No, Conservatives Are Not More "Economically Enlighted"

Conservatives are busy patting themselves on the back today over the results of a Zobgy survey hyped in this Wall Street Journal op-ed that purportedly shows that that liberals don't understand economics. Here's the author of the op-ed:

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Not so fast.  When you take a look at the survey, it's pretty easy to see why it got the results it did.  

Conducted by email (which is never a good way to do things), the survey asked respondents 16 questions that supposedly measure their "economic enlightenment." Of those questions, the authors chose to analyze the responses to just eight.  And if you look at those eight questions, it is readily apparent that a) many of them are confusing and don't have a clear right answer and b) they are specifically designed to trigger different responses from left-leaning and right-leaning respondents. Don't believe me? Let's look at the eight questions.

The survey asks you to agree or disagree with the following statement: "Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited." If you agree, you are deemed "unenlightened." But surely it's true that some third-world workers are being exploited. The statement doesn't say "all." This survey question is completely ambiguous and was undoubtedly interpreted in different ways by respondents. Moreover responses almost surely reflected the respondents attitudes toward large corporations in general, not their economic knowledge.

The survey also asks you to agree or disagree that "Free trade leads to unemployment." If you agreed, you were deemed "unenlightened." But free trade unquestionably does lead to lost jobs. While it may well lead to a net increase in jobs at a national level, the distribution of the gains and losses is uneven both geographically and by industry. If you're, say, a manufacturing worker based in the Midwest, agreeing with this statement is perfectly reasonable. Moreover, this is another issue that has clear partisan implications. Is a conservative respondent disagreeing with this statement because of his economic knowledge or because he heard Rush Limbaugh say something about how free trade is good? Who knows.

The same is true for this statement: "Minimum wage laws raise unemployment." If you disagree, you are deemed "unenlightened." But Nobel Prize winning economists disagree with this statement. The authors of the survey defend this question by suggesting that "the basic logic asked by the question is revealed by carrying it to a minimum wage of, say, $20. Unemployment would go up a lot." But that's not at all what the statement says. Just because some minimum wage laws (i.e. crazy ones) would raise unemployment doesn't mean that all would or, more importantly, that the current minimum wage laws do. Responses to this question are purely a product of policy differences, not economic knowledge.

One of the more bizarre questions asks the respondent to agree or disagree that "Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago." If you disagree, you are "unenlightened." That's not an economic question. It's an empirical question. And responses to it are as likely to reflect differences in respondents' personal circumstances and general optimism/pessimism about the direction of the country as any "knowledge." Moreover, there are a number of ways in which the standard of living has not improved over the last 30 years. Wages, adjusted for inflation, have largely been stagnant during the last 30 years for all but the most wealthy. Moreover, living on just one salary is increasingly untenable, so far more families today have to rely on dual income earners. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to look back on an era in which that was not generally the case and think that the standard of living was higher then.

The remaining four questions are less egregious but have similar deficiencies. 

• Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable. (unenlightened answer: disagree)


• Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those
  services. (unenlightened answer: disagree)


• Rent control leads to housing shortages. (unenlightened answer: disagree)


• A company with the largest market share is a monopoly. (unenlightened answer: agree)

Though these questions are closer to having objectively correct answers, they are still somewhat ambiguous and confusing.  Moreover, all are designed to capitalize on existing left/right fault-lines. Conservatives, who tend to be reflexively hostile to all government action, are much more likely to reflexively get the "right" answers, even if economic knowledge had nothing to do with their thought process.

Given five minutes, I guarantee you I could design a survey that "proved" the exact opposite, that liberals are far more economically enlightened than conservatives. I'd include questions like this:

• Agree/Disagree: Cutting taxes raises government revenue (unenlightened answer: agree!)


• Agree/Disagree: Government spending during a recession can serve to stimulate the economy (unenlightened answer: disagree)

I'm sure that if I do this, the Wall Street Journal will give me a platform to opine about how ignorant conservatives are about economics.

