Robin Hanson wrote:
> I know that Bryan Caplan would say that people as consumers and people as
> voters are just two different sets of preferences, and there is no particular
> reason to expect much consistency between them. But that's a pretty unusual
> position, so I didn't necessarily expect Bill to agree with it. The theory
> that people as voters recognize and adjust for their failings as consumers
> works a lot better for self-control problems than for ignorance problems.
> If people as voters know that people as consumers should get more college,
> then why don't they just go get more college as consumers?
Avoiding all responsibility by arguing another person's view is fun.
Given what Bill said earlier, the most natural position for him seems to
be precisely that people suffer a self-control problem when they make
personal schooling choices. After all, he says that people overestimate
the return to schooling, but underinvest relative to the actual, lower
rate. And he points to over-emphasis on immediate pleasure and pain.
Fits the usual self-control mold.
> But under the theories of irrationality that the topic here, people can be
> quite wrong, and irrationally wrong, even when they feel comfortable and
> feel pretty sure. If you're going to posit an irrational ability to reason
> and accept advise in ordinary people, you must be willing to posit such
> phenomena in elites and their advisors.
You always say this. Why? The fact that *those dummies* are irrational
and don't realize this hardly implies that I might be one of those
dummies. Dogs are stupid and don't realize this. It hardly implies
that I might be as dumb as a dog.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I was so convinced that soon, very soon, by some
extraordinary circumstance I should suddenly become
the wealthiest and most distinguished person in the
world that I lived in constant tremulous expectation
of some magic good fortune befalling me. I was
always expecting that *it was about to begin* and I
on the point of attaining all that man could desire,
and I was forever hurrying from place to place,
believing that 'it' must be 'beginning' just where I
happened not to be."
Leo Tolstoy, *Youth*
