Current issues | ProSocial Libertarians

This piece was written for, and appeared earlier this week in, Discourse Magazine. See it there at https://www.discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2022/11/14/how-to-talk-politics-at-thanksgiving-without-causing-a-family-feud/.

As you pack your bags for your Thanksgiving trip, you may be starting to worry about that “crazy” uncle, extreme aunt, or other sour relative whose political views are so different from your own that anxiety turns expectations of what should be a happy family gathering into the grim anticipation of impending doom.

Many people resort to telling their children, siblings, and spouses not to discuss certain topics at the family gathering for fear of setting off those relatives—or just giving them an excuse to rant about whatever their cockamamie view is that day. Total avoidance is the only way they can see to keep the peace and prevent the polarization that exists across the country from leading to acrimony at their own feast.

The suggestion that we should not discuss the controversial topic du jour is now often defended with claims about how it is uncivil or disrespectful to disagree with anyone or to bring up controversial issues that are sure to encourage disagreement. Despite the popularity of this view, it is a mistake.

Not only is the avoidance policy a fool’s game, destined to fail regardless, but it is also misguided from the outset. There will always be disagreements. If we don’t disagree about defunding the police, Black Lives Matter, this president’s immorality, that president’s idiocy, or the government handling of COVID-19, we’ll find something else to disagree about. Trying to suppress disagreement simply causes festering animosity.

The reason the animosity festers is that if you refuse to allow yourself to disagree with someone, you’re essentially accepting that they are not capable or worthy of honest discourse. You might think Uncle Dan can’t be reasoned with; he’s an imbecile, so why even try? Thinking in those terms leads not to acceptance or love of the other, but to disgust, and that disgust is often hard to shake. So disagreement will emerge one way or another, and trying to prevent it is likely to make the disagreement that finally erupts more acrimonious and less civil.

Importantly, though, honest disagreement is not uncivil or disrespectful in the first place. Indeed, it’s a sign of respect. If my 3-year-old told me that I was wrong to think a particular politician is terrible because that politician is actually quite wonderful, I would not argue with him. Why? Because as a 3-year-old, he is simply not in a position to have a reasonably well-thought-out view of the matter. 3-year-olds deserve respect, but not for their political views.

Uncle Dan, I assume, is not a toddler, but if I refuse to argue with him about a politician, I am treating him as I would my 3-year-old. This is the opposite of respect! To show respect for Dan, I must be willing to engage with him. I must recognize that he, like me, is a person with his own views and his own reasons for those views, and that he is also capable of changing his mind, like any rational being. Yes, disagreement is a sign of respect.

This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to treat those family members with whom you disagree with respect. Engage them, not with vitriol, but with curiosity and an eagerness to learn—if not to learn how you’re mistaken, at least to learn why they think differently from you. Assume they have reasons because they probably do. If they don’t, perhaps you can uncover the etiology of their belief instead. In discussion, maybe they can also come to understand why you think the way you do. Indeed, you might both learn something about yourselves and each other.

I can’t say this is an easy task. It can be difficult—in part because of the anxiety we often manufacture around such discussions and in part because it requires allowing ourselves to be intellectually and emotionally vulnerable. You cannot go into a discussion like this holding steadfast to your own beliefs about the topic at hand. If you think they are wrong, remember that they are also thinking you are wrong. In fact, maybe you’re both wrong. You won’t know unless you are willing to take them seriously, treating them as a reasonable person who can be corrected—and recognizing that you also may need correction.

When you approach a discussion this way—recognizing that you and Uncle Dan are both due the respect of disagreement and are both capable of being wrong as well as capable of being corrected—you can learn more about the world, as well as more about each other. Admittedly, you may not change each other’s minds; perhaps after extensive discussion you each understand where the other is coming from but still think the other is clearly wrong. Yet even if neither of you changes your beliefs about the topic, you will have learned more about each other!

