Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…Part of it is because sometimes when I don’t know what I think, I just read your blog. The truth is that it’s been a disconcerting time. As my Spanish wife one time pointed out, who is an American citizen and deeply loves this country, American society is largely driven by cultural fads and moral panics. The problem with that is that it obscures our attention to gradual cultural decline. That’s her view. I have to say that I find that view very compelling. We have all kinds of cultural and political fads and all kinds of moral panics. Cultural fads are the things that we’re all doing, and we don’t quite know why, but other smart people are doing them, so we do. Panics, grievance panics, are based on the idea that we should all be angry and afraid about something, even though we weren’t 10 minutes ago. You and I live on college campuses, so we can’t actually avoid this. Politics actually exists according to fads and panics as well. That means that if you think you know the Republican Party, you don’t, because it’s going to change. The same thing is true for the Democratic Party. However, when you’re out of an equilibrium, that you should assume that the equilibrium at some point will return. If you liked it the old way, you should keep it the old way. It’s like the old Obama promise. If you like your insurance or you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your Republicanism, you should be able to keep your Republicanism. Don’t worry about it if people actually don’t agree with you. This is America, for Pete’s sake. I don’t like the populism. I don’t think the populism is right. I’m an old-school free enterprise guy. That’s what really animates me in this particular way. I have very many traditional views that don’t seem to be in favor at this point. I also have a lot of confidence that this is the mainstream view, and it’s actually going to return. I have not just confidence, I have hope that actually I can do something to urge it along. Now you. I would say it’s mostly unfortunate. I consider myself a classical liberal. I think there’s been negative emotional contagion from a number of very bad events, some of which were partly random. Say that 9/11 actually happened, that COVID came along when it did, and if a bunch of bad things happened, the Great Financial Crisis, that’s less random. People turn to worse ideas, and we’re suffering under that, and then it spreads, and then negative ideas lead to further negative ideas, and people become less happy, and that leads to worse policy, and we’re stuck in this rut. Now I never expected classical liberalism or classical liberal Republicanism to be that dominant anyway. I’m not that surprised. I see it as a return to some features of, say, late 19th-century America that I feel never went away. I’ve never liked them, but I think it’s maybe what we really are. There was this odd bubble. You can debate when the years run, but something like 1980 through 2016, that seemed quite normal, but that was an illusion. Now we’re back to the real state of things. Interesting. Yes. You’re saying, I think, that Trumpism is an equilibrium and Reaganism was a disequilibrium, and I’m saying the opposite.…

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