When Propaganda Is No Longer Necessary

Adam Serwer highlights this post from Powerline's Scott Johnson reflecting on the fact that one of the civilians killed in the flotilla raid was a U.S. citizen:

If that is the case--and, again, the facts are not yet entirely clear--it is silly to call him an "American of Turkish descent." He, like the other members of his family, was a Turk. The idea that his presence among the dead raises a special diplomatic problem is absurd; if it does, it shouldn't.

Coincidentally, Scott Rasmussen published a poll this morning that found 58 percent of voters favor the abolition of birthright citizenship. I think the majority is right on this issue. Birthright citizenship is an anachronism, and in some respects a dangerous one, in an era when millions of people travel internationally and millions more enter the U.S. illegally, some for the specific purpose of having a baby here.

As for Dogan, it is reported that he was shot five times at close range, four times in the head. If that is correct, it is reasonable to infer that he was one of those attacking Israeli soldiers with a club, knife or other weapon and was shot in self-defense. The Times quotes his brother saying, on behalf of the family, "we were not sorry to hear that he fell like a martyr."

Well, as long as Rasmussen has a poll showing that a slim majority of people want to get rid of this strange constitutional "anachronism," then by all means, let's make the change. After all, we all know this guy wasn't a real American, right?

As Serwer observes:

Johnson has managed to compile the ugliest tendencies of modern conservatism into three short paragraphs. Conservatives like Johnson are Constitutional purists who reject foreign precedents, but when it comes to the 14th Amendment they cry "anachronism". They're all about individual rights, unless your family happens to come from a Muslim country. They want to limit the power of the state, except when states kill those whom conservatives have verbally excommunicated from humanity.

The only constant moral principle in this brand of conservatism is tribalism. There is an "us" and a "them", and there are simply no rules protecting those deemed outside the tribe that those inside are obligated to follow or respect.

There's another rather disgusting tendency of the American Right on display in Johnson's post: the blind assumption that any Muslim who is killed or captured deserves it. With his keen logic, he notes that if this kid was "shot five times at close range, four times in the head," then "it is reasonable to infer that he was one of those attacking Israeli soldiers with a club, knife or other weapon and was shot in self-defense."

Yes, of course, the only logical inference one can make when presented with a corpse riddled with five gun shot wounds, including four to the head, is that person was shot in self-defense. Someone get this guy a job on CSI. Really, who needs propaganda when there are people out there who, without any prodding, already reason like this?

Let's put aside for a moment the undisputed fact that the IDF initiated the encounter that resulted in this kid's death by dropping armed commandos on to the deck of his ship while it was in international waters. Let's also put aside the undisputed fact that this was a confrontation between armed commandos and activists with, at most, makeshift handheld weapons. Using the term "self-defense" in that context is already a little Orwellian. But doesn't the thought at least cross Johnson's mind that, in all the chaos, some people might have gotten shot who weren't attacking IDF troops? Or that, under the circumstances, some who were attacking IDF troops were doing so out of their own perceived self-defense?

Of course it doesn't. The IDF does no wrong, so if this kid got shot, he must have deserved it. That is the sum total of Johnson's analysis. Anyone the IDF or U.S. military targets deserves it. Anyone who is locked away in Guantanamo is, ipso facto, a terrorist. That's just how guys like Johnson think.

Supporting Allies

In a post at the National Review entitled "What Are Allies For?", Michael Rubin writes the following:

Some of the folks on the left have criticized me for arguing in the Corner that we should stand by Israel in the latest crisis. Sorry— no apologies. Sure, I believe Israel erred by conducting its raid in international waters rather than closer to the Gaza coast. I will never apologize for the U.S. military or that of an ally seeking to use far greater force than our adversaries. We don't go after the Taliban with Kalashnikovs; we go after them with Predators.

