Of Hitler and Halliburton

The Hitler rule is that the first side to bring up Hitler in a debate automatically loses. Chris Suellentrop, in a desperately shallow column last week, tried to expand the Hitler rule to include all references to WWII. (Some thoughts on that piece of silliness here.) I started thinking about other Hitler rules--well not about Hitler rules, per se, but about political statements and modes of argumentation as signals. Some statements communicate little in the way of direct information but speak volumes about those who make them.

Who buys books like "Stupid White Men" or "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right"? There is evidence that consumers do not purchase these books for information. If the buyer's intention were to become better informed, the buyer would read authors from both sides. But no one does. Valdis Krebs has shown that in their Amazon.com purchases, virtually no one buys both a crass right wing bestseller and a crass left wing bestseller.) People buy these books to feel good about what they already believe, not to learn more about other perspectives.

Gary Becker has an entertaining model in which agents acquire knowledge of fine art in order to signal that they are "high status" types. Low types want to appear to be high types but the cost of acquiring artistic knowledge is higher for low types. (If I recall the model accurately, it is costly to acquire knowledge of the arts and low types have lower endowments.) No one really "cares" about art in this model. But in equilibrium, acting as though you care about art signals your high status.

And so it goes.

If an agent considers his or her fanatical political ideology to be an essential component of his or her identity, then it might be important to identify other fanatics and to let others know of his or her own fanaticism. It can take a long time to get to know someone's true political views. Moreover, political preferences are easy to falsify. (Politeness often dictates that we keep these opinions to ourselves.) A good way to communicate one's "type" is to spout some obscure piece of ideology that only true believers would ever think to express. Knowing what Michael Moore has to say, and perhaps repeating it in casual conversation, signals your type at minimum cost. Moreover, no one need fear that you have engaged in preference falsification. The time cost of reading a Michael Moore book--to an evenhanded, truth-seeking person--is prohibitively high: hours wasted on shallow illogical hypocrisies (and quite possibly a few brain cells destroyed). Learning obscure conspiracy theories about Vince Foster's suicide served a similar purpose for right-wing types, a few years back.

As I recall, when the phrase "politically correct" first made the rounds, it was meant as a compliment. "Jack? Oh, yes. He's a good fellow. Dresses well. And politically correct, I might add." It was too difficult and time consuming to describe someone's political views in detail so cultured academic types began saying "politically correct" to convey that someone's views conformed to the unspoken orthodoxy. Only later did it become an insult--the label for brainless, intolerant group-think.

Labels, it seems, can be redefined by one's enemies. Thus, there are better ways to signal one's fanatical loyalty to a party or subgroup. I've mentioned Vince Foster conspiracy theories during the Clinton era. My favorite example from the present era has to do with references to Halliburton. There is much to criticize in the Bush administration, but anyone who mentions Halliburton communicates instantly his or her adherence to a set of entertainingly paranoid fantasies, e.g., oil companies are evil, the invasion of Iraq was about oil and corporate greed and took place because Halliburton wanted some contracts.

Debunking these claims is hardly worth the space, as they are closer to emotions than to assertions of fact. If anything, the Iraqi invasion loomed as bad news for the oil industry as a whole. It meant the end of sanctions and the prospect of price decreases as Iraqi oil came back online. (Prices haven’t fallen, of course. There has been increased demand from China and other developing countries). Heightened anti-American sentiment in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world makes it harder for oil-related companies to function there. And there’s no evidence that Halliburton has received a disproportionate share of government contracts or that it has made large profits from contracts in Iraq.

For those who haven’t worked in the oil industry, Halliburton is a mysterious company. But for those of us who’ve spent some time in the industry, Halliburton is like J.C. Penney’s. Not flashy. Not glamorous. Blue collar. One of a handful of big companies that provide services for oil wells. Listening to people rave about Haliburton is a bit surreal. It is as though a portion of the country woke up one morning and started insisting that J.C. Penney’s was out to take over the world by selling khaki pants to everyone. I sometimes wonder what people would be saying if Cheney had been C.E.O. of, say, Baskin Robbins. (The U.S. invaded Iraq because Cheney knew it was hot and the troops would want ice cream?)

