This article shows why I love studying economics and markets. Consumers tell you through their actions what they really want. It's always funny to me when people say Americans want something else, but actions and behavior (especially those involving money) tell you more than an opinion poll.
"Buy American" might also be less reflected in behaviour because of the lower quality (or more charitably, lower means?) of its adherents. The soft-left equivalents (Fair Trade and free range) seem to do reasonably well. That could be because of a more substantial distinction between moral and purely political opinions, or it could be because everyone has normative opinions (possibly because society insists on this) but the people who are at the self-actualisation step of Maslowe's pyramid will act on them.
Interesting, you appear to be taking the diametric opposite of Scott Alexander’s view that endorsed preferences are what we should try to maximise instead of revealed preferences because endorsed preferences are more sensitive to things like reason and morality. You do make some good points, but on the other hand, it does seem obviously true that my reveal preferences often for irrational behaviour. That’s obviously not good for me. For example, I am pretty sure I’m not the only one who has a problem of caring too much about my present well-being when compared to future well-being. Just look at all those people making themselves fat or smoking or drinking alcohol in excess, even though they likely would not consider them consciously worth the cost in terms of future health. I also expect that in the right situations you could get me to behave in a way which can be money pumped, whereas it would be much harder to get me to consciously indoorce such a stupid policy.
Regarding situations like Ukraine or people who are not willing to buy American, but want the government to force them to I think there might be some value in thinking of these people as not personally wanting to buy American, but also having a preference that there countryman by American. Basically, the idea would be that while they pay a cost in terms of being forced to buy American from government action. This would be more than cancelled out by their desire for other people to be forced to buy American. I don’t actually buy this analysis, but it does seem like a valuable frame to look at the problem through and an alternate explanation that might be consistent with the facts.
Regarding Gaza, I think one problem with your analysis is that you don’t distinguish between people being allowed to leave Gaza, which does seem desirable and Israel being allowed to force the to move away by deliberately making conditions worse, which seems undesirable. I have no problem with the first, but the second is generally what is considered ethnic cleansing, though I absolutely agree that there are some people who use the term broadly enough to encompass the first as well. To understand the second, imagine a person who wants to stay in Gaza under present conditions. However, once Israel learns that they can just solve the problem of all these potentially hostile people in Gaza. After other countries, allow them to move away. They decide to deliberately make conditions worse to the point where this person changes their mind and moves away, I think you would have to agree that in terms of preference fulfilment, this person is now worse of compare to the hypothetical where other countries had not permitted him to move away. Now to be clear, I don’t actually think that on balance it’s worthwhile Keeping all these people effectively locked up in a potential Warzone with terrible humanitarian conditions,, but I think this is what people who complain about ethnic cleansing thing would happen, and I do think that if Israel tries to make conditions deliberately worse in Gaza in a hypothetical future where migration away is possible this would absolutely be bad.
Richard is not assuming anything about Gaza; he’s written about this multiple times in the past (including in an article he linked above). It was very clear that the international left was against allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza via Egypt. In fact, Egypt sealed their border with Gaza with tanks and lots of men with guns, and there was zero international pressure for Egypt to allow Gazans to leave. Anyone who argued Gazans should be allowed to voluntarily leave was shouted down with “ethnic cleansing” accusations. This came from people supposedly devoted to the Palestinian cause, but who apparently don’t care about individual Palestinian lives if it’s not Israel’s doing.
If you read my comment carefully, you will notice that I have specifically mentioned that there are people who are misusing ethnic cleansing to refer to voluntary migration as well, and it should be clear from reading my comment I think often what’s going on is that they think if voluntary migration is permitted, Israel will respond by making conditions in Gaza worse on purpose because it doesn’t like having so many potentially hostile people that close, especially given how things in Gaza have developed so far as that obviously doesn’t inspire confidence in Israel regarding future developments. So I’m not denying anything. I just think he’s not dealing with the strongest possible counter argument, and instead weakmaning his opposition likely unintentionally.
I also just think the topic of what common opinion in the left is isn’t the interesting discussion to be had here. If somebody writes an article arguing that trade and capital investment with developing countries where the fertility issue isn’t a problem yet means that there is no need to worry about fertility and somebody notes that this doesn’t deal with the objection that ideas will be harder to find with a declining population, then the interesting topic of discussion is not whether this argument is common among people who care about fertility, but rather whether it’s a valid argument.
Also for the record, as I mentioned in my original comment, I actually disagree with the left on this. I’m just pointing out that Richard is ignoring a serious potential counterargument.
I'd like to learn more about the non-liberal Hanania ideology you mentioned.
