Schumpeter was nothing if not quotable. Readers who are currently students will appreciate this one:
“Moreover, professors are men who are constitutionally unable to conceive that the other fellow might be right. This holds for all times and places.”
-Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 82.
Schumpeter believed that, because people are fallible creatures, even the scientific method isn’t entirely objective. Ideology is reflected in, say, a scientist’s (or an economist’s) choice to research one topic instead of another, or the patterns they find (or miss) while interpreting the data:
“It embodies the picture of things as we see them, and wherever there is any possible motive for wishing to see them in a given rather than another light, the way in which we see things can hardly be distinguished from the way we wish to see them.”
-Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 42
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Posted in Books, Economics, Great Thinkers, The Partisan Mind
Tagged ideology, j.a. schumpeter, joseph schumpeter, schumpeter, scientific method
I’m very much enjoying Michael Shermer’s new book The Believing Brain. It’s about how the brain forms beliefs, why people hold on to their beliefs so strongly, and why people believe in weird things like ghosts and conspiracy theories.
On p. 260, Shermer quotes from a study (pdf) by Drew Westen, et al, where his team ran fMRI scans on the brains of political partisans to see what parts of their brains were firing when engaged in political dispute:
We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning. What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up… Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidascope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.
There you have it: scientific proof that partisans aren’t quite right in the head.
Posted in Books, Science, The Partisan Mind
Tagged drew westen, fmri, michael shermer, partisan neuroscience, partisans, the believing brain
Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray‘s new book is Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You. He explains why the Washington, DC area is the richest in the country, tells the story of the small-town city manager with a tax-free $1 million-per-year pension, and offers some reforms that could bring government down to a more appropriate size.
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Posted in Books, CEI Podcast
Tagged bell, bell california, iain murray, public sector pay, public sector unions, Regnery, stealing you blind
Deirdre McCloskey’s short Economical Writing is one of the best writing guides there is. One reason is that it is, in fact, a guide. It is not a manual. It is not filled with rules and procedures that one must follow… or else. Instead, much like McCloskey’s own writing, it takes a less rigid approach; good writing is anything but rigid. McCloskey shows her suggestions in action, and shows the reader common pitfalls they are better off avoiding. But she rarely commands.
And as it turns out, Economical Writing is now available for free online. You can read it right there on the web page, or you can download it.
Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in becoming a better writer.
Erasmus opens In Praise of Folly with a letter to Thomas More, author of Utopia. They became good friends when Erasmus stayed in England. He gave More this bit of praise:
“[S]uch is the excellence of your judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people’s.”
Indeed.
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Posted in Books, Great Thinkers, Pith
Tagged desiderius erasmus, erasmus, erasmus quotes, in praise of folly, praise of folly, thomas more, utopia
“A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.”
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country, p. 133
Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty is a work of great depth. It’s one of those books that one doesn’t read, so much as study. But the extra effort brings ample rewards. Still, it isn’t the most approachable book. For one, its length requires a commitment that many readers aren’t willing to make. For another, Hayek’s verbose prose style does not make for easy reading.
Fortunately, the good folks at IEA have just released Eugene Miller’s summary of all the arguments Hayek makes in The Constitution of Liberty. You can download it for free here. Besides being a good companion to read alongside the original, it looks easier for more casual readers to digest.
IEA has given similar treatments to some of Hayek’s other works. Take a look if you’re new to Hayek, or would like a refresher course on works you’ve already read.
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Posted in Books, Economics, Philosophy
Tagged constitution of liberty, hayek, iea, institute for economic analysis
CEI’s biannual Agenda for Congress is out. You can read the whole thing here (PDF, 84 pp.), or you can see the table of contents and access individual articles here.
Wayne Crews and I wrote the corporate welfare section. Here’s a taste:
One of government’s primary current undertakings is transferring wealth. Many such transfers are from taxpayers to corporations. Before the financial crisis and recession, these transfers were called corporate welfare. Now they are called stimulus, bailouts, or infrastructure investments. But a rose by any other name has thorns just as sharp…
Corporate welfare, whether in the form of subsidies or competitor-hampering regulations, creates distortions and inefficiencies, injures consumers, and undermines the evolving, competitive market process.
PDF version here.
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Posted in Books, Economics, Publications, Spending
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”
-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p. 929.
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Posted in Books, Economics, Great Thinkers, Taxation
Tagged adam smith, tax harmonization, Taxation, taxes, wealth of nations
Inertia Wins! 