The mere mention of Halliburton in casual conversation connotes shady Republican machinations. In one of the worst expressions of the “Cheney+Halliburton=Evil” meme, the cover of Paul Krugman’s book (UK edition) portrayed Dick Cheney with a Hitler mustache made of oil. Krugman said he didn’t remember seeing the cover until prepublication copies were sent to reviewers, but this strains credulity (as others have already pointed out.) This is an economist’s mantra. Integrity is a superstition. If it helps me sell more books in the U.K. and people in the U.S. won’t notice it, then keep the cover and who cares what it means!

One shouldn’t complain, though. Halliburton conspiracy theories perform a vital service by saving time for the politically extreme, allowing them to signal their beliefs and screen for the like-minded at minimal cost.

Would that dating services worked as well.

P.S.Babcock

Comments

[James R MacLean]

Actually, I think the notion of "sides" in politics is not very useful(in the context you're speaking of). It sounds plausible: those who favor Tom DeLay, et al. are "right wing"; those who favor Dennis Kucinich are "left wing." Books such as you mentioned are supposedly covering "both sides." Not so; one could imagine the POV of people who don't live in the USA at all, who think both are complete fools. What about the POV of a Chinese political commentator? Indian? There are an awful lot more Indians and Chinese than Americans, and TD plus DK, in any dispute with the rest of the world, could very likely represent a particular extreme that non-Americans regard as bizarre.

Likewise, consider the case of the upper middle class woman who regards herself as very liberal and (ergo) very enlightened; yet this "liberalism" may consist solely of a particular strain of femininism that ignores nonwhites and lower income brackets. The narrative is as self-serving as that of Rush Limbaugh's, and yet RL is regarded with imfamy. Michael Moore, whom you mentioned, is actually a purveyor of a Euro-left narrative (actually, a form of right-wing narrative in which "the national self" is enlightened Europe, and the benighted other is the fat, stupid, pietistic, ignorant, hyterical, mercenary, heartless American; except that MM is such a good mascot, since he is himself American and fat).

"Enough!" you might say to my taxonomical quibbling. But this explains why such books as "Deliver us from evil" (Sean Hannity) and others sell so well: they don't actually enlighten readers about the finer points of the "other side" since there isn't one; rather, they refine a particular ideological narrative. I have noticed they tend to furnish the speaker with polemical "ammunition," which also serves to make more concrete the villainous image of the "other." The subtext is, "there really does exist a cohesive other," which makes ideological narratives asier to remember and deploy.

Respectfully,

[Chris Silvey]

Isn't this what happened to Walmart?

"It is as though a portion of the country woke up one morning and started insisting that J.C. Penney’s was out to take over the world by selling khaki pants to everyone."

Yet another good article...I keep waiting for you to have instapundit or some other large disseminator of blogs recognize your site and broadcast it to the world. Keep it up.

[p.s.babcock]

I agree, James. There exist a mulitiplicity of "sides," as it were. For some reason, there do exist party faithful who demonize members of the opposing party. In economics, we often assume agents update their beliefs according to Bayes rule. If one's friends all have similar viewpoints based on similar sources of information, it is optimal for the agent to seek out completely independent sources of information and avoid repetition. A fanatical Democrat (whatever that might mean) whose friends all read the same kinds of books and newspapers would be *better off** getting information from books or newspapers with a different perspective. This would be completely *new* information. Economists like to assume that agents want the most information for the least effort so they can make better decisions. In reality, people don't behave this way, as Kreps' work shows. Books that reinforce prejudices make people feel better about themselves. I think this is interesting, whether the sides are right vs. left, or each point of the ideological compass against the others.

Best,
PB

[p.s.babcock]

Thanks, Chris. Walmart has been demonized, hasn't it? Paying workers their marginal product and providing good products at a low price is immoral, it seems.

Mickey Kaus has linked here a couple of times, which was fun. But it's been hard to get much play from the major sites. I guess I can't complain, though. More people read us here in the blogosphere than will ever read our academic papers!

[AnferTuto]

Hola faretaste
mekodinosad