UPDATE BELOW
As I noted earlier this week, Tyler Cowen wrote a blog post, “David Henderson needs a reboot,” October 27, in which he responded to my three critical pieces on his two Bloomberg articles. My pieces are, from earliest to latest, here, here, and here. Cowen’s articles (gated unless you look at only a few on Bloomberg) are here and here.
Here’s the problem: Other than on one issue where he did point to a serious problem in my argument, as I noted here, Cowen didn’t join the debate about lockdowns.
Instead, he made the following statements:
David is repeatedly writing critiques of my writings on Covid-19. (Google to them if you wish, they are so off base and misrepresentative I don’t think they deserve a link, and furthermore I find it almost impossible to track down EconLog archives under their new system.)
Making it hard for your readers to even know what the person you’re arguing with is saying is not really a good way to carry on a debate. Fortunately, raja_r, one of Cowen’s commenters, was able, with apparently much less difficulty than Cowen had, to post the links in the comments section on Cowen’s site.
Virtually all of his points revolve around simple or it seems even willful misunderstandings.
Virtually all? Really? If it’s “virtually all,” then surely we’re going to see a few examples, right? I’ll save you the suspense: he names one (other than the Russian vaccine point, which I discuss later.)
Then he goes to the one in which, I did misunderstand him. I’ve noted that already. I have no idea why he thinks it might be willful. I will grant him good faith even though he doesn’t reciprocate.
That’s it. We don’t get more examples.
Later he writes:
I could point to numerous misunderstandings in David’s recent posts, pretty much in every paragraph.
Maybe he could. He’s a smart guy. Here’s the problem. He doesn’t.
He writes:
I also think he is quite wrong on substance, allying himself with a few eccentric thinkers that hardly anyone agrees with, and who have not acquitted themselves well in debate, or made good predictions as of late, but that is another matter for a different time.
He says I’m wrong on substance. Ok. Which substance? He says I’m allying myself with “a few eccentric thinkers that hardly anyone agrees with.” He doesn’t name them. But hardly anyone agrees with them? The horror. Is iconoclast Tyler Cowen really saying we should go with majority opinion? Is that how we get to the truth?
He should pay greater heed to say Scott Gottlieb, who knows what he is talking about.
I’ve read Gottlieb’s stuff. As my Hoover colleague George Shultz once said to me after telling me he had been reading my work (I had criticized him here), “I like some of it.” It would be nice to know which parts Cowen thinks are good. I hope he would agree with me that Gottlieb’s support, while at the Food and Drug Administration, for regulating e-cigarettes, making it harder for people to quit smoking real cigarettes, was a cruel and destructive move. I’m sure his co-blogger, Alex Tabarrok, could tell him about that.
I will grant him one more point. He writes:
David’s Russian vaccine post does not misunderstand me, but I don’t think it shows a very full grasp of the issue. I very much favor regulatory reciprocity for pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and more, but I strongly believe adding Russia to the reciprocal list would “poison the well” and doom the whole idea. In the meantime, they are not nearly as far along for a major vaccine rollout as they claim, so probably we are not missing out on very much, even if the quality were fine. The slightest problem with the vaccine would be blown out of proportion, most of all with DT as president and Russian conspiracy theories circulating. If your goal is to nudge and push the FDA to move more quickly across the board, starting them off with the approval of a Russian vaccine is bad tactics and is risking the entire apple cart. Maybe try for Mother England first? So I think David here is quite wrong, and applying market liberalization ideas in a knee-jerk rather than a sophisticated fashion. He called the post “Tyler Cowen’s shocking post on the Russian vaccine,” but I wonder who he thinks is really supposed to be shocked by that one. If you read David’s comment on his own post you will see he is genuinely unable to imagine that such an argument as I present above might exist.
I didn’t think of that and I do see his point. Score one for Cowen. I do object, though, to the statement, “he is genuinely unable to imagine that such an argument as I present above might exist.” I’m quite able.
By the way, if you want to see an even better argument than Cowen’s, check the numerate discussion of the Russian vaccine that my sometimes co-author Charley Hooper has posted on EconLog.
Back to whether I’m able to understand Cowen’s argument, here’s the problem. Tyler Cowen’s writing style is cryptic. He often writes conclusions without the reasons that lead to them and also writes things that leave readers wondering what he means. Read his post that I linked to in my critique of his view on the Russian vaccine and you will find no statement of the argument he gives above.
