Liberal Economists: Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gunfight
Jared Bernstein has offered a muscular and cogent response to my recent take-down of his CAP paper on inequality and growth. (I called it “week-kneed.”)
I’d like to respond to his many excellent points in just two ways.
1. My critique is primarily of his rhetoric, not his reasoning. Progressives, IMO, should be shouting the manifest reality from the rooftops: progressive administrations in the U. S., over many decades and looked at every which way from Sunday, have delivered resoundingly superior economic performance by pretty much every economic measure. (Occam’s explanation: better economic policies.) By contrast, the skyrocketing wealth and income concentrations delivered by the Reagan Revolution have been accompanied by stagnation, instability, and — by many important measures — decline.
Is there incontrovertible evidence that the wealth and income concentration caused that? No. But: is there incontrovertible evidence that cutting taxes and shrinking government creates growth and prosperity? Quite the contrary. Does this prevent conservative economists from endlessly laying claim to such “manifest’ benefits? Hell no.
Liberal economists like Jared tend to be — and understandably like to see themselves as — reasonable, curious people. They like to look at the evidence and suss out what they can say definitively, then speak carefully when going beyond that. That’s understandable. But it’s also crippling to the progressive agenda. Economics and the constructs on which it is built are inescapably normative — centuries of faux-positivist theorizing notwithstanding. Conservatives pretend otherwise while unabashedly overstating their supposedly positivist case, to further their normative goals. Liberals — admirably, but unfortunately for the cause — do not respond in kind. Again: I think it’s time for liberal economists to start taking their own side in this inevitably normative argument.
2. I didn’t offer an alternative to Jared’s statistical construct because I don’t have the statistical chops. I’m an amateur. I dismissed his construct without offering an alternative — very fair point. But I did suggest the multiple-lag-based statistical methodology (Dube’s or similar) that I think professional economists should be employing. (And I showed a little amateurish example of it that I did manage to cobble together.) It requires some serious statistical skills that Jared may not have handy in his holster, but that he and his circle could easily lay hands on within his economics milieu.
Now maybe the newly launched Washington Center for Equality and Growth is currently funding exactly this kind of sophisticated analysis of the MPC/Velocity of Wealth hypothesis (a.k.a. “underconsumption”), and I just haven’t heard about it. But I am quite sure that liberal economists have not pursued that promising hypothesis with even a scintilla of the spectacular energy that conservatives have devoted to trickle-down, inequality-drives-growth arguments.
Should liberal economists be cherry-picking economic measures and analytic methods, and distorting the import of their findings, the way conservatives do? No. Should they at least be seeking out promising data and methodologies to explore (and support) the MPC argument? With only a hint of trepidation, I say yes. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
The judicious thoughtfulness that Jared displays does have rhetorical value. It gives credibility to the progressive movement that he represents. Tyler Cowen is a great example on the other side. His curious thoughtfulness on so many subjects is a remarkably effective camouflage for the Mercatus Center that he heads, even while Mercatus is broadcasting blizzards of tweets about Fox-News hobby-horses like the Export Import Bank — relatively unimportant but base-rabidizing topics that Tyler (sensibly) has little or no time for.
Liberals have the judiciousness, but not the fire-eating that the judiciousness supports.
If you want to look “reasonable” in a gunfight, bring a gun.
As usual, Steve Randy Waldman has said this all far better — and more judiciously — than I.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Steve:
A little Robert Frost on Kennedy for you: “A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.” or maybe
William Ernest Hocking, “What Man Can Make of Man”: “He lends himself to the gibe that he is ‘so very liberal, that he cannot bring himself to take his own side in a quarrel.’”
Hat Tip; “The Big Apple,” Barry Popik
We really do not have a champion to fight these fights and when we do fight, we quarrel amongst ourselves on how it should be said.
A bit off topic, but the saying don’t bring a knife to a gunfight annoys me, because it is not accurate.
At close range a person with a knife can probably stab a gun wielder at least once (if not multiple times) before the gun can even be brought into play (and after someone is stabbed they probably won’t be able to shoot straight).
The saying has been shown to be false in demonstrations over and over and yet it refuses to die, annoys me to no end.
Alright, I’m done with my rant.
There is a strain of Progressivism that is oriented towards technocratic solutions – the answers are always in the data. There’s something to be said for that but the data aren’t always clear and let’s not forget that political economy, for economics without the modifier is little more than a rather imprecise banal toting of figures, also rests on political philosophies that touch on justice and equity. After all, Adam Smith’s first and maybe greatest work was “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”.
I am not suggesting that liberal economists should lie or dissemble or hide data and facts that contradict their premise, lord knows the other side has perfected the use of the Big Lie to no earthly good, but let’s not forget that economic policy must rest on some sort of normative philosophy and a set of moral values.
A society that is based on full employment, an economy where people who want a job can find one is more just than a society where humans are treated as reducible inputs. For good or bad we have a consumer economy and a broad opportunity for people to participate in a meaningful way in the economy cannot be sustained in a society with high levels of extreme inequality.
