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Bryan Caplan  
PERMANENT LINK | NOVEMBER 3, 2006

Who's On Your Shoulder?

Bryan Caplan
What Austrian Brain Drain?... My Favorite Example of a Biase...

Ezra Klein engages in some interesting introspection:

Nowadays, I know that folks from that end will be looking to cut apart my ideas, I have to protect my points against their insights which, in turn, means I absorb their insights. I've a little libertarian on my shoulder (as well as a little feminist, mid-sized populist, rather large labor leader, and a variety of other shoulder-sized ideologues) and my writing is stronger for it.

Personally, the figure most likely to be on my shoulder is my Econ 1 teacher, Bill Dickens. He's my archetype of a smart, decent, creative, open-minded economist who doesn't share my libertarian sympathies. If I can write something that makes him think a second time, I'm satisfied.

How about you? Who's on your shoulder?

CATEGORIES: Economic Methods


COMMENTS (1 to date)
KipEsquire writes:

An infant orphan -- because a libertarian always has to be ready for the (false) "you libertarians would let a starving baby die in the street" straw man (though it's usually in the context of socialized medicine, not food).

Posted November 4, 2006 6:56 AM
Comments for this entry have been closed
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