Which brings me to my second last point. In the comment section of his post criticizing me, Cowen writes:
David, if you can’t convince a very experienced author that you have come even close to his meaning, probably you haven’t. There has been a lot of other discussion of those pieces, and the other readers do seem to have understood them. You have not.
The test of whether I’ve come close to his meaning is whether I’ve convinced “a very experienced author” that I’ve come close to his meaning? But that depends on two things: (1) how good I am at understanding his meaning and (2) how open he is to being convinced that I understand his meaning. He focuses only on the first.
Then he adds:
I should also note that Bloomberg has a truly crack, first-rate team of editors, making sure that what goes out is clear.
They failed. Take a look at this paragraph from his second Bloomberg article:
Consider 9/11, when some 3,000 Americans died. The U.S. mounted a very activist response that included new security procedures at airports, crackdowns on money laundering, increased surveillance and two wars. Not all of those choices were prudent, but nonetheless they qualify as a very vigorous response.
Any editor worth his salt would have asked “which of those choices were prudent?”
It would actually be nice to have a debate about lockdowns without getting into 9/11 and other tangential issues. The debate should be about the costs and benefits of lockdowns and among the big costs is our huge loss of freedom. That’s a debate worth having. So far, Tyler Cowen has not joined. I wish he would.
UPDATE:
I just noted something I had missed. Cowen wrote:
There has been a lot of other discussion of those pieces, and the other readers do seem to have understood them.
Unless Bloomberg gets only two dozen or so readers of Cowen’s pieces–and I’m sure it gets thousands–how would he know what “the” other readers have understood?
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Oct 29 2020 at 5:04pm
The Charley Hooper link took me back to one of your earlier posts debating Tyler and not one he authored.
David Henderson
Oct 29 2020 at 5:43pm
Thanks, Alan. It’s supposed to. Scroll down and read Charley’s comment.
Rob Rawlings
Oct 29 2020 at 5:27pm
I find it bizarre that Cowen uses the aftermath of 9/11 as an analogy for the kind of ‘very vigorous response’ that he thinks is appropriate for Covid in opposition to those who call for a more cost/benefit based approach. If a cost/benefit analysis had been applied in determining the optimal response to 9/11 then almost certainly hundreds of thousands of deaths would have been avoided and America would be a much freer place today than it now is because of the overreaction that did take place back then. Spare us from such ‘very vigorous response(s)’ to the crisis of the day !
Philo
Oct 29 2020 at 6:11pm
“Any editor worth his salt would have asked ‘which of those choices were prudent?’” I don’t see it. The article is primarily about COVID-19; 9/11 is very much a side issue, brought in for comparison. An editor would regard an extensive discussion of 9/11 as distracting.
David Henderson
Oct 29 2020 at 6:27pm
Indeed, an editor might have found the 9/11 issue so distracting that he/she would have insisted that it be deleted. But if the issue were to stay, I think a good editor would think it’s important for Cowen to say, for example, whether invading Afghanistan and Iraq was a good idea.
Peter Gerdes
Oct 30 2020 at 6:09am
Why? Indeed, deliberate ambiguity on aspects they aren’t necessary to make your case is critical to communication in our current enviornment (and perhaps always was).
Indeed, the whole 9/11 point you are pressing in these arguments proves that point. I don’t need to know what Cowen thinks the optimal response to 9/11 was to evaluate his argument that our response should be the same regardless of the number actually killed (though I think you are abs correct to point out that Covid isn’t an intentional actor and if we count lost QALYs age matters). Indeed, no matter what position he might take here it would so inflame half the pop to make it harder for them to understand the argument.
I agree Cowen sometimes takes this too far and rather than merely avoiding distracting the reader chooses obscuring rhetoric but communication is hard and I try to be charitable.
pyroseed13
Oct 29 2020 at 7:40pm
You guys should just do a video debate. I’m generally on Cowen’s side with this but I agree that he wasn’t very specific about where he disagrees, so it would be nice to see his views fleshed out.
Lawrence
Oct 29 2020 at 9:01pm
David, I really enjoyed your articles. I thought they were a very clear critique of Tyler Cowen.
Vivian Darkbloom
Oct 30 2020 at 6:44am
“Tyler Cowen’s writing style is cryptic. He often writes conclusions without the reasons that lead to them and also writes things that leave readers wondering what he means.”
