The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[bickster]

Just now, hippo said:

So what policies would you like to see a uk party offer....?

 

There is only one policy that matters, I've already told you

Policy isn't the only issue when deciding who to vote for. Competence plays a huge part and I'm sorry none of them currently display any signs of being competent to run a raffle let alone a country

[peterms]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

 

Excuse me Officer, we found this lady wandering in the street,  talking to herself and looking very distracted.

We tried to find out who she was and if she needed help, but she wouldn't answer any of our questions.  Though she kept on saying "I've been very clear".

[peterms]

Chris Dillow is often tbought-provoking, and interesting.  Also prepared to argue cases without being committed to them, which is always welcome in people who present as intellectuals.

Quote

A behavioural economic case for Brexit

Is there an economic case for Brexit after all?

Superficially, it seems not. Almost all serious economists agree that less close trading arrangements with the EU and tougher immigration controls will make us poorer than we would otherwise be even in the event of a smooth Brexit, and the Minfordians protestations to the contrary are not credible.

Behavioural economics, however, suggests there might be a case. This rests upon two pillars.

Pillar one is the Easterlin paradox – the finding that long periods of economic growth in developed economies have not made us much happier. This suggests the blow to well-being caused by slower GDP growth will be very small.

Now, I know some of you think the Easterlin paradox is a statistical artefact arising from the fact that GDP is unbounded whereas well-being is tightly constrained, somewhere between “ain’t dead yet” and “all right, I suppose”.

I’m not entirely sure. There paradox draws attention to important facts.

One is that people adapt. We become accustomed to prosperity so it doesn't make us much happier. By the same token, we also adapt to ill-fortune. Andrew Clark, for example, has shown that after apparently nasty events such as divorce or even bereavement happiness returns to its baseline quite quickly: the merry widow is a real thing. And Christoph Merkle has shown that financial losses hurt people much less than they expected.

The other is that for many of us, our well-being depends upon relative income (pdf) more than absolute. For example, one survey by Sara Solnick and David Hemenway found that most people would prefer (pdf) an income of $50,000 a year when everybody else get $25,000 than an income of $100,000 a year when everybody else has $200,000.  If all of us become worse off, therefore, well-being doesn’t fall much: we’ll be comforted by the fact that we’re all in the same boat.

You might object that this is only true of Brexit ex ante. Ex post, some will suffer more from it than others. But this can be said of the normal everyday creative destruction of capitalism. And few oppose this.

Our second pillar is a finding by Matthias Benz, Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer. They show that there’s such a thing as procedural utility. They say:

    Participation rights provide procedural utility in terms of a feeling of self-determination and influence.

This is one reason why the self-employed tend to be happier than employees.

A sense of control over one’s destiny, and of having a right to a say, makes us happy even if we don’t actually exercise that right and even if the outcomes of decisions are the same.

You might object to this that nobody other than a minority of cranks much cared about sovereignty before 2016. True, but irrelevant. They care now. And this is what matters.

If we put together the Easterlin paradox with the finding that procedural utility matters, we have a clear implication: the loss of income caused by Brexit won’t much hurt us whilst the gain to national self-control should increase well-being.

Brexit trades off income against sovereignty. Behavioural economics suggests this is a bargain which many people might rationally want. The fact that a slim majority chose to make this trade-off is therefore reasonable - perhaps more so than they knew at the time.

So, how convincing is this argument? I'm not sure. I’ve two quibbles with it.

One is that the Easterlin paradox is a story about economic growth, not about the lack of it. Just because growth doesn’t make us much happier, it doesn’t follow that the lack of it will be harmless. In an environment in which we might well suffer capitalist stagnation anyway, Brexit raises the risk of a flatlining of incomes for a long time. Maybe 2% real growth per year versus 2.5% is no big deal. But 0.5% versus 1% might be. As Ben Friedman has shown, weak growth creates intolerance and closed-mindedness. For some Brexiters, of course, this is a feature not a bug but I disagree.

Secondly, there must be less cack-handed and divisive ways of increasing procedural utility than Brexit – such as greater worker democracy or means of giving clients a greater voice in the provision of public services.

I’m not sure, therefore, that all this is a convincing argument for Brexit. But it is, I think, a strong one – and certainly better than almost all Brexiters have managed. Which for me raises a puzzle: why haven’t they argued more along these lines?

 

[hippo]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

There is only one policy that matters, I've already told you

Policy isn't the only issue when deciding who to vote for. Competence plays a huge part and I'm sorry none of them currently display any signs of being competent to run a raffle let alone a country

Surley Brexit is the subject. The Policy is how you deal / implement it.

So if the subject is Brexit - what would a party have to do to secure youre vote ?

 

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, hippo said:

Surley Brexit is the subject. The Policy is how you deal / implement it.

So if the subject is Brexit - what would a party have to do to secure youre vote ?

