Jim Devine writes:
>> I'm in the midst of reading Dan Ariely's fun book, PREDICTABLY
>> IRRATIONAL. He's an experimental economist (and calls himself a
>> "behavioral" one). So far, he's talked a lot about how we deceive
>> ourselves in choices by paying attention to alternatives which are
>> (strictly speaking) irrelevant, how prices can be determined by
>> marketing efforts rather than by supply and demand, how people are
>> often irrationally fooled by offers of "free!" (like "free" shipping
>> by Amazon.com), and the importance of non-market norms (and what
>> others call intrinsic motivation).
>>
>> Notable is the way in which Ariely is more collectivist
>> ("public-minded") than the dominant school of economics these days,
>> what I call the "Ekon." This may have something to do with the failure
>> of neoliberalism or with his ethnic background: he's an Israeli Jew. A
>> lot of the experimentalists are also Israeli (like SRPE-winner Daniel
>> Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, I believe). This may have
>> something to do with the greater collectivist tradition of Israelis
>> (within the Jewish community) than that seen in the US, especially
>> among economists.
>>
>> Of course, though he sheds doubt on markets, I don't expect Ariely to
>> trash capitalism. It's quite possible for someone to be collectivist
>> without being against class-based exploitation. The "horizontal"
>> dimension of competition, markets, and individual vs. government is
>> separate in some ways from the "vertical" dimension of domination and
>> exploitation.
>>
>> My little finger's in the wind. It feels like the wind is blowing more
>> of Ariely-style collectivism our direction. But note that it can be
>> used not only for good (democratic socialism) but also for evil
>> (paternalistic capitalism or worse).
Quoting GMU economist Arnold Kling:
"At the University of Chicago, economists lean to the right of the economics
profession. They are known for saying, in effect, "Markets work well. Use the
market." At MIT and other bastions of mainstream economics, most economists are
to the left of center but to the right of the academic community as a whole.
These economists are known for saying, in effect, "Markets fail. Use
government." Masonomics says, "Markets fail. Use markets.""
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=101007A
David Shemano
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