I agree. I’ve thought quite a bit this issue and the connection between language and thought. When I encounter people who write or talk in that “style”, I believe there are several possible reasons for it: First, that person may be much smarter and more knowledgeable than I am. Second, that person may simply be confused. Third, that person is simply bluffing in an attempt to impress. Fourth, that person is being willfully ambibuous in order to give himself the flexibility to change his ostensible position later (I think this is a form of “plausible deniability”). Finally, that person lacks empathy; that is, the person thinks he is talking to himself rather than trying to communicate with others. Empathy, I believe, is as important as knowledge in the characteristics that make a good teacher.
It’s a bit like looking at contemporary art–I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, at least initially, and I put in a lot of extra effort to understand. Sometimes, the lack of appreciation is due to my ignorance. Other times, after putting in the appropriate study and effort, I come away with the conclusion that the arist is really just a poseur.
If someone is really on top of a difficult subject, they should be able to communicate those difficult things in clear language. The more you master a subject, the more able you should be to communicate that mastery clearly. I’ve come to the tentative conclusion that those who don’t write clearly don’t think clearly. I believe that clear thinking precedes and is a pre-requisite for clear writing or speaking. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a genius who isn’t able to clearly communicate his genius to others.
Sometimes, exceptions need to be made for a fancy literary style, although I believe that the following is completely consistent with what I just wrote:
“To be quite candid — and what I am going to say now is something I have never said before, and I hope that it provokes a salutary chill — I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”
I’m not saying you are a genius, David, but I rarely have difficulty understanding what you write.
Garrett
Oct 30 2020 at 9:19am
I think you’re missing the actual reason, one which Cowen himself doesn’t deny: there are unpopular truths that economists wish to promote that would be attacked if they were asserted too clearly. I can’t remember the term he uses for it, it’s a “[something] reading.”
It’s basically the exact opposite style of Bryan Caplan’s. But then it seems that Cowen’s influence is a lot broader than Caplan’s. That said, I much prefer reading Bryan.
Garrett
Oct 30 2020 at 9:22am
Of course I remember the term right after I click submit: it’s a “Straussian reading”
Vivian Darkbloom
Oct 30 2020 at 10:22am
“there are unpopular truths that economists wish to promote that would be attacked if they were asserted too clearly. I can’t remember the term he uses for it, it’s a “[something] reading.” (Straussian).
And, that’s a complete cop out. I don’t buy it for a second. The word “Straussian” should be re-defined to mean “people who say and write things that are not really what they mean because they lack the conviction to state their real beliefs directly”. I didn’t mention “Straussian” because I think it falls squarely under my Fourth Reason. Since when did it become ok for academics and/or economists to behave as if they are politicians? Their calling is not to be popular but to run against popular beliefs when that is necessary. Finally, “Straussian reading” is not the same as “Straussian writing”.
Garrett
Oct 30 2020 at 11:54am
I actually brought it up specifically because I think it didn’t fall under your 4th reason. While I agree that it is a form of plausible deniability, the point is not to give the speaker “the flexibility to change his ostensible position later.” Instead, the point is to give the speaker cover against hostile readers while signaling to friendly ones.
And I agree that it’s a cop out. Like I said, I prefer Bryan’s writings over Tyler’s. But I will concede that there have been times in history where economists definitely needed to be careful with their arguments, such as under communist regimes.
Philo
Oct 30 2020 at 6:57pm
“. . . such as under communist regimes.” Note that contemporary American “cancel culture” has some (slight, but notable) similarity to the communist policing of expression.
Lawrence Ludlow
Nov 1 2020 at 11:23am
I agree with you about the problem of reading Tyler’s work. Equivocal use of words is just the start. I’m not an economist — rather just a “learner.” But I am able to understand David’s writing. In my experience, people who can communicate their ideas to beginners are often the people who best understand their ideas and the implications. It is people who write in cryptic ways — often evidenced by holding onto “canonical but indecipherable” strings of words — the may not fully comprehend their statements or theories. Usually people cling to cryptic writing practices (ones that rely on jargon and over-complex sentences and vocabulary) because they feel “safe” using those much-used, often-repeated strings of words. They don’t want to improve on them to make things clearer. And far too many academics do not — I repeat, do not — communicate clearly. It used to be that a classical education made them poor communicators (I’m serious because they modeled their writing on over-elaborate Latin and Greek forms such as those written by Cicero and others), but I can’t explain how this finds its way into economic writing.
