Quotable quotes

"Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come."

-- Victor Hugo

One last post on markets and meritocracy

I know, I've already written too much about markets and meritocracy, but I couldn't resist piling on once more. Bryan Caplan fires back at Shikha Dalmia with:

Dalmia approvingly quotes Hayek:

"It is probably a misfortune that, especially in the USA, popular writers like Samuel Smiles and Horatio Alger, and later the sociologist W.G. Sumner, have defended free enterprise on the ground that it regularly rewards the deserving, and it bodes ill for the defence of it which is understood by the general public. That it has largely become the basis of the self-esteem of the businessman often gives him an air of self-righteousness which does not make him more popular."
I'm not convinced. Whenever any other group in society feels disrespected - whether it's women, gays, blacks, immigrants, nerds, or whatever - we advise them to stand up for themselves. We tell them to demand that their fellow citiziens give them the respect they deserve. Why shouldn't businesspeople and high-earners follow the same strategy? Yes, in the short-run, this might be, in Dalmia's words, "off-putting." In the long-run, though, pride movements are pretty effective.

Imagine a world where people feel as uncomfortable publicly criticizing "the rich" as they now feel about lashing out at blacks or gays. Imagine a world where politicians nervously fumble, "I'm not complaining about the rich, merely certain aspects of rich culture, because of course rich people make many great contributions to our society..." It won't be easy, but contra Hayek, this is exactly the direction free-market advocates should be pushing in.

Actually, it's rather common for the more moderate elements of a movement to tell the more radical elements to tone it down. I'm reminded of the classic Onion article, "Gay Pride Parade Gets Mainstream Acceptance of Gays Back 50 Years." Of course it's satire. But the point is that the humor works because lots of moderate liberals have had similar thoughts about the more flagrant and off-putting aspects of the gay pride movement. Libertarians and defenders of busines can make the same mistake, and we should be careful to avoid it.

Could there be a Hominoid Rights Commission?

Why I make a terrible Burkean conservative, chapter 917: I read this article on whether we should clone Neanderthals and thought immediately, "Ooooh, yes! And could I have one to play with?"

I've long found ancient hominoid life fascinating. It's struck me as absolutely wondrous and amazing that humans co-existed with another form of hominoids who were like us, and yet not. There's part of me that wishes I had another career to sink into studying the evolution of humans. As it is, I just content myself with wandering around D.C.'s Museum of Natural History once in a while and marveling at all the exhibits on ancient life.

There's also a fun legal discussion near the end of the article. There was a story that circulated around my law school about an arch-gunner who raised his hand on the first day of Con Law I to ask if the "We the People" clause in the Constitution covered cyborgs. An interesting inquiry, yes... but perhaps not the best one to bring up in an 80 person class, especially if it appears that the professor was more interested in focusing the group on other topics. Note that these issues may alternatively be covered in a one on one colloquy after class, or perhaps during office hours. Law school applicants, take note.

Markets and meritocracy, take two

Shikha Dalmia has an excellent follow-up on the markets and meritocracy question, posted up at Bryan Caplan's blog. My favorite excerpt, which again echoes the point I was trying to make in the advice for young libertarians post:

The view that merit powers markets creates a sense of entitlement on the part of smart people that some portion of the world is rightfully theirs. The world owes them something. This is hugely off-putting to the vast rung of humanity (even non-Rawlsians). The sense of superiority of these smart people blinds them to the broader "ecological rationality" of the environment in which they operate. They think they are the ones who make markets tick - instead of the other way round. They think they are the market and what benefits their business, benefits everybody - a mindset that was captured in the immortal slogan: What's good for GM is good for the country! Two, conversely, when they lose in the market - especially to someone or some product they consider inferior -- they regard it as a symptom of market failure and demand corrective action in the form of government regulations to ensure that their competitors' products meet certain quality standards or are not made in sweat shops etc. etc.

Hayek has a brilliant, finely textured discussion of all of this in the chapter on Social or Distributive Justice in the second volume of Law, Legislation and Liberty that is well worth reading. But let me conclude with Hayek's protest against those who have previously espoused Bryan's position:

"It is probably a misfortune that, especially in the USA, popular writers like Samuel Smiles and Horatio Alger, and later the sociologist W.G. Sumner, have defended free enterprise on the ground that it regularly rewards the deserving, and it bodes ill for the defence of it which is understood by the general public. That it has largely become the basis of the self-esteem of the businessman often gives him an air of self-righteousness which does not make him more popular."

On markets and meritocracy

Bryan Caplan has some harsh words for a Shikha Dalmia piece in Forbes titled "The Fable of Market Meritocracy." I made some of the same points in a post about whether young libertarians should go to law school, so it should be no surprise to anyone that I agree with Dalmia.

