"This remains true, by the way, when your fellow citizens have no decent argument for their view. In economic terms, widespread distaste for, say, gay marriage can have a massive social cost even if the only negative side effect of gay marriage is strangers’ unreasoning disgust."
One of the amazing things about these old 2010s Econlog posts getting published is how some of the predictions ended up being wildly off. There have been a couple now.
Back in 2013 Steve Sailer was predicting that gay marriage would kick off transgenderism and the entire gender wokeness wars. Caplan was saying they were dumb bigots whose concerns were laughable and would never happen.
I don't know. Does it have to be an economist? Charles Murray makes a lot of broadly economic arguments in favor of community cohesion, neighborliness, honesty, religiosity and family values. I've read similar things from other authors recently as well - basically pointing to the personal and societal costs of *not* being loosely socially conservative without being overly moralizing or religious. Does it have to point to government policy to be "economics"? I don't see why. And there are government policies that can nudge in this direction without being wildly anti-libertarian or offensively conservative.
If I were to hazard a guess, the lack is explained by the fact that the left has already used those arguments of massive social externalities to drive their agenda. See things like land use regulations, mean speech laws, etc. That makes it somewhat awkward for those on the right to do it, as they have to counter those arguments while using them to support their own preferences.
And, of course, people on the right DO use exactly those arguments, now some 7 years later. Almost zero of them are professional academics, but it has become the popular argument against immigration, semi-legalized drug use, etc.
I suspect then that the argument works for those already powerful enough that their primary preferences are met and rights not imposed upon, as a way to push for their aesthetic preferences to be enforced by the state. Everyone can low key use them for the general meddling and regulation type crap we see local governments getting up to all the time, but at the larger scale really only one can use them at a time because if both do it quickly becomes obvious it is an argument that can only be solved by measuring who cares more. In other words, one can always come up with externalities if you try, so it stops being a compelling point of argument if both sides do it simultaneously.
What's the incentive for a social conservative to make specifically economic arguments for their position?
If they're a professional economist, openly admitting to social conservatism will make them such a pariah that they'll be cut off from any future job that isn't in Republican government or the Heritage Foundation.
If they're not a professional economist, why bother using economic language to defend their position? It's extremely unlikely that they'll influence anyone in the profession, and probably too technical to best reach a lay audience.
You can certainly smuggle in conservative personal values under negative externality. But there's a second lesson here: a lot of liberal personal values are also smuggled in under negative externality. Regarding pollution as a negative externality oft relies on a value judgement that pollution is bad, to give the obvious example. This doesn't mean the idea is wrong, it just means there's no inherent reason to prefer one set of smuggled preferences over another.
I believe this is part of why Milei regards market failures as not existing, but only being smuggled preferences of the state under the guise of these preferences being universal.
"Think about how many people would drastically curtail their use of alcohol, illegal drugs, and casual sex if they deeply cared about their parents’ feelings."
If, as seems likely, concern about parental disapproval has little deterrent effect on use of alcohol, recreational drugs, or casual sex I daresay the main reasons are that a) unmarried adults no longer living under the same roofs as their parents can indulge in such behavior with little reason to fear that their parents will become fully aware of it and b) for most married adults concern about spousal disapproval is a far more effective deterrent.
PS My relationship with my father was more antagonistic than sympathetic, but his opinion of me was nevertheless a matter of considerable concern to yrs truly.
I think the core cause here is that social conservatives usually aren't particularly interested in putting out academic, intellectually challenging arguments for their positions to begin with, the conservative audience has close to little demand for that. "Liberals read, conservatives watch TV", as Hanania put it.
Academic culture and right wing political culture just seem so far apart at this point, there is no constituency in the middle to be targeted, even when it makes logical sense.
"This remains true, by the way, when your fellow citizens have no decent argument for their view. In economic terms, widespread distaste for, say, gay marriage can have a massive social cost even if the only negative side effect of gay marriage is strangers’ unreasoning disgust."
One of the amazing things about these old 2010s Econlog posts getting published is how some of the predictions ended up being wildly off. There have been a couple now.
Back in 2013 Steve Sailer was predicting that gay marriage would kick off transgenderism and the entire gender wokeness wars. Caplan was saying they were dumb bigots whose concerns were laughable and would never happen.
I don't know. Does it have to be an economist? Charles Murray makes a lot of broadly economic arguments in favor of community cohesion, neighborliness, honesty, religiosity and family values. I've read similar things from other authors recently as well - basically pointing to the personal and societal costs of *not* being loosely socially conservative without being overly moralizing or religious. Does it have to point to government policy to be "economics"? I don't see why. And there are government policies that can nudge in this direction without being wildly anti-libertarian or offensively conservative.
If I were to hazard a guess, the lack is explained by the fact that the left has already used those arguments of massive social externalities to drive their agenda. See things like land use regulations, mean speech laws, etc. That makes it somewhat awkward for those on the right to do it, as they have to counter those arguments while using them to support their own preferences.
And, of course, people on the right DO use exactly those arguments, now some 7 years later. Almost zero of them are professional academics, but it has become the popular argument against immigration, semi-legalized drug use, etc.
I suspect then that the argument works for those already powerful enough that their primary preferences are met and rights not imposed upon, as a way to push for their aesthetic preferences to be enforced by the state. Everyone can low key use them for the general meddling and regulation type crap we see local governments getting up to all the time, but at the larger scale really only one can use them at a time because if both do it quickly becomes obvious it is an argument that can only be solved by measuring who cares more. In other words, one can always come up with externalities if you try, so it stops being a compelling point of argument if both sides do it simultaneously.
What's the incentive for a social conservative to make specifically economic arguments for their position?
If they're a professional economist, openly admitting to social conservatism will make them such a pariah that they'll be cut off from any future job that isn't in Republican government or the Heritage Foundation.
If they're not a professional economist, why bother using economic language to defend their position? It's extremely unlikely that they'll influence anyone in the profession, and probably too technical to best reach a lay audience.
You can certainly smuggle in conservative personal values under negative externality. But there's a second lesson here: a lot of liberal personal values are also smuggled in under negative externality. Regarding pollution as a negative externality oft relies on a value judgement that pollution is bad, to give the obvious example. This doesn't mean the idea is wrong, it just means there's no inherent reason to prefer one set of smuggled preferences over another.
I believe this is part of why Milei regards market failures as not existing, but only being smuggled preferences of the state under the guise of these preferences being universal.
"Think about how many people would drastically curtail their use of alcohol, illegal drugs, and casual sex if they deeply cared about their parents’ feelings."
If, as seems likely, concern about parental disapproval has little deterrent effect on use of alcohol, recreational drugs, or casual sex I daresay the main reasons are that a) unmarried adults no longer living under the same roofs as their parents can indulge in such behavior with little reason to fear that their parents will become fully aware of it and b) for most married adults concern about spousal disapproval is a far more effective deterrent.
PS My relationship with my father was more antagonistic than sympathetic, but his opinion of me was nevertheless a matter of considerable concern to yrs truly.
I think the core cause here is that social conservatives usually aren't particularly interested in putting out academic, intellectually challenging arguments for their positions to begin with, the conservative audience has close to little demand for that. "Liberals read, conservatives watch TV", as Hanania put it.
Hans Hermann Hoppe is smilling upon you, Bryan Caplan
Academic culture and right wing political culture just seem so far apart at this point, there is no constituency in the middle to be targeted, even when it makes logical sense.
This was an especially notable essay for me in your "You Will Not Stampede Me."