RPLong
Oct 30 2020 at 7:38am
Ironically, it is incredibly difficult to search the archives of MarginalRevolution.com. I searched for “Iraq war” and read every post from 2003 that I could find. Cowen’s unclear writing style notwithstanding, I came away with the impression that he favored the Iraq War.
One might argue that this is beside the point, but Cowen brought it up, so now it’s germane. A more “sophisticated” reading of David’s critiques is that, just as in the case of the Iraq War, a “knee-jerk” government response to COVID-19 will tend to immiserate people unless a true cost/benefit analysis can be conducted.
Thomas Hutcheson
Oct 30 2020 at 8:26am
What about a “re boot” in which both you and TC lay out the correct alternative policy position to the one you disagree with. [I agree that because of TC’s cryptic style (which explains, I think, why his comments section contains so much bile) HE is unlikely to do this.]
David Henderson
Oct 30 2020 at 12:52pm
Roger,
I don’t recall reading his critiques of Austrian economics and so I can’t comment. I have read Bryan Caplan’s critiques and I find them quite persuasive.
The reason I read Cowen’s posts is that there’s so much valuable there. I admit that there’s a lot of trivia. But it’s relatively easy to ignore the trivia and go for the good content, of which there’s much. For example, he often links to NBER articles and that I wouldn’t otherwise know of.
KevinDC
Oct 30 2020 at 1:02pm
Without wanting to get into the weeds of the particulars of this debate, I will say that this event has caused me to somewhat downgrade my estimation of Tyler Cowen. But in contrast to Roger McKinney above, my reaction isn’t to dismiss Tyler in general. Even if Tyler is totally wrong with his debate with David, and even if Tyler’s criticism of Austrian economics is totally off base, I still think it’s very important to rule thinkers in, not rule them out. And I think that despite recent events, Tyler Cowen remains very much a thinker worth ruling in.
(Also, apparently, I’m constitutionally incapable of reading anything on any blog that doesn’t in some way remind me of a Scott Alexander post 😛 )
David Henderson
Oct 30 2020 at 1:28pm
Somehow my response to Roger McKinney got deleted, so here goes.
First, I don’t know what Tyler Cowen has written about Austrian economics. I do know that Bryan Caplan has written some very good critiques, one in particular, IIRC, that I found persuasive.
Second, I’ll keep reading Marginal Revolution because there’s so much good there. Sure, there’s a lot of trivia, but it’s easy to ignore. Tyler Cowen comes up with gems every week, especially studies by NBER.
David Henderson
Oct 30 2020 at 1:31pm
One other thing: even some of the trivia is fun. It livens up the site.
Ninja
Oct 30 2020 at 1:05pm
David, when it comes to your views on COVID, you have been on the right side from the start! Bravo! Down with lockdowns!
On the contrary, Tyler has been completely wrong on practically everything when it comes to COVID.
In time, your views on COVID will be vindicated. Conversely, all the pro-lockdown views will slowly become discredited. So, even if you seem to hear the voices of many critics at the moment, rest assured that your views will stand the test of time.
As commenters above have stated, it is much like the Iraq war. If one had opposed the Iraq war from the start, those views would have initially come under attack, but in time they would have been proven correct.
I have always found Tyler’s writing to be ‘deliberately designed to confuse’. By not taking a stand against lockdowns, he has fallen precipitously in my estimation. On the other hand, David, I have more respect for you than ever for taking a courageous stand against lockdowns.
krishnan chittur
Oct 30 2020 at 1:48pm
The spread of SarsCov2 that causes covid19 in some people is helping me understand why some people write what they write (or how they write). FWIW, there is a certain desperation in the words of some (like Cowen) when someone like you (Henderson) write something that is remotely critical OR appear to be critical – Watching twitter traffic (not by any means representative ofcourse) I see when someone posts something that goes against the “popular” (i.e. current policy) narrative, there are angry responses – the term “excess deaths” for example brings out anger in many – the impression I get is that to some, unless we defeat death itself, we have lost. There is also this incredible misunderstanding of viruses in general – as if we can make the virus go away by lockdown (draconian or otherwise). I am convinced that politics and the spread of social media has contributed to a degradation in the quality of the discussion about the sarscov2 virus. I am convinced that the response to the virus will and has caused more death and destruction than the virus itself – try telling that to some and they will erupt in anger
Jon O Chenoweth
Oct 30 2020 at 2:03pm
Though he could have been much clearer, Tyler was making three broad points:
Good policies can cause a backlash that leads to bad policies. Easing lockdowns may cause a rise in cases, which may lead to public panic, which may lead to more severe lockdowns. If a Russian vaccine turns out to be unsafe, more people will forego any vaccine, which will cause cases to rise. Proponents of good policies must acknowledge the risk of backlash and have a plan to deal with it.
