When Bryan Caplan‘s twin sons were about ten, they loved a videogame called Tropico, which makes you the caudillo of a Caribbean island, its sovereign ruler and economic czar:
As you play, you face constant criticism from the island’s political factions. If you displease too many of your subjects, you fall from power and lose the game. Game after game, the most vocal critics of my twins’ regimes were the Communists. Which led to a memorable conversation.
“Dad, I’m really confused about the Communists in Tropico.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’re always telling us how terrible the Communists are.”
Guilty as charged. My wife and her parents were refugees from Communist Romania. Reading books about mass murder and slave labor under the likes of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao is one of my long-time hobbies. I’ve written several academic pieces about the economics and politics of Communism, including an encyclopedia article. And it is in my character to share my knowledge with the next generation.
True to form, I responded, “Yes, ‘terrible’ is right.”
“In the game, though, the requests of the Communists always sound so good: grow more food for the hungry; build better housing for the poor; give everyone free health care. What’s wrong with all that?”
Hearing this thoughtful question put a big smile on my face. I was so proud of my progeny. And an answer was already in my head. “Sons,” I began, “in life, there are many things that sound good but are bad – and many things that sound bad but are good. Suppose someone says, ‘The government should just give everybody whatever they need.’ How does that sound?”
“Good!”
That’s from the introduction to his upcoming book, Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, which makes one central claim:
My central claim is that free-market economics should be rebuilt on the foundation of psychologists’ notion of Social Desirability Bias (SDB). Once you take SDB seriously, you realize that most alleged “market failures” are actually market successes, and most alleged “government successes” are actually government failures.
[…]
To repeat, the lessons of Social Desirability Bias are twofold. First: When you spend your own time and money, actions speak louder than words. Second, when you spend other people’s time and money, words speak louder than actions. Now consider: If everyone spends only their own time and their own money, what do we call it? Among other things, “the free market.” What about when people spend other people’s time and money? Among other things, “government.”
[…]
What exactly does brutal honesty buy us? To start, brutal honesty lets us affirm that the correlation between what is good and what sounds good is quite low. So low, in fact, that we can justifiably praise free markets because they give business incentives to do good stuff that sounds bad and criticize governments because they give politicians incentives to do bad stuff that sounds good. “Good stuff that sounds bad” like: downsizing superfluous workers, hiring tens of millions of low-skilled foreigners, deliberately infecting volunteers with Covid to speed up drug testing, greatly curtailing end-of-life medical care, and leveling historic neighborhoods in San Francisco to build new skyscrapers. “Bad stuff that sounds good” like: free roads, free parking, free college, free health care, licensing medical workers, regulating prescription drugs, requiring building permits, banning recreational drugs, sanctioning employers who hire illegal immigrants, and ensuring a dignified retirement for every American.
Even if “free markets” were desirable, (only rarely), Bryan Caplan has never been within smelling distance of a free market. He has spent his entire life in the warm, cozy embrace of the least-free of all unfree corners of America. And even if he had wanted to visit a free market, the only plausibly free markets in America are its black markets. This ridiculous notion that capitalists—financiers by any other name—have a moral right to monopolize ownership of everything and jack up prices everywhere is awfully long in the tooth. Roads, parking, college, pharmaceuticals, rent, and more should all be free… for the right kind of person. In reality, they’re already free for the wrong kind of person, but you’ll never hear Bryan Caplan talk about that.
It is the year 2025. If you’re smart, fit, young, healthy, and horny, that you should be forced to work in the land your forefathers conquered is literally worse than the Holocaust.
Jim is lazy.
Jim was born to be a warrior-king.
Please consult the old social contract:
https://i.ibb.co/d4yDgmSL/old-social-contract.jpg
And with the seriousness of a heart attack, please consult the new social contract:
https://i.ibb.co/1G9Kj99d/new-social-contract.jpg
Bonus:
https://i.ibb.co/8npv84FZ/new-social-contract-bonus.jpg
What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.
— Robert E. Howard
If you feel you were born to be a warrior-king, or perhaps to trample the jeweled thrones of civilization beneath your sandalled feet, just remember:
Beautiful, Gaikokumaniakku, simply beautiful!
Jim says:
Free(-ish) market is mostly an optimization mechanism for usage of resources. For which it’s wise to optimize in some contexts, but not all. Much like production of paperclips, etc.
Free market also has a fun little paradox living in it. As one character in “Babylon” (by Pelevin) noted: a truly free market, by definition, allows for services of limiting the market’s freedom (in that case, protection racket).
I never played Tropico, but one of my old favorites, Hidden Agenda from 1988, has a similar (but I suspect more sophisticated?) dynamic. Basically you’re running a fictional version of 1980s El Salvador or Nicaragua. The fun part for me is that your policy choices for actions each round are limited by who you choose to interact with. The rural doctor isn’t going to suggest helicoptering people, for example.
You can play thru a browser via links at the Wikipedia article on the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_(1988_video_game)
I only ever see “free market” used to justify the status quo. As soon as any real free-market-dom erupts begin shrieks from all corners of the land. Silicon Valley Bank is a fair recent example. The automaker bailouts are a more distant example. The concept of “wage inflation” (whereby employee purchasing power dares to increase) is a perennial one. Perhaps we can formulate a kind of inverse Conquest’s First Law: “Every man is most free-market about what he owns least.”
Or: “Every man is most free-market about what costs him least.”
Or: “Every man is most free-market about what impacts him least.”