Tyler Cowen comes to his defense.
I’ve disagreed with Gruber from the beginning on health care policy and I thought his ObamaCare comic book did the economics profession — and himself — a disservice. But I’m simply not very interested in his proclamations on tape, which as far as I can tell are mostly correct albeit overly cynical.
My remarks:
1, Gruber is not paid the big bucks to be a political tactician. In particular, whether or not Obamacare was sold deceptively was not his call to make.
2. For me, the problem with democracy is not the intelligence, or alleged lack thereof, among voters. I just think that the wisdom of crowds is channeled more effectively through exit than through voice. As for democracy, it is a good way of arranging for the routine replacement of high-level officials. It is otherwise much over-rated.
3. Gruber is paid the big bucks because he has a quantitative model of how insurance health reforms will play out. Relative to most academic economists and policy makers, my level of trust in such models is rather low. For me, it would be a better world if Gruber and his model were not held in such high regard. But I would have made this point, and probably did so, before the recent controversy.
4. If you need proof of Gruber’s contempt for your intelligence, all you need to do is skim the comic book to which Tyler refers. The comic book left me with the impression that Gruber lives in a Krugmanesque bubble, in which any disagreement must be dismissed as stemming from extreme ignorance and/or evil intent.
5. I think that the extent to which the attacks on Gruber have become personal is something that every economist, regardless of ideology, will come to regret. I am all for criticizing the ideas and the world view that underlie Obamacare. However, a world in which every economist who steps into the policy arena is subjected to opposition research and “gotcha” attacks is not going to be pretty.
I think a lot of Gruber’s quibbles were probably correct if you can view his statements without an ideological lense.
I thought the most telling part of his speech was when he admitted there were facets of the bill that weren’t very well understood and were based on assumptions that couldn’t yet be proven. And he’s the Official Healthcare Guru.
He also spoke about how humility in the face of knowledge limitations was very important for both economists and politicians.
I think that’s all very good. I agree with him.
The problem is that attitude is categorically at odds with his own responsibilities and the bill itself.
“All For One and One For All” and “The World’s Complex, We Can’t Truly Know What We’re Doing And Unintended Consequences Are Inevitable” are strange bedfellows when you’re tasking yourself with intelligent design.
Arnold, you write:
“I just think that the wisdom of crowds is channeled more effectively through exit than through voice. As for democracy, it is a good way of arranging for the routine replacement of high-level officials. It is otherwise much over-rated.”
Three questions:
First, isn’t the “peaceful discharge” feature of democracy, that you consider its best aspect, just the top of the democratic iceberg? Do we not need a lot of democratic play, interaction, and structure underneath before we can hope to avail ourselves of this feature?
Second, in light of my hypothesis that you need a lot of democratic substructure to enjoy “peaceful succession,” what does it mean to say democracy is “otherwise much over-rated?”
Third, is it not a contradiction to favour individual freedom, while at the same time wishing away mass political participation?
Fourth, “exit” is a cool term, but what does it mean in a free society with no despotic restrictions to political participation?
And finally, personally, as a libertarian, I find it hard to know how to act as the channeller of “the wisdom of crowds.”
Democracy, I surmise, is the response by which a free society guards against efforts at such channelling.
I suspect, democracy is not primarily about fostering and utilising wisdom, but about trust-building among millions of people who are ignorant and rationally ignorant about (1) one another and (2) the conditions of peaceful coexistence on a high level of productivity, playing a game called democracy so as to find and test practices of minimal, non-violent trust in mass society.
The outcomes of the democratic game may often be stupid and unpalatable but if condition (2) is consistently maintained, we have achieved a lot.
Imagine a world in which many of the services of existing governments — especially large ones — were shifted to some combination of (a) private businesses (b) voluntary clubs (c) social circles and (d) smaller governments, such as municipalities. Then “exit” would mean moving your custom, your membership, your friendship or occasionally even yourself to another partner.
Politics and the State (P&S) are inescapable – there is no “exit” from P&S.
It seems a case of “déformation professionelle” especially among economists to have a hard time appreciating this.
P&S is more fundamental than economics in that it can control more factors vital to individuals and humankind than can be achieved by “well-behaved” market behaviour. The options for economic behaviour are set by P&S.
One of the very few economists who did understand that there is “no exit” from P&S is the late Armen Alchian:
“To change the move toward socialism, we must change the ability of various forms of competition to be successful. I know of no way to reduce the prospective enhancement from greater political power-seeking, but I do know ways to reduce the rewards to market-oriented capitalist competition. Political power is dominant in being able to set the rules of the game to reduce the rewards to capitalist-type successful competitors. It is rule maker, umpire, and player … But I have been unable to discern equivalently powerful ways for economic power to reduce the rewards to competitors for political power! Each capitalist may buy off a politician, but that only enhances the rewards to political power.”
Armen Alchian in The Collected Works of Armen A. Alchian, Volume 2, in Economic Laws and Political Legislation, p.604.
I don’t think that P&S commits us to an unavoidable movement toward socialism, but be this as it may, my fellow-libertarians’ “economistic” disregard and even disdain for P&S isn’t particularly helpful.
>> P&S are inescapable
Yet, I can move from city to city and state to state and live under a different set of rules.
