Article about GMU Economics

“[Robin] comes from a physics background,† said Tyler Cowen in his Arlington office, filled with Latin American and Caribbean paintings in the naïve style, “and I’m much more from the humanities, so I’m more of a pluralist. He tends to think in terms of very simple theories like physics or biology, and I tend to think things are very complicated, and that a good explanation will look messy. When he hears a messy explanation, he tends to think something’s wrong. I tend to think that it’s fruitful.†

Cowen’s dignified carriage distinguishes him from his colleagues who sometimes seem to run over with fizz, but his most distinctive feature is his unusual voice, for which I’ve flipped through my rolodex of adjectives and settled on “fey.†

“He’s [Hanson] more of a Darwinian,† Cowen continues, “It’s not that I think the theory of evolution is wrong, but I don’t think Darwin is the way to approach every social science problem.†

All of Cowen’s degrees are in economics despite his passion for fiction and music: “For me, it was always reading first. I knew I was going to do reading for life, and then economics was one way of settling on how to do that. But economics was in that way a secondary commitment. Reading was the prior commitment.†

Did he select economics as a way of deciding what to read? “Yeah, it’s way of organizing what you read. It’s also a way of getting a job. I thought of being a philosopher, which I still enjoy, but you’re paid less. It’s hard to get a job at all; you have fewer other opportunities.†

His goal, however, has never been to develop a theory of aesthetics, a way to separate the good from the bad. If someone offers a principle of aesthetics, he said, “I think it’s pretty much always wrong.†

“Aesthetics is a big mystery, and I try not to get too metaphysical about it. I just try to be practical, like ‘How can I enjoy this story?’ I think it’s a more useful question. But they ask, ‘What really makes this beautiful?’ I’m not sure we’ll ever answer that other question.†

His policy is to read a review only up to the moment when he decides whether he wants to read the book. “Maybe I’m busy, but it’s not just that I’m busy, it’s that I want to read the book fresh,† he explained, “So I don’t really give reviewers a chance. They have a chance to convince me I want to read it, and then I dispense with them.† His favorite critics, he said, are the reviewers on Amazon.com.

This doesn’t mean that all individual judgments have equal value. “If someone didn’t like Beethoven or Mozart or Haydn or Chopin at all, I would think something is going on. I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, it’s subjective taste.’ Now you might have someone who would say, ‘Well, I recognize Mozart as great but for emotional reasons, I’m going to listen to country and western music.’ That to me is a bit more of a subjective difference, but if someone actually thinks, ‘No, this is not likeable music’ — I think that’s a mistake, almost like saying two and two equals five.†

He qualified this pronouncement, though, regarding single works. “Like if someone says, ‘Well, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: It reached too far. The chorus doesn’t work. To me it feels overblown.’ While I don’t agree, there I would just think that’s a different point of view. There’s no way I’m going to prove they’re wrong and I’m right. If someone just says of Beethoven, ‘He was trash,’ I think that’s just wrong.†

anon,

I already surmised as much based on past track record, and therefore I didn’t bother checking out his link. But thanks for the confirmation.

Cowen’s dignified carriage distinguishes him from his colleagues who sometimes seem to run over with fizz, but his most distinctive feature is his unusual voice, for which I’ve flipped through my rolodex of adjectives and settled on “fey.†

Man, I spit all over my monitor.

Robin Hanson has a blog??

re “the rich pay for the federal government”:

It is not biased, but just recounting facts, to point out that the bottom 50% of people filing taxes don’t actually pay any net taxes through their tax forms, and conversely the top few percent pay the vast majority. This figure doesn’t count payroll taxes, if I recall correctly, but note that many of these people do collect “benefits” associated with payroll taxes paid – so net taxes would be reduced by the amount (net taxes may be quite negative).

That, of course, doesn’t count other kinds of taxes like sales taxes (but those don’t support the federal government) and “inflation taxes” and regulatory burdens which reduce wages, and so forth. However, the vast majority of the federal government’s pocket change does come from the wealthiest Americans.

“Think it possible that you may be wrong” is my touchstone for judging schools of thought (and websites). These guys at GMU not only think it possible – give them a nickel and they will organise a betting market on whether they are wrong (or not).

That said, I particulauly agree with the penulitimate piece of advice from MostlyaPragmatist. I need to keep my thinking hat on here because there is too much here which fits with ideas I have already formed. To put that in context (I’m British), I have never voted Conservative nor advised anyone to vote either Republican or Conservative.

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