The larger issue however — and this is something that, alas, the Obama administration and many self-described realists don't understand — is that allies have intrinsic value, something which simply does not appear in the Walt and Mearsheimer calculation. Countries that support the United States fully deserve our full support. It's not just a question of Israel — the same holds true with Georgia, Colombia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Poland, among others. If the United States gets the reputation of casting allies to a lynch mob to make the United Nations, Russia, China, or Syria happy, then we will soon find ourselves with no allies willing to come to bat for us when we ourselves are down. Likewise, if we want countries to be our allies, we need show the world that their is a value to siding with us.

Apparently Rubin didn't notice this, but the country most incensed by the flotilla attack (because its ships were boarded and its civilians killed) was not Russia or China or Syria, but Turkey, an important ally of not only the United States but Israel as well. Turkey was the country pushing the U.N. resolution. Turkey has been a critical ally of the United States in the Middle East for a long time. Turkey is also a fellow member of NATO, to whom we have mutual defense obligations.

But don't take my word for it. Here's how Michael Rubin himself has described the U.S.-Turkish relationship:

Turkey has been a staunch U.S. ally for more than a half century. Turkish troops fought and died alongside Americans in the Korean War. While countries like France and Germany talk, Turkey acts. In the last 15 years, Turkish soldiers by the thousands have contributed to peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Somalia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Timor, Georgia, and Afghanistan. For more than a decade, Turkey enabled the no-fly zone which provided a protective umbrella for several millions Iraqi Kurds.

To suggest is that we must reflexively side with Israel on the flotilla incident in order to "stand up for an ally" is just ludicrous. This is not about supporting an ally. It is about defusing a conflict between allies, one precipitated by an absolutely bone-headed decision by one of them that resulted in the needless deaths of a number of civilians. By Rubin's own logic, if we simply reflexively side with Israel, will Turkey be willing to "come to bat for us when we ourselves are down"?

Israel's recklessness put the U.S. in a bad position with respect to a number of its other allies (Turkey in particular) and we have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to defend that action, just as Israel would not have any obligation to rush to our defense if we did something similarly stupid that angered one of its other allies.

What Rubin's really saying is that he thinks Israel should be treated differently than other allies, that it deserves to be reflexively defended in all situations, even when that necessarily involves undermining our relationship with other allies. But if that's what he thinks, he should just say it.

Israel's Debacle

I always hate to write about Israel because views tend to be so entrenched that meaningful dialogue simply does not occur. I have no reason to believe it will be any different this time, but here goes nothing:

While we can all watch grainy surveillance footage and debate the propriety of the actions taken by those on the ship after the boarding began (who was the initial aggressor, whether the use of deadly force was needed, etc.), all of that is thoroughly beside the point. Even if you resolve all contested facts in Israel's favor from that point forward, it doesn't change the most fundamental fact: that the entire incident was precipitated by Israel's decision to drop gun-wielding commandos onto the deck of a ship in international waters. The ability of Israel's reflexive defenders to "analyze" the situation while studiously ignoring this central, indisputable fact is truly staggering. The term "Orwellian" comes to mind.

Moreover, I don't see how any sentient being can dispute that this is anything but a massive debacle for Israel. The entire purpose of the flotilla was to make a political point, to bring attention to Israel's embargo of Gaza and, by doing so, make Israel look bad. The Israeli government knew that this was the entire point. And yet they played right into it, creating a public relations disaster of truly epic proportions. As a result, Egypt has ended its embargo of Gaza and the relationship between Israel and Turkey has completely deteriorated, further isolating Israel and frustrating virtually all of Israel's policy goals – including the embargo of Gaza itself.

To suggest that Israel is being ill-served by its current leadership and its reflexive apologists in this country is to severely understate the problem. This is an unmitigated disaster for Israel and denying that only makes the fallout worse.

