I love behavioral economics. It's a beautiful amalgam of theory and counter-intuitive empirical observation. It's the opposite of ideology. It acknowledges that people don't always behave the way we expect them to, and tries to figure out why. And according to this article, Barack Obama's wonks are rooted in it. I guess it makes sense that it was Steven Leavitt, author of Freakonomics, that turned me on to Obama over a year ago.
From the article:
As Thaler puts it, "Physics with friction is not as beautiful. But you need it to get rockets off the ground." It might as well be the motto for Obama's entire policy shop.I think that encapsulates the difference between Obama's crew and someone like Ron Paul, who I think also has a lot of good ideas. Everything coming from Lew Rockwell and the libertarian think tanks sounds good in theory, but it feels like working out those physics problems where vacuums and frictionless surfaces are assumed. Same goes for Bush's cadre of neoconservatives and Clinton's neoliberalism. Sure, universal health care/getting rid of the Fed/invading Iraq sounds good, but is there any real evidence that things will play out in reality as well as the theory suggests? It's all deductive, and assumes that if we fix policy around over-arching principles, the details will bear out those principles.
I have no way of knowing whether Obama would be a good president, but I like the idea that his people strive to form policy that accounts for and relies on hard data, rather than trying to implement a broad ideology that is assumed will bring about desired results. I'm willing to give the inductive approach a try. It seems more scientific, even humbler. It acknowledges that no one really knows what will happen until we try something out.
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