Study by Robert Whaples, summarized by Greg Mankiw:
- 90.1 percent disagree with the position that “the U.S. should restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries.”
- 87.5 percent agree that “the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade.”
- 85.2 percent agree that “the U.S. should eliminate agricultural subsidies.”
- 85.3 percent agree that “the gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged.”
- 77.2 percent agree that “the best way to deal with Social Security’s long-term funding gap is to increase the normal retirement age.”
- 67.1 percent agree that “parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools.”
- 65.0 percent agree that “the U.S. should increase energy taxes.”
They like the free market, don’t they? Well, so do I. I basically agree with all of them except the bit about school vouchers — I even willing to be convinced about that, but the data so far seem to speak strongly against the success of vouchers (as I vaguely recall). The incentive structures don’t really point in the right direction. From the table, note that the above answers lump together “agree” and “strongly agree”; in fact, when it comes to vouchers, the agreement is not strong.
If you disagree with the economists, here’s why. All via Marginal Revolution.
I am impressed by the great degree of talent and experience among some of the participants in this thread, that they would feel comfortable maligning a whole field of study in a few paragraphs bereft of any evidence. Obviously economists are wasting their time and should just come here to learn about (in no particular order):
* How a sacred duty like education should not be subject to the afflictions of competition
* That they don’t understand the Constitution, particularly the bit about “general welfare”
* Nor understand surveys they participate in
* How they don’t make testable predictions
* That they are cardboard cutouts of “real” economists
* That they blithely promote suffering in the elderly
* How CEO compensation is vitally important to the productivity of an entire economy
* That the free market is in fact not perfect, and moreover is just untried elitist dogma
* How economists fail to study issues like burdens of gov’t and war on the economy, barriers to market entry, or pro-business subsidies
Clearly, the inferior minds of living economists are too distracted by history, data, and ideological pissing matches to see the truth. They should just do us all a favor and kill themselves so we can hurry up and deify them — it would sure make it a lot easier to dis the succeeding generation of economists without making a coherent argument.
Speaking personally, I am blessed that the Internet tubes bring this timeless wisdom to my Netscape.
@PK: Swedish socialism is a myth as this article points out. Sweden has few trade barriers, few immigration barriers and telecom, banking, insurance, electricity have been heavily deregulated. There is no minimum wage. In Sweden you can choose your electricity provider. Can you do this even in the United States? I wouldn’t say the free market is kept on a tight leash. In fact quite the opposite. So can I get a free market alleluia.
It is also very interesting to note that every single thing that the economists suggested with the exception of raising the retirement age has already been implemented by the Swedes. They have eliminated and substantially reduced most tariffs and barriers to trade. In the early 1990’s they had actually eliminated agricultural tariffs but this has changed due to the evil EU Common Agricultural Policy. They have implemented education vouchers. They have also reformed their pension system and have George Bush style individual retirement accounts.
Why do people care about the compensation of CEOs? Our economy is not a zero-sum game, that is to say, a CEO who gets a pay raise does not necessarily take it from some other person. People in productive positions of our economy create wealth, not steal it from others.
Also, what is the proposed remedy for a CEO making much more than his workers? Should the government tell companies and business owners how much they are allowed to pay their employees (and themselves)? Imagine a small business owner, who busted her ass for years to make her business successful. After years of hard work, she is finally able to hire some low-skilled laborers for some low-skilled tasks, and she pays them $8.00 an hour. She makes $300,000 in a year from her business. The owner makes almost 19 times the amount of money her laborers each make individually! Why doesn’t she deserve it again?
Finally, one of the more subtle points of people like Milton Friedman is that free-market capitalism isn’t a perfect system, but its the best option in the real world (the non-perfect world). I believe that we should judge our policies by their actual consequences, not by their intentions. If you accept this philosophy, you will find yourself on the economist’s side most of the time.