The Odd Libertarian Conception of Freedom

The flurry of discussion today over GOP Senatorial candidate Rand Paul's ideological opposition to parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a reminder of what a strange philosophy libertarianism is. Paul's position, which is common among libertarians, is that while he is personally opposed to discrimination and supports bans on public sector discrimination, he thinks it is an infringement on freedom for the government to tell the private sector what it can and cannot do and, therefore, he's opposed to the ban on private sector discrimination in the Civil Rights Act. According to Paul, the proper response to private sector discrimination is to attack it by non-governmental means, such as refusing to purchase a company's products or organizing a boycott. While that may not entirely solve the problem, such is the price of freedom.

When you unpack this a bit, you see that it is built atop a number of very strange and dubious assumptions. First, while it is likely true that if – in 2010 – a store were to put up a sign saying "no blacks allowed," market forces would correct the problem without government intervention (people would boycott the store and the negative publicity would be considerable), that's largely a function of the fact that attitudes have changed, in part due to the fact that laws like the Civil Rights Act have made such openly discriminatory behavior completely taboo and unheard of in today's society. It's just blatantly illegal and everyone knows that.

But that was not always the case. In fact, in the Jim Crow South, even if a business wanted to serve both blacks and whites, market forces prevented it. Discrimination was so widespread and accepted that white customers would not dine at restaurants that allowed blacks equal access. If you wanted to run a successful business, you were virtually forced to discriminate. To suggest that this problem would have resolved itself on its own, without something like the Civil Rights Act, is pure fantasy. Nor does it make any sense to say that Southern business owners had more "freedom" prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Only racist business owners were more "free"; those who didn't want to discriminate were decidedly less free.

And what about the millions of people of color in the South (and beyond)? It is beyond dispute that the Civil Rights Act opened up a whole new world for them; they finally had the freedom to dine where others could dine, shop where others could shop, and work where others could work. To suggest that the Civil Rights Act limited "freedom" is bizarre.

But this just highlights what a strange philosophy libertarianism is. While libertarians claims to be driven by a goal of maximizing freedom, what they mean by "freedom" is not what most people take that word to mean. To a libertarian, the only freedom that really matters is freedom from government intrusion. But often, meaningful freedom can only be created through government intervention.

Take education, for example. The existence of a public school system greatly enhances freedom by giving everyone the opportunity to get at least a basic education and opening the doors that go along with that. Similarly, without a social safety net (government programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc.) people would literally starve or die of from lack of medical care and extreme poverty would be epidemic. This isn't conjecture. This was the reality before these programs were put in place. That's not "freedom" in any meaningful sense.

Indeed, in the health care context, I am continually perplexed by the suggestion that universal health care somehow inhibits freedom, rather than enhancing it. How liberating would it be to know that you could do whatever you choose from an employment perspective and not have to worry that you or your family will be denied access to health care? How liberating would it be to know that there's no risk that illness or injury will unexpectedly derail your dreams and bankrupt you? Even if the only freedom you care about is entrepreneurial freedom, how can it be denied that lack of universal health care discourages people from taking entrepreneurial risks, that there are people out there who would love to quit their jobs and start a business but can't because they would lose access to affordable health insurance?

Similarly, government spending on roads, transportation systems, and other infrastructure increases our physical freedom to move around and enjoy our physical environment. Government spending on law enforcement reduces crime and enhances our freedom from a physical security standpoint. Government regulation of industry keeps the air that we breath and the water we drink clean and the food and drugs we ingest safe. It gives us the freedom to enjoy our physical environment and partake of the myriad of products and services available to us without fear and without significant risk to our well-being. These are all very liberating things. I don't know about you, but my conception of freedom is not a world where I can't get a breath of fresh air, can't swim, fish or enjoy the outdoors because of pollution, and am constantly playing Russian roulette every time I go to the grocery store.

I realize there are tradeoffs with everything, that in exchange for these freedom-enhancing benefits, I have to pay a little more in taxes and deal with a little more red tape if I want to do business. But libertarians seem to deny that there is any tradeoff going on; they seem to think that freedom is only a factor on one side of the equation. The reality is that lawmaking involves balancing freedoms. Any law that enhances freedom in one way will almost always reduce freedom in another. Businesses are no longer free to discriminate, but that's okay, because everyone is now free to eat where they want, shop where they want, and seek employment without fear of being unfairly discriminated against. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, on balance, greatly enhanced personal freedom. That Rand Paul can't see this is a function of the bizarre ideological blinders he has on.

