The People’s Romance is a scale social good. Conspicuous non-conformism is a congestion good.
Inspired by this dichotomy from Robin Hanson.
UPDATE: In “Predictably Irrational” Dan Ariely describes an experiment in which he had a group of people at a restaurant/bar to order their drinks, with the randomized conditions being whether they did so by announcing their choice or silently marking it on a piece of paper. It turns out that rather than imitating the choices of the “first person in line” (read the book to understand the back-reference), people tend to avoid repeating choices that others have made. Furthermore, people who choose differently to avoid sharing the same selection as another at their table report less enjoyment of it (it makes no difference to the first chooser whether they made their choice verbally or on paper). Ariely found this aesthetically-sabotaging tendency to be correlated with a personality trait called “need for uniqueness” (related to “openness to experience”?). So individualists should dislike themselves for their foolish idiosyncracy. There is an exception for other cultures, in Hong Kong people tended to imitate other choosers, again to the detriment of their reported satisfaction. I wonder what satisfactions people would report if one person made a choice, and then everyone received the same thing so that others did not have the possibility of feeling the same sort of regret for being pushed into bad choices?
Entitled to an Opinion 
July 13, 2010 at 11:26 am
I may be retarded but can you explain what you mean by “scale social good” and “congestion good”?
July 13, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I’ve also been skeptical of the Enlightenment’s ‘rationalism’. Quite a lot of the positions espoused by Enlightenment members look suspiciously like faith-based pronouncements on the degree of reason used to support their positions and the utility of reason generally.
July 13, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Sister Y: I may have been confusing by adding the “social” there, I merely meant to note that it’s not a conventional good bought on a market. Hanson denotes a “scale” good as one with diminishing marginal costs, so there more people consuming the good the more cheaply they all can have it. Congestion goods involve limited resources and increasing marginal costs (the more consumers, the more expensive). The People’s Romance involves all of us being in it together, so it has higher benefits the more people buy into it. Conspicuous non-conformism requires ever more investment to distinguish ones’ self as a non-conformist the more non-conformists there are. So if we imagine a large population of Peoples’ Romance communitarians living with a small population of conspicuous non-conformists who reject the romance, both the majority and minority would prefer on the margin for non-conformists to defect than the other way around.
melendwyr, I don’t quite see how that relates to the post but I think you have a point. I am also suspicious of “rationalism” as opposed to empiricism or pluralism. I think it does beat irrationalism/mysticism though. A lefty makes a similar claim against the Enlightenment classical liberals in The Ideology of the Laissez-Faire Program.
July 16, 2010 at 11:33 am
Weird – was there a comment before mine that was deleted? Or did I somehow put a response to another blog on this page? Hmmm.
I don’t see that any degree of romanticism is needed to make a social system ‘work’. More precisely, if some given group of people requires it, then you don’t want those people running things.
If, to maintain our society, we need an emotional bugaboo for people to grab onto and feel good about belonging… we shouldn’t maintain our society. There is no shame in starting over.
July 13, 2010 at 10:00 pm
The People’s Romance involves all of us being in it together, so it has higher benefits the more people buy into it.
I wonder what kind of benefits. “Fellow feeling,” sure, but this has many outlets apart from progressive internationalism or conservative nationalism (or progressive nationalism for that matter, or perhaps “buy local”). Klein’s People’s Romance speaks to mainly these, not civic associations that might even be national in scope. Though it’s arguable that even these can’t rival good old statist camaraderie.
The article you linked to makes a good point thought. The age of Hannah Arendt and rational (heh) fear of mass movements and impending totalitarianism is pretty much over, at least domestically. There is still too much nationalism implicit in rhetoric for my taste, but it’s hard to disagree with the idea, given what I’ve seen among my peers, that there is a lack of big ideas to cling to.
I’ve been reading some Zizek lately (not the books, but interviews) and he complains alot about this. In fact I think his book In Defense of Lost Causes is all about it.
July 13, 2010 at 11:51 pm
TGGP,
Only semi-on-topic but have you ever read — or commented on — this book?
