Study says: the more you lean left, the less you know about economics

Great Debates
61

Based on Hellestal’s post, I should make clear my position. I think it’s likely that a licensing regime in the real world will increase prices, but the questions asked flip back and forth between theoretical and real-world questions. And if we’re going to choose a theoretical model, then people are going to have a wide range of models available to them to choose from.

So, for example, I could construct a theoretical model where the marginal costs for licensing are very low, but the licensing regime reduces insurance costs (because of less accidents or lawsuits or whatever). In that model, prices should have a tendency to fall.

In the real world, most licensing regimes are attempts to correct information problems or reduce externality problems, which are ultimately attempts to force costs back onto the licensed profession. So, if you were to claim that the licensing regime will raise prices, I probably wouldn’t argue about it. I just don’t think you can call people uneducated because they chose to use a different theoretical model than the authors want to use.

ETA: My use of the word “you” is meant to be generalized, and not specific to a poster.

62

I just wanted to pick up one more thing after a re-read of the thread:

Whether workers are being “exploited” or not is a value judgment. Many people in this country think that workers without minimal labor protections are being exploited. I’m not an econ major, but if an econ teacher stated as a matter of principle that workers are not being exploited, simply by virtue of the fact that they are employed, I’d have to raise a serious eyebrow. I just don’t see how this can be classified as a statement of economic principle.

63

As I initially said, I think it probably does increase costs. But, claiming it doesn’t necessarily isn’t a sign of not understanding economics, despite what the survey says.

64

Guys, seriously, read the study. The point isn’t to debate the 8 questions.

A kid finishing first year economics should score low on this little “test” because that’s how it was designed. A liberal minded individual would go through the questions EXACTLY as you guys have done, and find reasons to disagree, and score high (where high is bad). A conservative minded individual would also go through and be very happy to agree with each question (scoring low).

This economics professor wanted to show that kids graduating with liberal arts degrees weren’t getting enough economics education. That’s why there is a section at the end of the study discussing the various requirements at various schools.

It’s not about liberals vs conservatives. It’s not about these individual 8 questions.

Who ever told Bricker about this study thought it showed that liberals know less about economics, but that’s not what it shows. Stop discussing the individual 8 questions, read the study, and realize what the actual conclusion is.

65

For me, I’m not disputing their answers per-se. I’m disputing the validity of the questions. Now, my economics exposure is from law school (where I took a lot of classes geared towards legal and regulatory economics), so my exposure has been more empirical than theoretical. But I’m still not seeing where a term like “exploitation” can be considered an economics issue rather than a value judgment. If they were to use a term like “efficiency,” I would consider that an economics issue. But, admittedly, I’m not familiar with every economics term of art. Can you tell me how the term “exploitation” is defined in your typical 1st year econ class?

66

Ok, so I did find these definitions of exploitation:

“In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for the benefit of others.”

“The act of using another person’s labor without offering them an adequate compensation.”

The first definition is completely a value judgment. I could use the second definition as a substitute for some type of efficiency argument, but then we have to go into empirical analysis to determine whether third-world workers are having their wages set at the optimum level. I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer on that score (at least I haven’t seen a clear cut empirical answer). The idea that simply being paid a wage, any wage, makes for “adequate compensation” simply isn’t true, though, so I’m not sure what definition the authors had in mind.

67

Right, which is sort of the point here. This professor wants more colleges to require economics. A political science student might spend a couple years studying exploitation in third-world countries. But that doesn’t make the statement true.

[quote=“BrightNShiny, post:65, topic:538643”]

“6. Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.”

This question is just so clearly meant to trap a liberal bias. Those that lean left are going to say, “Of course they are.” Those that lean right are going to say, “fuck’m.” But read the question again, notice the lack of any absolutes or qualifiers?

Are ALL workers being exploited? Notice it doesn’t say SOME. Is it something about American companies. If we said Canadian companies would you then disagree?

I will fully admit there are SOME workers being exploited by SOME companies, but does that make the statement true?