Enforcing "Reasonable Suspicion"

Supporters of the Arizona's new immigration law point out--correctly--that the term "reasonable suspicion" has a long history of judicial interpretation dating back to the landmark Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio (1968).  The courts have made clear in other contexts that reasonable suspicion must be supported by "specific and articulable facts"; a mere hunch cannot give rise to reasonable suspicion.  Nor can a suspect's race or ethnicity.  Byron York writes:

As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.

For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal.

Ramesh Ponnuru makes a similar point, arguing that critics "ignore the fact that the 'reasonable suspicion' standard already exists in case law and is not the invention of the Arizona statute." He writes that "[s]peeding and being Hispanic wouldn't be enough to do it."

This is true, but it ignores some important realities. I completely agree that a judge would interpret "reasonable suspicion" in this context very narrowly. A situation like the one described by York, where the circumstances strongly point toward human smuggling, is just about the only situation I can imagine that would survive judicial scrutiny. Certainly looking Mexican or speaking Spanish would not be enough.

The problem with this logic, however, is that it's hard to see how these decisions will be subjected to judicial review.   The reason there is extensive case law interpreting what "reasonable suspicion" means is because defense attorneys routinely move to suppress any evidence procured by way of an illegal stop or frisk, at which point the police must articulate the basis of their reasonable suspicion. If they can't do so to the judge's satisfaction, the evidence is suppressed and the charges are often dismissed. Police quickly learn to follow the rules if they want their charges to stick.

In the immigration context, however, there is no evidence to suppress. Defense attorneys will not have an obvious mechanism for contesting the reasonability of the request for documentation. I can see an occasional civil rights complaint filed by the ACLU or a similar group, but I don't see what circumstances would lead to any kind of routine judicial review of these decisions. The police will largely be on the honor system.

And that's why this law is so problematic. It a recipe for police abuse, for unchecked racial profiling. And even if the police generally do a good job of controlling themselves, the mere spectre of such abuse will only drive the undocumented community farther underground. There will be no cooperation with the police. No reporting of crimes. More fleeing the scene of accidents. More children not getting medical care because their parents are afraid to take them to the hospital. It's just really bad policy.

Are we all epistemically closed?

Responding to my post last week, Rod Dreher of BeliefNet writes:

I get where he's coming from. I really do. But my alarm goes off when he writes about "those [of] us left in the empirical world." Really? You really do think you live in the empirical world? Mind you, everybody believes that he sees the world as it really is, but I am struck by how confident people are that they can't possibly be missing something, that they and their tribe have all the answers, and don't have to consider how their own biases distort reality. Put another way, I'd be interested to know what counts for "empirical" in Anonymous Liberal's world.

He concludes his post--which is entitled "News flash: We are all epistemically closed"–by warning that "we should be cautious about asserting the triumphant truth of our own way of seeing the world. We don't always know what we think we know, and we never know what we don't know."

I whole-heartedly agree with this. We are all, to some extent, guilty of closed-mindedness and indulging personal biases. We all prefer to hear things that re-enforce our existing beliefs. But with all due respect, Dreher's response strikes me as a major intellectual cop out. It's like pointing out that most crazy people believe themselves to be sane and therefore, we should be wary of anyone who claims not to be crazy. After all, we're all a little crazy right? Fair enough, I suppose, but is that really a helpful response? While sanity is admittedly a continuum and none of us are purely rational beings, clearly there is a big difference between, say, your average person and a paranoid schizophrenic.

Similarly, there is a major difference between someone who makes a real effort to expose himself to all relevant facts – even unpleasant ones – and conform his beliefs accordingly, and someone who makes no such effort. We may all be epistemically closed to some degree, but not to the same degree. Some of us are much worse than others.