Caplan's right, of course, that markets generally do a better job rewarding merit than other systems. Still, I fear he underestimates how off-putting this stuff about markets and meritocracy can be to people who otherwise have some sympathies to libertarian ideas. I can tell plenty of anecdotes from my own experience, but here's a great data point: Ed Kilgore's essay on the crackup of the never very strong liberaltarian alliance. Kilgore concedes some tactical value for his fellow liberals in making alliances with libertarians. He even admits to liking some libertarians like David Boaz personally. But Kilgore can't quite bring himself to embrace a permanent alliance in large part because he's squicked out by "Nietzschean disdain for the poor and minorities" -- i.e. by libertarians' uncritical embrace of the idea that markets promote merit.

Like Arnold Kling, I agree that some of Kilgore's rhetoric about the libertarian movement's secret crypto-racist tendencies is silly. But unlike Kling, I don't want to write off people like this altogether. Even less than perfect liberal allies can be valuable. And at least some of the burden ought to be on us to try to keep them happy. Making an effort to step away from meritocracy-based defenses of markets is a worthwhile start.

Last Lori Gottlieb post -- on optimal search theory

Okay, I am now going to create a private right of action which is enforceable against me if I ever blog about about Lori Gottlieb again. If I ever do, any reader of this blog post can call me on it, and I'll buy you a drink and a nice dinner somewhere in the D.C. area, or else any other city in which the gentle reader and I are both spending time. Sometimes I need the threat of financial loss to do things that are good for me -- i.e. to stop rubbernecking at teh crazies of the Internet.

Pnin and I found a copy of her magnum opus prominently displayed in our local Barnes & Noble. I am briefly considering it reading parts of it while sitting on the floor. Note that I would not buy it -- my morbid curiosity does not run that strong -- but I spend a significant portion of my early twenties sitting on the floor of that Barnes and Noble* reading books that I felt were too stupid to buy and then writing snarky reviews of them. Since I wasn't actually good at making friends with people, this struck me as as good a use of one's twenty-third year of life as any. Some old habits die hard.

Anyway, I made this point to Pnin, and he said, "Actually, someone should write a review about how to apply the insights of optimal search theory to mating." He went on to characterize Gottlieb's thesis as "Women should try to find someone who is right at their reservation price, rather than someone who is above their reservation price. " I would translate Gottlieb's thesis into economic terminology somewhat differently: that women should lower their reservation prices. As I understood her original Atlantic piece, she was arguing that women should set lower minimum standards for what's acceptable in a partner. A third possibility: that she herself doesn't know which way to come out. I'm curious how others would so translate her thesis.

The biocons often are clear that women ought to lower their reservation prices. As I read them, their claim is that most women are in the grip of powerful false consciousness narratives due to Stone Age hard wiring. We're biologically drawn to certain kinds of men who send out signals of dominance, they claim. If we women are left to our own devices, we'll be inexorably drawn to waste our precious years of fleeting beauty pining after a few "alpha" types. We'll spurn all the perfectly appropriate "beta" males only until some too late date at which our ovaries have already dried up. The only way for a woman to avoid this terrible fate is to settle early, no matter her subjective feelings of unhappiness at the prospect. Her subjective feelings are unreliable anyway. Granted, I'm not sure that Gottlieb goes quite so far in endorsing all of this as the biocons do. But she winds up in much the same place, for seemingly the same reasons.

I of course wouldn't endorse that reasoning. I generally don't think "Ignore your subjective feelings now and do what I say; you'll thank me later" is good advice to follow in most other life situations either, such as choosing a college major, graduate program, or job. In the relationship context, inarticulate panic about being victim of a false consciousness narrative generally doesn't work out so well either. Gottlieb's "Fat Like Me" essay may actually illustrate the point. Granted, I couldn't quite figure out whether her issue with "Tim" was that a)she was attracted to him, but other people didn't think he was attractive, and she was embarrassed or b)she wasn't actually attracted to him, but thought that she should be and was going to try to make things work anyway. If the latter, she might have spared the poor guy considerable misery by not trying to force things.

Another interesting point Pnin made: in light of Gottlieb's "Tim" essay, it may make more sense for someone who's demanding during relationships to try to settle in choosing a partner. Of course, for other people, it might make sense to do just the opposite: be selective in choosing a partner up front, but then be as easy-going and laid-back as possible during the course of the relationship. The second strategy is wiser in my view. It's hard to get people to change.

Lori Gottlieb is from Venus. I am from Vulcan.

I suspected that Lori Gottlieb, author of the infamous Marry Him, may have been kind of not the best source of relationship advice. I may have been more right than I realized:

Everything was a test. One afternoon, she calls me at work and tells me I have to come over immediately to kill a spider. I'm like "You realize Diane Keaton already did this in Annie Hall, right?" No, it was evidence of whether I really cared about her, would I stay at work and finish the assignment the senior partner wanted on his desk in two hours, or would I drive to Brentwood and kill the spider for her. So, yeah, that spider made me have to switch law firms and lose several years before I could become partner. Most expensive spider in the world.

But see Double X.

On my fair home planet, things like this do not happen.