If the public thinks that government isn’t taking a problem seriously, the popularity of politicians who promise to “do something” will increase, and that “something” might turn out to be counter-productive. (This is where the comparison to 9-11 comes in.) A significant portion of the public sees herd immunity as a complacent strategy, which opens the door to the “something” of lockdowns. Proponents of herd immunity must be ready to deal with this reality. Public choice matters.
Herd immunity is indeed a complacent strategy. We have the technological wherewithal to keep safe, without lockdowns, while we wait for a vaccine. To throw up our hands–either by living like hermits or by simply allowing the virus to run its course–is unbecoming of a civilized society.
Instead of slogging line by line through Tyler’s posts, David should engage with these broad points. Don’t miss the forest for the trees!
AJ
Oct 30 2020 at 3:45pm
The unjoined debate? Didn’t you ‘join’ or ‘start’ it by making frequent blog posts criticizing his writing?
David Henderson
Oct 30 2020 at 3:53pm
Exactly. I “started” it. He didn’t join it. It takes two to tango.
AJ
Oct 30 2020 at 4:06pm
He did join it in his blog post. For whatever reason, you keep writing about it.
Tyler Cowen
Oct 30 2020 at 4:08pm
Here is another example of a flat-out misunderstanding from you. I wrote on the 9-11 topic: “Not all of those choices were prudent, but nonetheless they qualify as a very vigorous response.” You wrote:
“So if we got close to the optimal response, then Cowen is saying that the Iraq war was close to optimal. And, by the way, in case he or you need reminding, that war caused many thousands of deaths of young, old, and in-between. Almost all were relatively innocent.”
I am sorry, but that is not close, and then you continue to go down that rabbit hole, something thinking my sentence ought to lead me to endorse Iraq attacking the United States in turn.
Or consider the point where you admit you were wrong. You accused me of sacrificing forty million American children, and then accused me of casual neglect of that supposed fact. What kind of rhetoric is that? What prompted you to attack me so personally in such a way? You couldn’t even bring yourself to write “sacrificing *a year of schooling* for forty million children” (which also would be untrue as a description of my view). No, you gave the sentence the affective feel of my sacrificing the schoolchildren.
It is absolutely true that I didn’t work through the misrepresentations and odd choices of tone in your pieces. I don’t think I should have done it, and I feel that such work would have magnified them. You need to think more carefully about why you chose to do them.
David Henderson
Oct 31 2020 at 4:53pm
If you’re going to join the debate, you need at a minimum to explain yourself when there’s an ambiguity and to correctly quote what I’m saying.
You failed at both.
You correctly quoted my statement:
“So if we got close to the optimal response, then Cowen is saying that the Iraq war was close to optimal. And, by the way, in case he or you need reminding, that war caused many thousands of deaths of young, old, and in-between. Almost all were relatively innocent.”
Notice the “if,” which is key.
Then you wrote:
Ok, so it’s not close. Then explain which actions the U.S. government took after 9/11 that were close to optimal and which weren’t. You’ve still left the ambiguity.
And notice how you misquote me. You write:
When I read that, I wondered to a friend “I did? Oh my goodness, I’d better apologize for that extreme misstatement.” But then I thought that maybe I should check what I said. I’m glad I did. Here’s what I said:
I think most readers, if not you, will understand the big difference between sacrificing well-being and sacrificing lives.
Yancey Ward
Oct 31 2020 at 12:35am
It would probably be worthwhile to revisit this in a year. I already know the outcome, but you won’t drag Tyler to acknowledge until then.
I predicted months ago that certain writers would double down and then double down again at each point along this pandemic. Sunk Cost Fallacy seems to control here. Watch as Europe reenters lockdowns as you and Tyler are having this debate.
DeservingPorcupine
Nov 2 2020 at 11:02am
This whole thing would be made much clearer in Cowen simply presented a basic cost-benefit analysis of the COVID restrictions. Even a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation would help the conversation get started on clearer footing. What’s the maximum number of QALYs we could save with these interventions? OK, how much GDP can we reasonably sacrifice for that?
Comments are closed.