Bryan Douglas Caplan

"Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisely because it does what voters want. Through an analysis of American's voting behavior and opinions on a range of economic issues, he makes the case that noneconomists suffer from four prevailing biases: they underestimate the wisdom of the market mechanism, distrust foreigners, undervalue the benefits of conserving labor, and pessimistically believe the economy is going from bad to worse. Caplan lays out several ways to make democratic government work better

Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

The Myth of the Rational Voter

Essays on the World's Greatest Market

Labor Econ Versus the World

"Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and New York Times Bestselling author of Open Borders, The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, and The Case Against Education, blogged for EconLog from 2005-2022. His latest book combines an all-new piece, "Don't Be a Feminist: A Letter to My Daughter," with the very best of his EconLog writings on the virtue - and perversion - of justice. In the title essay, Caplan challenges the conventional view that we treat women less fairly than men. Men predominate at the bottom as well as the top of society. Performance gaps, not unfairness, are the best explanation. Feminism succeeds because it is false: society cares more when women suffer. Much more. Later essays debunk the "woke" movement as an Orwellian program of uniformity and exclusion. The alternative is the Beckerian view that free markets foster genuine justice by rewarding employers who put bigotry aside. That is why even xenophobic employers often hire illegal immigrants. Blaming all men, whites, or immigrants for the sins of some is emotionally appealing but economically absurd."--

Essays on Genuine Justice

Don't be a Feminist

Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisely because it does what voters want. Through an analysis of American's voting behavior and opinions on a range of economic issues, he makes the case that noneconomists suffer from four prevailing biases: they underestimate the wisdom of the market mechanism, distrust foreigners, undervalue the benefits of conserving labor, and pessimistically believe the economy is going from bad to worse. Caplan lays out several ways to make democratic government work better

Bryan Douglas Caplan

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