[An updated version of a post from 2012 which first appeared here.]
Economics don’t matter in this year’s election.
At least, they don’t matter to me.
There are smart people who think Hillary’s economic plan is better for America than Bernie’s. There are smart people that think Cruz’s’s plan is better. (Of course, Trump has no plan.) We have some idea of what a Democrat as president would be like, and with Obama at the helm the economy has improved greatly since the Wall-street induced recession of 2008, even with an obstructionist do-nothing congress. But maybe you think a Republican could do better. Who knows? I don’t really know as a fact which candidate would be better, from an economic standpoint. (Except for Trump. Trump would be a disaster by any measure.)
And let’s be honest. You don’t know who would be better, either.
Oh, there are a few people who claim to understand the economic issues involved. But let’s face it, “experts” can’t really pick stocks better than monkeys or dartboards. Why do we expect the American economy to be any more tractable? In the language of mathematics, the economy is a chaotic system. Any small change in policy is likely to produce unpredictable results. So when you pick a candidate based on “economic principles” you’re really just saying “I believe this candidate’s meaningless economic rhetoric more than the other guy’s meaningless economic rhetoric.” If you have a PhD in economics, maybe I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt…but if you’re a truck driver, or a doctor, or a waitress, or a welder, then your ideas about the economy are probably total bullshit.
I am a physicist. My ideas about the economy are bullshit.
Ever play one of the Civilization computer games, such as Civilization V? If you have, you see how complicated and interconnected every decision is. You have to juggle money, and the happiness of citizens, and threats foreign and domestic, and culture, science…the tiniest decisions can have huge ramifications, and no monolithic blanket ideology will get you to the promised land of victory. It’s a balancing act. Sometimes you have to raise taxes. Sometimes you have to cut them. Sometimes you increase education, sometimes you build infrastructure, sometimes you go to war, sometimes you seek a diplomatic solution.
If the pundits are to be believed, being president is simpler than this. Just drink the Flavor Aid, follow the party line, and everything will be great. Being president is as simple as doing everything that Rush Limbaugh (or Michael Moore) says.
I don’t buy it. And if you’re honest with yourself, you won’t either. Just say it to yourself: “I know nothing about economics. I know nothing about economics.”
Why is it that people who admittedly know nothing about chemistry, poetry, physics, differential equations, music theory, pottery, animal husbandry, statistics, number theory, ancient history, modern Japanese culture, biology, leatherworking, genetics, Shakespeare, phonetics, linear algebra, astronomy, geology, philosophy, music history, Greek, marketing, calculus, modern history, evolution, quantum mechanics, medicine, world religions, and engineering, think that they know anything about complex economic issues?
(Not you, Ken Rogoff. I know you know economics.)
Why is it that people who are ignorant of 99% of the world’s body of knowledge still have strong beliefs concerning tariffs or debt ceilings or free trade agreements or progressive taxes? Let me be frank: if you don’t know what something is, you have no logical right to an opinion about it. (Do you think that decoherence is sufficient to explain effective wave collapse, a la the Copenhagen interpretation? Or do you feel that, ultimately, some non-local theory will gives us the loophole we need to sweep Bell’s Theorem under the table? I didn’t think so.) Just once I’d like to see a fry cook from Burger King say, “I have no opinion regarding stimulus money…I don’t understand all the complex economic concepts involved…but you know, the Thirty Year’s War was less about Catholic/Protestant bickering and more about the Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry.”
If you don’t know who I am, then why do you even pretend to know the first thing about economics?
So. The economy shouldn’t matter in your voting decision. So where does that leave you?
Well, what’s left are social issues. Issues like civil rights for the LGBT community, civil rights for women, civil rights for immigrants, the failed war on drugs, the continuing (attempted) theocratization of America, and the stranglehold that the vile NRA has on our political system. I can’t in good conscience vote for a party that denies the fact of global warming (and here’s where I will play the “PhD in physics” card), the fact of evolution, the fact that the Earth is billions of years old. The Republicans give every impression that they are the anti-science party, the anti-women party, the party of a solely-Christian America, the party of Wall Street. If that is not the case, it is still true that very few Republicans distance themselves from such stances.
If you vote for someone, anyone, don’t hide behind the “I just prefer his economic policies” defense. At least have the courage of your convictions. Say what you truly are, and why you prefer the social ideas of your preferred demagogue.
I am a liberal, in the best sense of the word: the world could be better, and we have a long way to go.
What are you?
Many Worlds Theory 
Economic’s Golden Rule: There is no such thing as a free lunch….however, sometimes appetizers are free during happy hour.
Well said. And true. In Grade 12 a friend and I were selected to represent our school in some state economics championship. It was a game (pre-video game stuff) where you had to enter monetary/fiscal adjustments into a computer and watch your economy GROW! Greatest GDP with inflation under control would win, if i recall. Now, we weren’t dumb. Not geniuses, but had a good enough handle on economics…. So we thought. Three moves in and our country was in a world of hurt. It only got worse after that. It was an utter mess, and after an hour of playing our population were committing suicide just to escape the turmoil we’d created.
I’m a conservative, in the best sense of the word (if you can use that phrase, then so can I!). I’ve blogged repeatedly about my embarrassment with respect to the current crop of false conservatives. The definition I used for “true conservative” in one such post was “personal responsibility for outcomes and minimal government involvement in the day-to-day lives of the populace. I don’t tend to support the attitude of ‘there’s something we don’t like, let’s involve the government in the solution,’ and thus am conservative in at least one sense. But what is it I’d like to conserve? I’d like to conserve the natural resources necessary for both the advancement of civilization and the health of the entire ecology. I’d like to conserve our financial resources to enable us to invest in our future. I’d like to conserve our freedom to act in our own best interest so long as it can be done without the use of force, the threat of force, fraud, or coercion. In a nutshell, I believe that’s what conservatism should mean.”
While I see and, to an extent, acknowledge your point about economics, I think that a significant component of economics is incentives and those are not beyond the grasp of a welder or a truck driver, etc. Or, for the matter of that, even a physicist.