July 14, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I’ve never heard of it before.
July 17, 2010 at 7:28 am
America is teeming with self-described “non-conformists” and “individualists” who also love the government. The Democratic Party owes its very existence to this fact. So I don’t think the proposed dichotomy really works.
>>”Klein can’t really connect the two parts of his analysis. He observes, correctly, that people actively seek coordination and commonality. His economist principles make it hard to say that any human desires are wrong per se, but because these desires are inherently social rather than individual he can’t bear to live with the consequences of these desires.”
That’s the best summation of the contradiction inherent in libertarianism I’ve seen.
July 17, 2010 at 2:44 pm
[…] work independently? Posted by teageegeepea under Uncategorized Leave a Comment flenser said the Democratic Party owes its existence to self-described “non-conformists” and […]
July 17, 2010 at 2:54 pm
melendwyr, I didn’t delete any posts. There was just Sister Y before you. And reconstructing society is not a matter of shame, but difficulty.
flenser, your comment inspired this GSS analysis.
I don’t see how pro-social desires are any more evidence of a contradiction in libertarianism than anti-social desires. Libertarians generally don’t approve of theft, but it can’t be denied that thieves desire the property of others and libertarians don’t declare the desire per se to be invalid. Nor do libertarians oppose individuals forming voluntary associations.
July 17, 2010 at 5:03 pm
>>”Nor do libertarians oppose individuals forming voluntary associations.”
It depends on what these voluntary associations do, doesn’t it? Suppose a bunch of individuals form a political party (a voluntary association) and take power, and then enact laws libertarians dislike. Do libertarians see such activity as legitimate?
Libertarians, just like liberals and conservatives, believe that individuals should be free to do what they want … within certain constraints. The disagreement is over which constraints should be in effect. Libertarians believe that the freedom of people to act in groups, outside of the economic sphere, is a dangerous thing and should be curtailed.
It’s a political philosophy which is inherently hostile to the small r republican form of government. I’ve read a good deal of libertarian literature on this topic, and their preferred form of government is some form of tyranny. (Tyranny in the original Greek sense)
July 18, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Yes, libertarians do generally favor the freedom of people they disagree with to be politically active. Eugen Richter opposed the anti-socialist laws, and today it is liberals (and some like John McCain) who support campaign financing restrictions while libertarians oppose it all. I’d like you to show me an example of libertarians opposing the formation of voluntary associations.
Which literature are you referring to? The definition of “tyrant” the Greeks had was someone who seizes power through violence. Plato & Aristotle defined it as a lawless ruler who rules for his own benefit and his cruel towards his subjects. Again, the closest thing to that is Mencius Moldbug who denies being a libertarian and insists that such a ruler actually would take the best care of his subjects.
July 19, 2010 at 5:52 pm
[…] Flat Talk: A Conceit of Supposed Experts and a Seduction to All.” Klein has come in for criticism lately, which spurred my following […]
July 21, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Regarding your update –
(it makes no difference to the first chooser whether they made their choice verbally or on paper)
I doubt that would be true if he realized the effect his ordering had. If he were invited to choose from, say, a cart, and each cart carried only one of each item so that his choice clearly blocked the choices of future choosers in his group, he’d probably either inquire into the preferences of others, or at least feel guilty about choosing first.
I don’t see how the “need for uniqueness” is any less rational than any other preference that might determine a chooser’s selection (taste for spice? vegetarianism? weight control?). A chooser may report less gastronomic satisfaction, but he’s satisfied another preference instead. Same thing with “need for conformity.”
The only difference I can see is that some preferences are internal (spice, etc.) and some are external (Megan already ordered the bacon sorbet so I can’t have it), and we’re more likely to feel hamstrung and resentful toward preferences that depend on others’ actions, as opposed to merely identifying with our own internal preferences.
We feel our own purposes frustrated by others, rather than recognizing that we’re still satisfying our own preferences with our choices.
July 22, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Yes, he would probably behave differently in that situation.
I guess they’ll need another survey to report overall satisfaction!