Increased mutual understanding through discourse is extremely helpful—and exactly what we need in these polarized times. The same model of respectful disagreement that works among individuals can work for society as a whole. It can lead to more compassion for each other and a happier Thanksgiving feast with love and fellow-feeling—something to be truly thankful for.

Watch me discussing these ideas on C-Span Sunday morning: https://www.c-span.org/video/?524342-5/washington-journal-andrew-jason-cohen-discusses-politics-civil-discourse.

President Biden wants to raise the minimum wage (MW) to $15. Many politicians, labor unions, and others support this policy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, however, predicted that raising the MW will cost 1.4 million jobs.

Economists already knew this, of course. By a simple application of the law and supply and demand we can predict that raising the MW will create unemployment: if employers are forced to raise their salaries they will hire less workers.

To be sure, the literature is not unanimous. A well-known paper by Card and Krueger used empirical data to question the conventional wisdom that the MW reduces employment. However, their findings have been repeatedly challenged (see especially here). I cannot adjudicate the issue here, but an intellectually honest examination (such as the one conducted by the CBO) must acknowledge that, given the extant specialized literature, there is at least a serious probability that raising the MW will cause unemployment.

Yet, in my conversations with supporters of the MW I have found a stiff resistance to even consider the objection. Some deny that the MW causes unemployment, often citing the Card & Krueger paper. This position is implausible if the MW supporter refuses to consider the evidence and arguments against Card & Krueger, especially given that the weight of expert opinion is on the other side. An honest observer should not cherry-pick the evidence and at the very least remain agnostic or cautious in support of the MW.

But caution is not what we see. Setting aside the evidence, some say that the MW is required for moral reasons. This is an interesting position, because it seeks to block empirical considerations in the evaluation of the MW. This is odd, however. If the MW has bad consequences, what could possibly be the non-empirical reasons in its favor? Maybe this one: support for MW expresses support for the poor, here represented by the lowest-wage earners. But if the MW causes unemployment, that means that by supporting the MW one fails to support the poor, since the unemployed are generally poorer than the MW earners.

Maybe the MW supporter can argue as follows:
(1) No one knows for sure if the MW creates unemployment.
(2) Supporting the MW expresses solidarity with the poor.
(3) Expressing solidarity with the poor is noble.
(4) Therefore, I am justified in supporting the MW, since in doing so I perform a noble action that does not have obvious bad consequences.

The two first premises are questionable. Premise (1) misrepresents the status quaestionis, as I indicated earlier. Economists have studied the issue, and the consensus is that there is at least a serious question that the MW will reduce employment. Premise (2) is dubious, because the expressive value of MW support is entirely parasitic on the mistaken belief that raising the MW helps wage earners without producing any bad consequences. This is a violation of Hazlitt’s injunction that in order to evaluate a policy, we must consider not just its effects on the group that benefits, but also its effects on other social groups. A policy must be evaluated by both its seen and unseen effects. Since (1) and (2) are false, (4) is false.

If the MW supporter instead claims that those already employed are morally deserving beneficiaries of the raise, then he must not only justify why them, and not others, deserve this benefit, but, as important, openly acknowledge that the policy will hurt many others. MW supporters never do this. They just deny or ignore these bad consequences.

I happen to believe that the best explanation of why many people support the MW despite the evidence is that they are grandstanding. They signal their compassion by taking advantage of the ignorance of the public about the functioning of labor markets. This is an instance of discourse failure: the public assertion of a falsehood where the speaker has truth-insensitive reasons for saying what she says.

But even taking the MW supporter at her word, that there are non-empirical, or moral, reasons for such support, the position doesn’t hold. Symbolism may have a place in certain contexts. Think, for example, of a public expression of solidarity with victims of genocide. Even if such act does not save the victims, the symbolic expression of support may be an appropriate or commendable act.

But symbolism has no place in the realm of economic policy, where outcomes control. If people support the MW in the name of helping workers, and it turns out that the MW hurts more workers than those it helps, then that should end the debate.

Owning Civil Discourse and Social Justice