Published in Standard Examiner, Ogden, Utah, June 30, 2015
By VIJAY K. MATHUR
Guest commentary
A significant number of Americans
faced severe hardships during the recession of 2007-08 due to loss of jobs and
homes. Many also suffered from the loss of their employer-based health
insurance. Among those who have been lucky enough to find full-time jobs, many
are not getting well-paid jobs and are facing stagnant growth in wages and
benefits. There is also a trend in the labor market to hire contract workers,
which are on-demand. The Economist labels them as “Workers on tap.” Such workers must make themselves available to provide services
to different employers, and neither workers nor employers who use their
services have any long-term commitment to each other.
These technologically driven
on-demand jobs undermine work, family and locational stability, trust and
allegiance to a particular employer, and perhaps ultimately productivity and
growth. Even though Americans are concerned about their economic future and
issues such as health care, income, wealth inequality and minimum wage, they do
not seem to elect political representatives who support economic policies that
benefit them. Therefore, the question is why do Americans elect such
representatives?
One possible answer may lie in the
psychological theory of cognitive dissonance. George A. Akerlof and William T.
Dickens in a paper, “The economic
consequences of cognitive dissonance” (American
Economic Review, June 1982), present three propositions of this theory. First,
people have preferences over different outcome scenarios in the economy but
also over their beliefs about those outcome scenarios. Second, given
information people can control their beliefs by making choices, as well as
“manipulate their own beliefs by selecting sources of information likely to
confirm ‘desired’ beliefs.” Third, the choices they make on beliefs tend to
persist over time.
It is apparent from these
propositions that American voters, while voting for their candidates, are
governed by their belief system that is confirmed and proliferated by their
political parties, their leaders and the sources of information chosen by them.
This partisan divide has been
documented in a study, “Fear and Loathing
Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization,” June 2014, by Stanford University political scientist Shanto
Iyengar and Princeton University researcher Sean Westwood. Iyengar and Westwood
show that voters belonging to a party not only have ingrained hostility against
the opposite party (out-group), but “party cues exert a powerful effect on
non-political judgments and behavior.” This divide has worsened since 1980.
Iyengar and Westwood (IW) also find
that partisans are poorly informed about policy positions of the party leaders,
thus it is not surprising that they trust their party position even though it
goes against their own economic self interest. In such a partisan environment
there is hostility to economic policies advanced by the other party, even
though there is agreement on the sources of problems and its solutions. IW find
that, in the current partisan divide, animosity towards the out-group sends a
disapproval signal to elected representatives who are willing to work across
party lines. They risk being considered “appeasers.”
Leadership has to emerge to stop the
vicious circle of partisanship. Leaders in both parties must forego their
self-interest of being elected in order to promote self-interest of the
country. Even President Ronald Reagan, who is admired by conservatives on the
right and who was vocally against big government, worked with the Democrats in
raising taxes, simplified the tax code, implemented temporary fix to Social
Security and reform of the immigration system.
Conservatism and liberalism do not
require believers in their own principles to be partisan. Leaders in the
Congress have to learn to engage in the art of compromise and work across party
lines to enact laws that maximize the welfare of all Americans, conservative
and liberals alike. Unless leaders demonstrate through their actions that they
are willing to work cooperatively with the other party to deal with the
nation’s pressing issues, the general electorate, guided by their economic
interests, should vote against such leaders to break the vicious circle of
partisanship.
President Reagan once remarked in a
speech, “Freedom is the right to
question and change the established way of doing things.” I am sure voters are familiar with the gridlock in Congress
on party lines on immigration, tax reform, health care, budget etc. Perhaps
voters should heed President Reagan’s advice to change the status quo while
exercising their freedom to vote.
Mathur is former chair and professor
of economics and now professor emeritus, Department of Economics, Cleveland
State University, Cleveland, Ohio. He resides in Ogden.
This is online version in www.standard.net.
Read Print version, July 2, 2015
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