 

Brexit is a short-term distraction.

It really doesn't make a great deal of difference in the great scheme of things,  though it does usefully illustrate why we should grow our own food and generate our own power.

The issue is thst the planet is burning up.

[NurembergVillan]

10 minutes ago, hippo said:

So if the subject is Brexit - what would a party have to do to secure youre vote ?

2

Cancel it, and lock Farage, Banks, Johnson, Gove, Dyson and the fella who owns Wetherspoons in the Tower of London forever.

Theresa May will be subjected to a mediaeval dunking stool in the Thames.

[Chindie]

ITV also pull dumb debate.

Channel 4 are going ahead with their own 'alternative' featuring 'high profile' politicians of various Brexit stances.

... So that's Farage getting a pay day then. Clegg? The 18th Century? Lucas?

[hippo]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

Brexit is a short-term distraction.

It really doesn't make a great deal of difference in the great scheme of things,  though it does usefully illustrate why we should grow our own food and generate our own power.

The issue is thst the planet is burning up.

I kind of agree - I dont see a good outcome from  brexit. I mostly vote labour - but could they do a better brexit ? Really not sure. 

[NurembergVillan]

5 minutes ago, Chindie said:

ITV also pull dumb debate.

Channel 4 are going ahead with their own 'alternative' featuring 'high profile' politicians of various Brexit stances.

... So that's Farage getting a pay day then. Clegg? The 18th Century? Lucas?

I'd back Alistair Campbell to make an appearance on that.

To be fair, I'd love to see someone like him have a real go at taking the liars to task.  He may have a "chequered" past, but at least he'd have the minerals and the intelligence to give any of them a working over.

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, hippo said:

Surley Brexit is the subject. The Policy is how you deal / implement it.

So if the subject is Brexit - what would a party have to do to secure youre vote ?

 

Cancel it

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, hippo said:

I kind of agree - I dont see a good outcome from  brexit. I mostly vote labour - but could they do a better brexit ? Really not sure. 

absolutely not

corbyn for me should be starting his election campaign right now but he's not really up to that much, constructive ambiguity isnt working, opposition politics is too lazy and too easy, all 3 of the major parties are as weak as i can ever remember, even the SNP have slipped and UKIP have thankfully fallen off a cliff, we could end up a diluted powerless rudderless government for a generation following a shit brexit

[hippo]

8 hours ago, villa4europe said:

absolutely not

corbyn for me should be starting his election campaign right now but he's not really up to that much, constructive ambiguity isnt working, opposition politics is too lazy and too easy, all 3 of the major parties are as weak as i can ever remember, even the SNP have slipped and UKIP have thankfully fallen off a cliff, we could end up a diluted powerless rudderless government for a generation following a shit brexit

Corbyn is trying to get elected on the back of the Tories being poor. IME thats never enough.

[tonyh29]

15 minutes ago, hippo said:

Corbyn is trying to get elected on the back of the Tories being poor. IME thats never enough.

Don’t think you can blame him for the poor quality of government  tbf

I don’t think he’s fit for the job and his policies aren’t the great  hope his fan boys  think they are but if he offers those alternatives and people vote for them then so be it ... i can always retire and emigrate  

 

[ml1dch]

 

It's whichever one isn't you David.

 

[hippo]

2 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Don’t think you can blame him for the poor quality of government  tbf

I don’t think he’s fit for the job and his policies aren’t the great  hope his fan boys  think they are but if he offers those alternatives and people vote for them then so be it ... i can always retire and emigrate  

 

Not blaming him for a poor tory government.  What I am saying is that he hopes people vote the tories out on the basis of them being poor - without to much scrutinity on what they are voting in. IMO just bashing the tories isnt enough to get elected

[bickster]

Let’s get this topic back where it belongs...

This is insanity to the power of incompetence 

 

[tonyh29]

That was known when it was released  , even got a mention on the Spectstors 40 things list ... the govt rebuttaled it but it was obviously they were lying / clueless

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

That was known when it was released  , even got a mention on the Spectstors 40 things list ... the govt rebuttaled it but it was obviously they were lying / clueless

*Delete as applicable

[ml1dch]

37 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

That was known when it was released  , even got a mention on the Spectstors 40 things list ... the govt rebuttaled it but it was obviously they were lying / clueless

Yup, as was said at the time the details May's deal were confirmed:

There's a reason that the some good / some bad Norway and Canada models are the ones people normally talk about rather than the all-bad Turkey model that she's going for.

[bannedfromHandV]

15 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

Cancel it, and lock Farage, Banks, Johnson, Gove, Dyson and the fella who owns Wetherspoons in the Tower of London forever.

Theresa May will be subjected to a mediaeval dunking stool in the Thames.

That tit to the front of the queue please.

He looks like someone who still thinks Men Behaving Badly is current comedy.