In proclaiming myself to be a member of the empirical world, I was not claiming to be a perfectly rational super human, someone beyond the reach of bias or the limitations of human knowledge. Rather, I was claiming to be a guy who tries very hard to let facts drive my opinions and not the other way around. In fact, as I explained in my very first post at this blog, I believe that this is what being a liberal, in the classical sense, is all about:

The word “liberal” has been greatly abused over the years, not only by the many critics of liberalism, but all too often by those who (mistakenly) consider themselves to be liberals. So what does it mean to be a “liberal?” Despite the claims of many online personality tests, I contend that it is not possible to determine whether you are a liberal simply by answering a series of pointed questions. This is because liberalism, when properly understood, is not simply a collection of positions on various issues. Nor is it a philosophy concerning the proper role of government in people’s lives (like libertarianism or statism). Liberalism, in its truest and most noble form, is an epistemology; it is a way of approaching problems through the use of empiricism and the application of universal principles of justice. A true liberal is defined not by what he believes on any given issue, but by how he arrives at his conclusions. And those conclusions, whatever they may be, are always provisional, for a true liberal is always open to the possibility that his conclusions are wrong and is always receptive to arguments which are grounded in empiricism and concern for justice.

Indeed, as the Bertrand Russell quote in the masthead says "The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any point lead to their abandonment."

I'm not claiming all or even most self-proclaimed liberals are as open-minded as this quote suggests. Nor am I claiming that I always live up to this ideal. But I do contend, and fervently so, that at least in this country, this ideal is subscribed to by a great many more liberals than conservatives, particularly among those who tend to dominate the political conversation.

The response to Jim Manzi's critique of Mark Levin beautifully illustrates this distinction. If a liberal writer had attacked another liberal writer for having his facts all wrong and engaging in demagoguery, I can't imagine any reputable liberal writer coming to the demagogue's defense. Indeed, the reason you don't see more Levin-esque buffoonery on the left is because there are a great deal more Jim Manzis, i.e. people who would be willing to weigh in and issue a scathing critique.

This dynamic constantly plays itself out on the left. Whenever a writer or commentator strays too far into the realm of polemicism, other liberal writers and commentators make an effort to distance themselves from that person. It is a badge of honor among liberal intellectuals to call out the poor reasoning of a fellow liberal. A left wing version of Mark Levin would never be defended by any respectable liberal commentator and would certainly not be considered a member in good standing in the liberal intellectual community.

Those on the right who value facts and intellectual integrity are often quick to dismiss the epistemic closure problem as being a phenomenon that plays out on both sides of the political spectrum. And that's true, to some extent. But it plays out very differently. The reality is that the liberal intellectual community does an infinitely better job of policing the problem. There a far more people on the left who are willing to call out reality denial when they see it, even among their own ranks. This just doesn't happen nearly as often on the right, and those who engage in it -- see, e.g., Manzi or David Frum -- get ostracized.

Frum himself makes this very point in responding to the Manzi episode:

Manzi could have safely disputed Levin’s claims on global warming if he had observed a couple of conditions. First, acknowledge Liberty and Tyranny as a good and important book. Second, acknowledge Levin’s “service” (i.e., leadership) of the conservative cause. Third, isolate criticisms to one particular finite point – avoid drawing any larger conclusions – and be sure to wrap any criticisms in a blanket of compliments. Just because one particular chapter happens to be slovenly, ignorant, and hysterical should not lead you to question the intellectual merit of the book as a whole.

Manzi negligently violated the rules, and the results are as you see.

Does anyone honestly believe that similar "rules" hold sway on the left? It's not that there aren't left-wing writers who crank out dreck of similar quality to Levin's books, but they just don't rise through the liberal ranks in the same way. The liberal intellectual community isn't nearly as willing to look the other way in the name of the "cause." Put simply, the ratio of Manzis to Levins is very different on the left.