This article shows why I love studying economics and markets. Consumers tell you through their actions what they really want. It's always funny to me when people say Americans want something else, but actions and behavior (especially those involving money) tell you more than an opinion poll.
These make too many assumption with "Rationality = personal wealth" ??.
"Buy American" might also be less reflected in behaviour because of the lower quality (or more charitably, lower means?) of its adherents. The soft-left equivalents (Fair Trade and free range) seem to do reasonably well. That could be because of a more substantial distinction between moral and purely political opinions, or it could be because everyone has normative opinions (possibly because society insists on this) but the people who are at the self-actualisation step of Maslowe's pyramid will act on them.
Interesting, you appear to be taking the diametric opposite of Scott Alexander’s view that endorsed preferences are what we should try to maximise instead of revealed preferences because endorsed preferences are more sensitive to things like reason and morality. You do make some good points, but on the other hand, it does seem obviously true that my reveal preferences often for irrational behaviour. That’s obviously not good for me. For example, I am pretty sure I’m not the only one who has a problem of caring too much about my present well-being when compared to future well-being. Just look at all those people making themselves fat or smoking or drinking alcohol in excess, even though they likely would not consider them consciously worth the cost in terms of future health. I also expect that in the right situations you could get me to behave in a way which can be money pumped, whereas it would be much harder to get me to consciously indoorce such a stupid policy.
Regarding situations like Ukraine or people who are not willing to buy American, but want the government to force them to I think there might be some value in thinking of these people as not personally wanting to buy American, but also having a preference that there countryman by American. Basically, the idea would be that while they pay a cost in terms of being forced to buy American from government action. This would be more than cancelled out by their desire for other people to be forced to buy American. I don’t actually buy this analysis, but it does seem like a valuable frame to look at the problem through and an alternate explanation that might be consistent with the facts.
Regarding Gaza, I think one problem with your analysis is that you don’t distinguish between people being allowed to leave Gaza, which does seem desirable and Israel being allowed to force the to move away by deliberately making conditions worse, which seems undesirable. I have no problem with the first, but the second is generally what is considered ethnic cleansing, though I absolutely agree that there are some people who use the term broadly enough to encompass the first as well. To understand the second, imagine a person who wants to stay in Gaza under present conditions. However, once Israel learns that they can just solve the problem of all these potentially hostile people in Gaza. After other countries, allow them to move away. They decide to deliberately make conditions worse to the point where this person changes their mind and moves away, I think you would have to agree that in terms of preference fulfilment, this person is now worse of compare to the hypothetical where other countries had not permitted him to move away. Now to be clear, I don’t actually think that on balance it’s worthwhile Keeping all these people effectively locked up in a potential Warzone with terrible humanitarian conditions,, but I think this is what people who complain about ethnic cleansing thing would happen, and I do think that if Israel tries to make conditions deliberately worse in Gaza in a hypothetical future where migration away is possible this would absolutely be bad.
Richard is not assuming anything about Gaza; he’s written about this multiple times in the past (including in an article he linked above). It was very clear that the international left was against allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza via Egypt. In fact, Egypt sealed their border with Gaza with tanks and lots of men with guns, and there was zero international pressure for Egypt to allow Gazans to leave. Anyone who argued Gazans should be allowed to voluntarily leave was shouted down with “ethnic cleansing” accusations. This came from people supposedly devoted to the Palestinian cause, but who apparently don’t care about individual Palestinian lives if it’s not Israel’s doing.
If you read my comment carefully, you will notice that I have specifically mentioned that there are people who are misusing ethnic cleansing to refer to voluntary migration as well, and it should be clear from reading my comment I think often what’s going on is that they think if voluntary migration is permitted, Israel will respond by making conditions in Gaza worse on purpose because it doesn’t like having so many potentially hostile people that close, especially given how things in Gaza have developed so far as that obviously doesn’t inspire confidence in Israel regarding future developments. So I’m not denying anything. I just think he’s not dealing with the strongest possible counter argument, and instead weakmaning his opposition likely unintentionally.
I also just think the topic of what common opinion in the left is isn’t the interesting discussion to be had here. If somebody writes an article arguing that trade and capital investment with developing countries where the fertility issue isn’t a problem yet means that there is no need to worry about fertility and somebody notes that this doesn’t deal with the objection that ideas will be harder to find with a declining population, then the interesting topic of discussion is not whether this argument is common among people who care about fertility, but rather whether it’s a valid argument.
Also for the record, as I mentioned in my original comment, I actually disagree with the left on this. I’m just pointing out that Richard is ignoring a serious potential counterargument.