Don’t forget, you answer with a scale of 1-5. You don’t have to disagree, you could “somewhat disagree” and still be “enlightened.”

All of these questions were meant for liberals without formal economics training to answer “wrong.” The reason is that the professor wanted to show that students graduating from college trended towards being liberals AND weren’t required to take first year econ as part of their degree.

68

So little of economics is indisputable like physics or math are. So some people with a conservative bias design a survey whereby every response that fails to conform to conservative orthodoxy is scored as “unenlightened”. Then lo and behold, it turns out that liberals “know” less about economics than conservatives! Amazing!

69

That’s not really a fair summary. The consensus seems to be that it’s not conservative orthodoxy, but widely-accepted economic basics, in play here.

I may be a tiny bit prejudiced, but I think my own summary in the OP is much fairer, and seems to have been borne out by the subsequent discussion: in general, these questions and expected answers are correct; what the study does not do is craft a similar set of questions to expose conservative misconceptions.

So economic “truths” that run counter to typical liberal expectations are shown to confound more liberals than conservatives, and from that the reader is invited to conclude that liberals know less about basic econ. But since conservatives are not placed under a similar microscope, it’s not meaningful to draw any such conclusion.

70

I don’t think it is conservative orthodoxy, but instead free market orthodoxy.

71

No, it says nothing about “liberals” or how much they do or do not know about economics. The study was designed to show that college students both lean left in their views, AND don’t know enough about economics, hence the title, “Economic Enlightenment in Relation to College-going,
Ideology, and Other Variables.”

I see each of these questions being answered in 4 stages (taking exploitation as an example):

1.) Completely uneducated is going to read it and go “raw raw American is number 1” and guess correctly . This person doesn’t understand exploitation of foreign workers and doesn’t care.

2.) Student having taken first year economics may have discussed this as part of macroeconomics and globalization. Knows to answer correctly because the definition of exploitation is not, “employed in a third world country by an American company.”

3.) Educated individual that leans left is going to instantly agree with the statement, and thus answer wrong. They’ve read and experienced enough to know the type of shit third world workers experience.

4.) Educated individual “enlightened” enough to know the real response: there is some exploitation, but there is also some benefit. There are sweatshops, and there are areas that desperately needed foreign investment. They recognize the question as bullshit and thus know how to answer correctly.

The conclusion is that the title of this thread title is completely misleading.

72

Foreign workers at American businesses abroad usually make more than similar workers in businesses owned by locals. Cite:http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1369They also are provided better working conditions. The presence of these businesses also force local businesses to treat their workers better. If this is exploitation then the word has no meaning.
Also the fact that the minimum wage causes increased unemployment should be obvious to everyone with an IQ over room temperature. Here is a list of 50+ economic studies that have found that to be the case.http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/50years.htm.
It may be the case that a liberal could come up with a similar list of questions (I doubt it) that would expose conservative economic ignorance, but the people arguing against the obvious truth of the survey answers are doing themselves no favors.

73

Yes, but the question didn’t ask if that was what exploitation was. The question was:
Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited. Agree or disagree.

Once two workers anywhere in the world are being exploited (and I’m sure someone, somewhere is, even if the majority aren’t), then the sentence is true. So any pedantic PHD level economist would clearly agree with the sentence.
Now if the sentence was: “on average, third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited less than third-world workers working for local companies”, then, you might be right. But that wasn’t the question.
The answer to this question is: Yes, there are at least two individuals in the third world being exploited by the American companies that they work for.
But its a stupid question, and an even stupider survey.

74

IANAEconomist, Lord knows, but it’s clear that, despite the presence of “Joint” in the title of that report, it’s slanted to the anti-minimum wage side. The Wikipedia article on Minimum Wage claims it was written by “the Republican Staff of the Joint Economic Committee” (although how they know this, or exactly what it means, isn’t clear to me, I must admit). Nevertheless, there clearly is evidence supporting the idea that Minimum wage doesn’t lead to increased unemployment, as even the Joint report admits (although it certainly does try to downplay it as much as possible). You’d never guess from that report that there is even a controversy. Since even some noted economists like Paul Krugman seem to support the Card and Krueger work, I have to say that there is room for doubt even if your IQ is over room temperature.

