May 4, 2002

  • Do Economists suck or what?


    I spent the whole summer the summer before last preparing to teach a graduate level course in Public Finance and Economics.  The damnable thing was that I had never taught it before, didn’t have any extensive training in the discipline, but merely had acquired the title “Economic Analyst” along the way and that—that in and of itself  supposedly “qualified” me to teach it.  Right.  So I crammed like any struggling student would before a decisive final test and filled my life with economic learning.  Until I became a polyglot of econ-thought, Yuck!  But cramming as I did had one advantage: I had the opportunity to engage a great given body of thought in totality rather than being fed seductive parcels of it from time to time.  So instead of slowly assimilating economic percepts, I was confronted urgently with a paradigm shift—a remake of the entire world in the parlance of economics.  And thus I was presented with the conscious choice—or not—of instantly converting myself wholesale into the prototype of economic man.


    Now there is a breed of economists out there that likes to shock culture with their supposedly well-reasoned insights into humanity.  It is not enough for them to just explain conventional economic phenomenon like trade or the market.  They aspire to explain all of life —even peeing, lovemaking, or picking one’s nose—with their economic philosophizing.  Perhaps none is more notorious from amongst the ranks of these social contrarians than Steven E. Landsburg, author of The Armchair Economist (Economics and Everyday Life).  I used his easily readable book in my class and nearly started a civil disturbance.  Some students loathed him and his brutish ideas.  Others were enamored  of his glistening insights.  I socratically  played both sides of the fence in order to maximize foment.  Why?  Because professorially, when wading into deep controversy, taking sides is a no-win situation.


    Now take a listen to Landsberg, Chapter 17, Courtship and Collusion: The Mating Game…


    Collusion, like sex, is ancient and ubiquitous.  It should come as no surprise that two such popular enterprises have been pursued in tandem.


    In the markets for sex and marriage, men compete among themselves for women and women compete among themselves for men.  But men compete differently than women do, in part because men are more inclined to seek multiple partners….


    In societies that allow polygamy, it is almost invariably men who take multiple wives, rather than the reverse.  Males drunk on testosterone might imagine that their lives would be better in such societies, but if the fantasy were realized most of the fantasizers would be disappointed.  For each man with four wives, there must be three with no wives at all.  You can change the laws of marriage, but you cannot repeal the laws of arithmetic. 


    In a world where each man sought four women, the competition for women would be intense.  Even those men who came out victorious would pay dearly for their victories.  Women would be doubly fortunate: They would have more suitors, and their suitors, each trying to stand out from the crowd, would be more attentive and differential.  On dinner dates, the woman would be more likely to pick the restaurant and the man more likely to pick up the tab.  Married men, sensitive to their wives’ continuing opportunities, would do more housework.


    Men in a polygamous society are like spice merchants perpetually resisting encroachments from competition.  Merchants respond by agreeing to divide territory.  Somewhere back in history, the masculine gender did the same.  By custom and law, men have managed to enforce a collusive agreement to limit their attentions to one woman apiece.  There is a lot of cheating on that agreement, but that is just what economic theory predicts.


    So, hey, you women out there: Can’t you see that marriage is a collusive conspiracy of men against you?!  By marriage, we restrict your opportunities!  We men would joyously embrace polygamy if only we could convince those 3 out of every 4 other men who would thus have no woman to become gay.   But in lieu of that unlikelihood, we’re keeping you down in the male institution of marriage.  Yes!  And here I always thought that women were the unreasonable marriage brokers!

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