Understanding the broken window fallacy doesn’t just mean recognizing that you shouldn’t break stuff just to give your resources more to do; it means recognizing that a social policy of breaking stuff is stupid, even if it benefits specific people.
Considering how many people support policies isomorphic to breaking windows, with isomorphic justifications, I think it’s fair to say must people do commit this fallacy, even if they wouldn’t commit a different version of it in a different domain.
Also, there’s serious debate at the academic level (that I don’t take seriously) about whether it even is a fallacy. Some Keynesians believe (according to Wiki) that breaking windows can alleviate a recession.
(I think this is similar to our earlier debate about whether it’s a failing of an economic theory that it regards obviously-stupid policy A as “better than nothing”, if it also regards not-obviously-stupid policy A’ as “better than A”.)
This is why I specified “domains where they have decent experience”. My point is that I don’t think there’s a gigantic need to learn these concepts to improve business practices etc. . I do think there’s a gigantic need to learn these concepts to improve public policy and charity (for the reasons given in The Myth of The Rational Voter).
People do a decent job of knowing these things on near topics, but not far topics.
Understanding the broken window fallacy doesn’t just mean recognizing that you shouldn’t break stuff just to give your resources more to do; it means recognizing that a social policy of breaking stuff is stupid, even if it benefits specific people.
Considering how many people support policies isomorphic to breaking windows, with isomorphic justifications, I think it’s fair to say must people do commit this fallacy, even if they wouldn’t commit a different version of it in a different domain.
Also, there’s serious debate at the academic level (that I don’t take seriously) about whether it even is a fallacy. Some Keynesians believe (according to Wiki) that breaking windows can alleviate a recession.
(I think this is similar to our earlier debate about whether it’s a failing of an economic theory that it regards obviously-stupid policy A as “better than nothing”, if it also regards not-obviously-stupid policy A’ as “better than A”.)
Yes, I agree.
This is why I specified “domains where they have decent experience”. My point is that I don’t think there’s a gigantic need to learn these concepts to improve business practices etc. . I do think there’s a gigantic need to learn these concepts to improve public policy and charity (for the reasons given in The Myth of The Rational Voter).
People do a decent job of knowing these things on near topics, but not far topics.