterprise Institute troglodytes will throw eighty eight gajillion dollars at propagating the idea that we haven't beaten this shit into the ground and before too long, here's fucking Ben Shapiro, knowing beyond a reasonable doubt that monopolies are good before he knows beyond a reasonable doubt that soiling his diaper is bad. I mean, fuckin' hell, dude. Google image search: standard of living vs productivity HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S AS IF THERE WAS A MASSIVE DECORRELATION THAT PERFECTLY MATCHES CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIC THEORY and you can do this with every single point he makes. Every. Single. Thing. he has to say can be completely discounted and discredited with the barest minimum of effort. It's a fucking house of cards and the really pernicious thing about this shit? You're smart enough to know that. You're smart enough to google this shit yourself. But you don't because there's some smarmy authority figure puckishly arguing that Upton Sinclair was overreacting. Because "work" is a cultural construct and cultures differ. We're just now getting around to the idea that housework is work, despite the fact that we used to sell amphetamines so that women could get through their fucking day. See, this is my problem: this shit is easy but because it's postured as if it's hard you're left agog wondering who said the sky was blue in the first place.Tenet #1: The main reason today’s workers have a decent standard of living is that government passed a bunch of laws protecting them.
Why do large group differences exist?
All I'm hearing from you is that I'm forbidden from thinking these things. And with an urgency that totally confuses me. That workers have become more productive, causing employers to compete for them along axes like higher wages and providing more hospitable working conditions, not only has no explanatory power to you but apparently paints me a mental invalid or worse for thinking, and stupid for falling for. Does that mean people who consider these things are stupid? Even if it somehow did, why would your sanctimony push edge cases like me to your side? You know how hard it is to persuade anti-vaxxers to change their minds with condescension and outrage, and that sort of position actually has clearly persuasive data refuting it. Here we're talking about the economy, something at the edge of our epistemic limits, and I'm getting told I'm stupid for considering critiques 1, 2, 5, and 8 are onto something and worth discussing. I understand that you think Caplan is an invidious, pernicious shit, but surely there are lots of really interesting theories as to why wages and productivity decoupled. And now I don't want to even bring them up because hubski is off limits for this stuff for fear of looking stupid to you. Isn't that precisely Caplan's point? There are group productivity differences not because there's something wrong with black people--a statement nil imputes to Caplan--but because humans are wildly diverse in their preferences, preferences that are psychologically wired to be influenced by our cultural heritages and upbringing, and not because there is a compartmentalized racist shutting seven doors to African-Americans at Stuyvesant but opening four to Asian-Americans.>Why do large group differences exist?
Because "work" is a cultural construct and cultures differ.
The anti-vax analogy is apt. There's an existing body of science that is entirely settled by everyone with any knowledge of the matter, yet a rogue opportunist runs a dishonest study with an n of 6 and all of a sudden we're spending billions re-proving what we already know so that things we beat back through great force of effort decades ago are suddenly infecting young idealists and their children. You are in no way "forbidden from thinking these things." You are, however, entirely deserving of scorn for discarding all intellectual rigor, for accepting it all at face value, for failing to see the rhetorical sleight of hand that produces the framework they hang their ideology on. I haven't taken economics since 1994 and that was like a 200-level class. I've only taken one quarter of statistics. But I can see it's a bunch of assertions and cherry-picked data points simply because I've seen the preponderance of evidence which says the exact opposite of what they say and can find that evidence easily. The difference is I'm looking. you're not. Caplan does not withstand any sort of skeptical scrutiny whatsoever. He's the guy saying anthropocentric global warming is a myth because it snowed last winter. But so many people want to believe that they don't have to feel bad about Walmart workers making nothing that Bjorn Lomborg has a think tank. Thing about the anti-vaxers? They have to Patreon this shit. AEI, just to use one easy example, has 250 people on staff and a budget of $55m. Think all you want but fucking think: Critique: High worker productivity plus competition between employers is the real reason today’s workers have a decent standard of living. In fact, “pro-worker” laws have dire negative side effects for workers, especially unemployment. Caplan's got two links in there but they're not links. They're just his syllabus, which contains no information that he didn't create. Meanwhile, he's arguing that "productivity" and "standard of living" are positively correlated. That's great. That's easy. I can do a google image search on that and find graphs that people who use actual numbers and actual data have assembled to examine this correlation and check it out: The web is full of that graph, or that graph's friends, or that graph's cousins, and I can look at them all and see vetted, scientifically-collected, peer-reviewed data. Then I can go google "worker protections over time" and not do great, but I can know, because I'm a thinking human being, that what Caplan and his ilk mean when they say "worker protections" is "unions" and I can look up "union jobs over time" and I can see this graph and all its friends and all its cousins: So where are we? I'm sure we'll argue whether "per capita income" isn't a direct correlation to "standard of living" and whether Caplan really meant "union participation" when he said "worker protections" because that's the mealy-mouthed shit think tanks like to do - "C02 concentration is not a perfect analog for global temperature increase" and the fact is, a bald-faced lie has just become a disputed fact because they asserted a bunch of horse shit and now we're dickering over what 'union participation' means. Meanwhile, before this bald-faced lie, you were sitting stuck like a patsy thinking that unions are good for workers like your father did and your father's father before him. 'member "truthiness"? The parody there is that sentiment is becoming "fact" because facts are inconvenient and unfashionable. Caplan and crew are what truthiness is all about - here you are, upset that we don't want you believing a bunch of groundless, harmful bullshit just because it happens to be demonstrably untrue. Are you stupid for considering it? No. You're stupid for thinking you're "considering" it when you aren't. You're accepting it. The anti-vax movement is an undiluted evil that has accomplished nothing but division and the outbreak of preventable diseases. It's also a social signifier that broadcasts allegiance to a certain set of values. I'll make you a deal - I'll read your Caplan book as soon as you read The Curse of Bigness and gimme a book report. 'cuz I saw that, too - you take an anti-vax parent and you let them see what being anti-vax means on a practical level and before too long, they're scheduling an MMR. Been there, done that, charged $40 a head. I'n'I be studying the Belle Epoque. In particular, the jewelry of the era and the people it was made for. And you know what? If you were shopping at Cartier in 1910, Upton Sinclair was a rabble-rousing peasant, your world was one of diamonds and platinum. And if you looked at the world in a truthy way, it always would be... ...and may well be again.Tenet #1: The main reason today’s workers have a decent standard of living is that government passed a bunch of laws protecting them.
