Posted by Ilya Somin:
Bryan Caplan's "Jock/Nerd" Libertarian Theory of Class Conflict:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_15-2007_07_21.shtml#1184717280
Like me, GMU economist Bryan Caplan [1]rejects the traditional
libertarian taxeater/taxpayer libertarian theory of class conflict
. However, Bryan has put forward his own clever and original
libertarian class theory. It's the [2]Jock/Nerd theory of history:
One of my pet ideas is the Jock/Nerd Theory of History. If you're
reading this, you probably got a taste of it during your K-12
education, when your high grades and book smarts somehow failed to
put you at the top of the social pyramid. Jocks ruled the
school.....
According to the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, most historical human
societies bore a striking resemblance to K-12 education. In
primitive tribes, for instance, the best hunters are on top. If the
the village brain knows what's good for him, he keeps his mouth
shut if the best hunter says something stupid....
With the Jock/Nerd theory firmly in mind, [3]this sentence takes on
a deeper meaning:
We don't take steps to redress inequalities of looks, friends, or
sex life.
Notice: For financial success, the main measure where nerds now
excel, governments make quite an effort to equalize differences.
But on other margins of social success, where many nerds still
struggle, laissez-faire prevails....
Punchline: Through the lens of the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, the
welfare state doesn't look like a serious effort to "equalize
outcomes." It looks more like a serious effort to block the
"revenge of the nerds" - to keep them from using their financial
success to unseat the jocks on every dimension of social status.
I think that my collective action and cross-cutting cleavage
objections to traditional libertarian class theory also apply to
Bryan's jock/nerd theory. I'll leave the details as an exercise for VC
readers.
In addition, I'm not sure that Bryan has the K-12 class structure down
right. It is not the jocks who are the primary enemies of high school
nerds; it is the "cool" and "popular" people. Some of the latter are
jocks, but most are simply people with a combination of good looks,
good clothes, and good social skills. In my experience, most jocks
simply ignore nerds and vice versa. By contrast, the cool people
compete with nerds for dates, social status, positions in student
government, and so on; and at least in high school, the cool people
usually win. In my days as a nerdy high school student, I never lost
anything I really wanted to a jock; far from wanting to "take revenge"
on them, I respected their athletic prowess (from a safe distance).
The cool crowd was a very different story.
Does this distinction have any relevance to Bryan's broader theory?
Possibly. While there are a few ex-jocks in the political class (e.g.
- [4]baseball Hall of Famer Senator Jim Bunning), there are a lot more
former "cool" and "popular" kids. The latter are much more responsible
for the growth of government than the former.
Of course, it's possible that Bryan's high school experience (nerds
oppressed by jocks) is more common than mine (nerds subordinated, if
not actually oppressed, by the popular crowd). Perhaps when we get
done with our current coauthor collaboration, we can do a study of
nerd social dynamics!
References
Visible links
1. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/04/my_calhounian_c.html
2. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/06/redistribution_1.html
3.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/06/what_i_believe.html
4. http://bunning.senate.gov/public/
Hidden links:
5. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_15-2007_07_21.shtml#1184714988
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