Two recent discussions.
by weeding out millions of irresponsible voters who can’t be bothered to learn the rudimentary workings of the Constitution, or their preferred candidate’s proposals or even their history, we may be able to mitigate the recklessness of the electorate.
Like most economists, I was a bit baffled by the Administration’s announcement of stricter overtime rules. The Jonathan Hartley and many others cover the obvious consequences on jobs, business formation and destruction, and so forth. A bit less mentioned, it reduces employee flexibility. If you like working more hours one week and less the next — perhaps you have child or parent care responsibilities — you’re going to be stuck working an 8 hour day. It’s part of the general regulated ossification of American employment. Or, it could be one more inducement to substitute machines for people or make people independent contractors.”>WSJ, and Jonathan Hartley and many others cover the obvious consequences on jobs, business formation and destruction, and so forth. A bit less mentioned, it reduces employee flexibility. If you like working more hours one week and less the next — perhaps you have child or parent care responsibilities — you’re going to be stuck working an 8 hour day. It’s part of the general regulated ossification of American employment. Or, it could be one more inducement to substitute machines for people or make people independent contractors.
As far as I know, the economically ignorant rules that Cochrane complains about were not demanded by the economically ignorant voters that Harsanyi complains about. So I think that the problem of ignorance is more complex than Harsanyi implies. Perhaps the elites are a bit less ignorant than the masses. Perhaps if the ignorant masses did not vote, elites would lean toward better better policies. Perhaps, but I doubt it.
My own view is that at the very highest academic levels, economics is a mess. At elite colleges, inane “sustainability initiatives” are launched without a peep of protest from the economics department. Macroeconomists still fill the air with the mumbo-jumbo of aggregate demand. There is much talk of market failure and hardly any talk of market self-repair or political failure.
I am most troubled by the bad intellectual habits of economists and other academics. My hope is that the ideas in my forthcoming book will eventually be re-discovered. Although hardly anyone is going to read the book, other authors with similar ideas may at some point prove successful. Restore sanity in the academy, and then see if the ignorance of the general public is still a large concern.
You value academy too much
To me it seems easier to explain bad economic laws by public choice principals combined with the voters rational ignorance.
I don’t believe having wiser wise men would effect (affect?) those
A very pertinent example of the ignorance of economists here.
Ignorant electorate, evil elite, pick two!
What a great game! Can I get up from the table yet?
Well, to put it in less humorous terms, here is the game as my mental model puts it: government’s job is to feather their nest. The electorate’s job is to vote in their interests. So, that means government’s goal is to sell feather-nesting policies in a,way that they will sell to voters. So, voters buy new overtime rules because they sound like fairness. But why does the government want them? Sometimes making voters feel dependent is enough. I suspect just having more dirt on employees and employeRs is the case here. As I told my salaried when she asked about this rule, I think the first thing that happens is the employer TELLS you you can only work 40 hours. The next thing that happens is everyone starts lying on their time cards. Then next comes the lawsuits.
And then, there is that character from Hardy Cross Dillard’s “Contracts” Course: The Officious Intermeddler [OM].
Consider all the relationships that are now intruded upon by some OM or the other – and very broadly by the Federal Administrative State, on top of all the other local and associative bodies, like the San Francisco City Council and its ilk; those “Community Creators” building shelters for those who want a “personal identification” without the choice burdens and consequences of individuality.
You should take a lesson from Trump and stop selling your book short.
I agree.
We’ll all read the book! Some of us, at least.
On (2), is there any reason at all to believe that the decision was made based on economic reasoning, faulty or otherwise?
I rather doubt it is so. I suspect that in the “oppressor/oppressed” scale, not only requiring, but even offering–*tempting*–people to work overtime is a form of oppression. In this view, it would need stopped even if the employees were happy for the overtime work.
Cui Bono? Do we know who benefits?
For example, you can sketch out a “Winners and Losers” table for the outcomes of raising the minimum wage in New York State. Then you can see if the Democratic Party gets support from well organized interest groups that benefit (It seems to me that’s the case). It hurts “poor ghetto Blacks” but they won’t stop voting Democratic anyway. .
I am reminded of something that Deirdre McCloskey said about a salient difference between Milton Friedman and George Stigler.
Milton Friedman thought that people could be educated to be less ignorant, blinkered, and stupidly naive. If you (or Milton Friedman) could point out that certain policies had perverese outcomes, some well meaning idealists would stop supporting the bad policies. Walter E. Williams is like this. Presumably most old fashoined price theorists.
I never understood the Stigler viewpoint as well, which was somehow summarized as the outcome of “a dumb beast.” Either the political economy produces inexorable outcomes (the economy itself is a dumb beast), or maybe people are like a “dumb beast” and just can’t wise up, they are “like a fool to his folly” and you can’t clue them in.
= – = – = – =
I think orthogonal to those two arguments is the impulse of the narcissistic Social Justice Warrior who just wants to feel the warm glow of fighting the good fight, “being on the right side of things.”
I’m uneasy about categorizing demographics as “poor ghetto Blacks,” as I did above. Walter E. Williams said it better:
“In our society, the least skilled people are youths, who lack the skills, maturity and experience of adults. Black youths not only share these handicaps but have attended grossly inferior schools and live in unstable household environments. That means higher minimum wages will have the greatest unemployment effect on youths, particularly black youths.”
Read more at http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams011316.php3#8WA1QbUzdG2ml4Iv.99
I don’t like the overtime rules but Johnny Cochrane does not understand a thing about the worker and employer relationship. The main reason for the exception on overtime is so the employers can ‘pressure’ employers to work more hours for free.
Otherwise, reading parts of 1) and listening to the updates on the Libertarian Party Convention, it is no surprise the Party can’t go anywhere.
The reason the libertarian party can’t get traction are the same reason the R & Ds don’t have to nominate good candidates.
I’m sure that happens, but also some jobs are better suited to such rules. Many regulations assume 9-5 set factory hours, without seasonality, etc.
Once you start forcing the irregular jobs into the regular peg holes, bad things happen.