Bernstein may not be able to tease his data into a slam dunk but if they generally support the concept of MPC and if the underlying principles of a just economic system are sustained then there’s no reason not to paint the most positive picture that is honestly and reasonably possible.
@axt113:
It would depend on the nature of gun fight. If any distance is involved…
@Mark:
I know you’re agreeing with me but one I think important correction:
“the answers are always in the data”
This is exactly like the common response to people who think there are genetic explanations for human character.
“Genetics doesn’t explain everything!”
Obviously. Straw man. Nobody says that. Ditto data/technocratic-oriented progressives.
But you can’t say anything useful about human nature if you don’t look at the genetics research (especially twin studies).
We can leave it to liberal politicians to wield the rhetorical hammer. Economists could deliver unto them a well-made hammer
“economic policy must rest on some sort of normative philosophy and a set of moral values”
One of my points here is that economic policy, and economic thinking, as well, inevitably does.
But I’d suggest that Americans want to hear about prosperity. Talk about fairness, and sadly, many or most of them change the channel.
“A bit off topic, but the saying don’t bring a knife to a gunfight annoys me, because it is not accurate.”
It’s not accurate only to those as ignorant as those who believe in the Libertarianism.
Personal experience with direct intervention for more than 15 years in physical violence.
Sorry, but you’re wrong Beene.
In fact I was looking around after I posted and found a video where mythbusters in fact tested the idea and found that someone with a knife within 16 feet could stab someone with a gun before they could shoot.
So don’t take my word for it, its been tested
Mark
thanks. i don’t think i am disagreeing with you: “moral” issues invariably fall afoul of different perceptions as to what is moral. it may be that “moral” is an important part of the human experience and it needs to be discussed, but there is an overwhelming amount of “self interest” in behaving “morally.” that is an aspect of economics that is worth at least attempting to point out to people .
“moral” may be (i think it is) a transcendent “fact” of the universe, but what humans usually think of as “moral” is often nothing more than the degree of cooperation necessary to sustain… and reap the advantages of… community life.
the cliche about “your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins” is in fact a self reinforcing moral concept that leads either to war or to normal human behavior in any social group not infected by the success of sociopaths,
Axt
i don’t mind “off topic” much myself. but your proposition, while interesting up to a point, stops being interesting at sixteen feet.
Fact is that working in club of rednecks for two plus years, and mentally challenged and disturber (back then elites said you could not be retarded and crazy) from 65 to 77 dealing with armed individual less than arms length was never cut. During that time in my live my size was only 5′ 10′ 160lbs.
Coberly, in an interview with a police officer about Furgerison shooting the officer said deadly force was permitted if an armed individual was within 27 feet, and this is not the first time I have hear a public official state this distance for using deadly force.
Roth
perhaps many or most of them change the channel because they have seen this movie before and they just don’t agree with you that “equality = morality.”
ah, well, i note that this time you said “fairness” instead of “equality.”
trouble is, with words, people hear the words in their heads that “mean” something different to them than the word in your head means to you. and if you insist that your logic is “air tight” and your facts “solid” and there is something morally wrong or intellectually irresponsible in their failure to agree with you… well, you might be right but you can hardly expect them to agree with you.
then of course you need to discuss further what “fairness” means. and still they may not agree with you.
been working on that myself for a few decades.
Beene
fun topic. i think the police like to give themselves a margin of error.
there is something about lions and zebras (or wolves and deer).. a zone within which the predators short distance speed will catch the preys long distance speed (and reaction time)… this is the distance at which the prey will bolt. further away than that is not worth the energy cost to them. I have no idea how “true” this turns out to be in real life, but i suspect axt had a point he “needed” to make, and the distance factor was not part of his thinking at that time.
as far as off topic goes… well, there was the whole “genes aren’t everything” rabbit trail respectfully declined by yrs trly.
Beene
conversations in the best parlors often turn to new subjects as they come up.
i would hazard a guess that you were lucky… most of those people did not WANT to cut you. it was a bluff. i know there are people faster than me (and i was faster than some) but i imagine a person who knows what he is doing can disarm the average drunk without getting hurt… still, you know, “sure, you’re fast, kid, but somewhere, someday, out there there is some young kid coming up trying to make a name for himself who’s going to be faster…”
Roth
the “strawman” straw man
If you say the moon is made of green cheese, and I say ‘but what about the rocks they brought back from the moon?”… and you say, “that’s a straw man, nobody said the moon was made ENTIRELY of green cheese!”
then i could retreat in confusion confronted by your superior logic, or i could walk away in disgust thinking there is a man whose education was wasted on him.
while nobody said “genetics explains everything” that is a point certainly worth clarifying before continuing the discussion.
point here is that reaching for the straw man straw man is shooting yourself in the foot.
Coberly, you’re right.
My issue is that this sort of information is being used to justify unreasonable tactics of police departments; and unfortunately most of the public believes these stories.
Beene
i’m glad you put it that way. i was a little slow picking up on it.
Coberly, as you stated earlier that some did not really intend harm. Which is true, I would say more than 3/4s were handled with patients and listening.