Maximizing the role of exit means devolving as much of P&S to the lowest level possible while permitting movement among the entities.
Thanks for your thoughts. I’m basically with you, Jody.
However, we’re beginning to exhaust the precision of our terms.
(I would be careful to use the phrase “maximising exit,” when I am sure you mean . But this is nitpicking on my part.)
What exactly does “exit” and “voice” mean? We’ll have to work on that in future exchanges.
However, your answer indicates that we have a very similar understanding of the terms, for the time being.
If so, “exit” (opting for the most acceptable set of political constraints from an attractive spectrum of choices) would seem to require a lot of “voice” (political participation to make subsidiarity happen).
The missing quote in my reply to you is:
… when I’m sure you mean “putting EXIT to good use …”
‘…what does it mean to say democracy is “otherwise much over-rated?”’
Kling’s answer: “…the wisdom of crowds is channeled more effectively through exit than through voice.”
I know many people who think democracy is THE way to channel the wisdom of the crowds and think of it as no other way exists. For these people, their view of democracy is certainly overrated.
They’d die clinging to their cell phones, but not the politician they voted for in the last election and they never think about why that is.
” I think that the extent to which the attacks on Gruber have become personal is something that every economist, regardless of ideology, will come to regret. I am all for criticizing the ideas and the world view that underlie Obamacare. However, a world in which every economist who steps into the policy arena is subjected to opposition research and “gotcha” attacks is not going to be pretty.”
Economists have a choice on how personal it gets by deciding how honest, professional, and fair they will be in a current controversy. Part of the blame in this particular case falls squarely, and justifiably, on Gruber himself.
Consider his comments on the Halbig problem. There is a tape of him saying, before the case, that the line in the law with state-only subsidies was a conscious and deliberate choice to financially and politically pressure recalcitrant states into joining the program. Later, when it was decided to go ahead with federal subsidies, his past statement was inconsistent with the spin of all the other advocates, and so he decided to reverse himself and assert it was merely a ‘type’, rather than maintain his intellectual integrity, thinking he wouldn’t get caught. But he got caught.
And the response by – one can only assume – his allies to his latest statement was not to provide him a forum to explain – perhaps with some video below the embarrassing one – but instead to shove it down the memory hole and make it unavailable to the public. None of this inspires trust, and that’s why it got personal, because the question became, “Can this particular man be trusted?”
The question is whether the public can trust the policy-relevant pronouncements of academic experts. Are they telling the truth and being fair to rival points of view, or are they partisan hacks, playing favorites, talking their book, and portraying their opponents in manner most likely to lower their status in the public eye?
If one wants to maintain a reputation for being above the fray, and the respectful, depersonalized treatment that goes along with it, then one has to stay out of the arena, especially the dirtier parts, to the extent possible. He didn’t.
The argument here seems to be based on free-speech principles. “Any censorship, even of clearly bad speech, opens the door to the normalization of censorship in much more debatable cases, which is bad for discourse, especially contrarians trying to correct an erroneous mainstream view, and probably bad for me personally.” In this case, it’s “Any ‘personalization’ of public attacks against a partisan and politically-active Economist open the door …. ”
Ok, that’s not a bad argument in general. But in this case, one can say that so long as economists stay out of the area and stick to positive assertions they can say what they like and their ideas should be criticized in a professional, depersonalized way, consistent with the above principle. But when they start playing dirty too, they shouldn’t be surprised when they get mud on their face.
My thoughts exactly!
Very well said!
Over the last few months I have had a number of conversations with surgeons about an operation I intend to have. I am constantly amazed by their ability to explain complex matters in a way that someone with no medical training can understand.
Here we have the exact opposite: a “professional” economist using his skill and knowledge to hide and deceive. This is why it is right to attack Gruber (and he is not the only economist deserving this treatment).
Agree with Handle 100%. I would just add that Gruber, like the rest of the Democratic Party and the MSM, was trying to deceive middle class American voters into acquiescing to the establishment of a new healthcare system that, for the majority of them, is contrary to their interests – reducing the quality of their healthcare to finance marginal improvements in healthcare for the poor (including those immigrants, legal and illegal, we are told the country needs so much). In other words, the man was party to a fraud. He deserves no sympathy. He deserves contempt and shunning. Sad that the only price he will pay is removal from the public spotlight.
“a world in which every economist who steps into the policy arena is subjected to opposition research and “gotcha” attacks is not going to be pretty.”
That’s not what happened here. Gruber is in trouble for speaking words in public that he meant to say.
Don’t confuse journalistic due diligence, that journalists no longer do to liberal speakers, with oppo research.
I don’t know why people keep trying to give this guy sympathy. His lying was extreme and apparent. Why would I ever trust anything he says again?
He should be professionally shunned.
I suspect your level of trust in his model is not all that much lower. Economics and politics are both games of strategy where nothing remains stationary and to assume they do is a mistake.
For me, the problem with democracy is not the intelligence, or alleged lack thereof, among voters. I just think that the wisdom of crowds is channeled more effectively through exit than through voice. As for democracy, it is a good way of arranging for the routine replacement of high-level officials. It is otherwise much over-rated.
I would like to see some country try un-bundling to see if it improves democracy. You would separately elect a president for schooling, fro benevolence etc.