75

Carn:
The question was not Some 3rd world workers are being exploited, or There exists somewhere in this world a 3rd world worker being exploited. The question referred to 3rd world workers as a group. Maybe we could make up a test that shows liberal’s reading comprehension is as poor as their economic knowledge, but I want to be charitable.
Cal Mitchum:
Even as rabid a partisan as Krugman has acknowledged that supply and demand exist. Anyone who can say that 50 years of quality studies pointing one way and one poorly designed telephone survey pointing the other way are equivalent is being willfully blind. The only way you can say this question is biased is if reality has a conservative bias.

76

People die from the Ebola virus. True or false?

Now do you see my point?

77

Forget about economics for a moment, because the study isn’t actually about economics, and consider physics:

The rate an object falls is dependent on the mass of the object. Agree or disagree.

Now, a moron without an formal education would have empirically observed objects of different mass falling at different rates, and therefore agree.

Meanwhile, a well educated liberal would also come to the same conclusion because, “obviously a dude with a parachute falls slower than a bowling ball.”

But any student having taken first year physics knows that the rate an object falls is sumF = ma, where F is mg, g is the gravitational constant 9.81. so mg = m*a, mass cancels out and acceleration is 9.81. It’s Newton’s Laws of motion, I think week three of physics class.

So I could use that question to show that “the more you lean left, the less you know about physics.”

That’s what this study did. It took concepts that educated individuals would empirically answer wrong, because they lack formal education in that specific topic. As I said before, it could have asked about marketing or cooking (searing meat seals in the juices–wrong). Where each of these subjects has topics that educated individuals misunderstand.

The difference here is that my physic question isn’t politically orientated. But asking about exploitation in third world countries is.

So the conclusion to this study is NOT that “the more you lean left the less you know about economics.”

The conclusion is that “college educated students tend to know less about economics AND college educated students tend to lean left.”

A well educated individual could write a lengthy term paper on each of those topics proving the liberal POV. But that’s not what the questions ask.

The definition of exploitation is not, “works in a third world country for an American company.” And the question didn’t ask if SOME workers are exploited. It is true that SOME are but not true that ALL are. In this case, you are applying your value judgment concerning exploitation to the question.

When slaves were brought to the West Indies to grow sugar cane they were being exploited. When a person harvests bananas for Chiquita for what seems like a low wage, it’s not necessarily exploitation. There is a difference. It is a liberal bias to assume all workers in third world countries are being exploited. A person trained in macro/global economics would know the questions is much more nuanced, but also know to disagree with the statement.

78

Or it is an educated belief in Marxist economics that all employees under capitalism are exploited by definition. Free market theory does not make up the entirety of the universe of economic theory.

79

EXACTLY, the answer is false.

A biology (virology) student knows that people don’t die from the Ebola virus they die from emerging because viral replication in the endothelial cells results in a loss of vascular integrity, this combined with with infection in the liver leads to blood leaking through vascular tissue.

So, moron says true (and is wrong)
Educated (but not in biology) says true (also wrong)
Someone with biology education says false (and is correct)

That’s how the study was set up. Except the authors intentionally choose questions that both the moron and the economic student would answer correctly, but the liberal and educated would answer wrong.

The same study could be designed with 8 questions to also show that “the more you lean RIGHT the less you know about economics.” Which is why that is NOT the conclusion to the study. Who ever told Bricker that’s what this study shows lied.

80

That’s why I specifically stated that a pedantic economist would agree with the question as asked. Because he cannot give a more nuanced answer, and the statement is technically correct.

However, if a first year student came up and asked him “are US companies exploiting all those workers over in the third world?”, I am well aware that he would not answer with a simple yes. Most economists would say no, some would say that despite the fact that they are getting paid more than other people in the country, their horrible working conditions, lack of unions and general lack of rights mean that they *are *getting exploited. Admittedly they are being exploited less than the other workers in the country, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being exploited at all.