Jim Devine writes: >> I don't remember being asked about what motivates politicians (e.g., >> Reagan, Bush41, Clinton, Bush43, and Obama). But no matter: most of >> them want money and/or continued success in politics. Those who don't >> do so don't rise to the top. >> >> > To put it another way, we have Rod Blagojevich, politician extraordinaire. >> > Where is >> the actual example of the academic economist acting as the fine Governor? >> ... < >> >> You're looking for a philosopher-king's modern equivalent, the >> economist-governor? The current presidents of Mexico and Ecuador >> (Felipe Calderón and Rafael Correa) are economists. The latter seems >> pretty good, while the former seems to be an IMF hack. Likely Correa >> does not fit the Platonic ideal of the philosopher king, however. >> Nobody's perfect.
No. You are entirely missing the point. The issue is what conclusion do we draw from the fact that so many academic economists (and industry economists) mispredicted the events of 2008. My conclusion is that if academic economists got it wrong with their institutional incentives, how could we ever expect political actors, with their instiutional incentives, to make better predictions and decisions than the academic economists. I referenced Blagojevich because he exemplifies political action and incentives -- he holds power and determined to trade that power for things he wanted, regardless of whether he truly believed what he wanted was in the general interest. Comparatively, where is the academic economist, situated in academia, who truly believes one thing but says another in order to achieve objectives? I agree it is theoretically possible, but rare as a factual matter, unlike political actors, for whom it is every day business. We see what happened to Christina Ro! mer -- she said one thing as an academic and an entirely different thing as a political actor. If I have to choose which is more likely to be correct and what she truly believes, I will go with her academic statements. >> > I don't doubt there is academic groupthink, academics come with >> > preconceived >> notions, etc.< >> >> It's more than groupthink. That's a social-psychological phenomenon, >> usually occurring with a bunch of peers. What inflicts economists is a >> guild-like hierarchy of punishment and reward that fits well with the >> capitalist system. If true, even more so for political incentives and institutions, whether liberal, socialist, etc. >> >In fact, it is amazing that every academic on this list is consistently >> >wrong on every >> important issue.< >> >> That's a very bold statement. I'm an academic economist: please, name >> one important issue upon which I am "consistently wrong." Economics. Politics. C'mon, take a joke. >> >But to think that it is more likely that political actors, cetis [sic] >> >paribus, are better >> incentivized than academics to reach disinterested truth-seeking >> conclusions, and in >> fact that is what occurs? < >> >> I, for one, doubt that political actors face better incentives to >> reach disinterested truth-seeking conclusions than academics are. In >> fact, I don't think anyone thinks that political actors face these. >> Who are you talking about, David, who has this opinion? Anybody who believes that because economists got it wrong in 2008 because of institutional incentives, that demonstrates that economic decisionmaking should be more centralized in political actors. J'accuse! >> The case of politicians is like that of businesspeople, who also face >> bad incentives when it comes to disinterested truth-seeking >> conclusions. Since businesscritters seek profit at all cost and don't >> face the same urge to reach collective compromises, they're probably >> worse than politicians. But of course, the overlap between those two >> sets is gigantic in a business society like the US. There are a lot of >> people like Blagojevich who carry business ethics to their logical >> conclusion in politics. Based upon this statement, I must believe you have never been involved in a business in you life. In your attempt to treat businesspeople and politicions as equivalent in incentives and behavior, I truly believe you are caricaturing (on average) businesspeople and idealizing (on average) politicians. Stop reading Marx and do some fieldwork. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
