I agree it is not valuable playing word games. I think the important point is the sense I get from this list, or watching a MSNBC talking head, that you/they think it is simply obvious that no voter in Wisconsin could have any conceivable rational or legitimate conceivable reason voting for Walker, or for limiting the collective bargaining rights of government employees. Therefore, the only reason is false advertising, or false consciousness, or something entirely unrelated from a voter actually acting as a rational agent. I was simply trying to point out that it would not be irrational, nonrational, or arational, for a taxpaying voter to conclude that he should vote to limit the collective bargaining rights of government employees.
David Shemano -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of raghu Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 8:57 AM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Wisconsin On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 10:34 AM, David Shemano <[email protected]> wrote: > Why is it a tautology? So you disagree, for example, with Thomas Frank, who > argues that may voters do not vote in their self interest? > It is a meaningless tautology because of course, you can always define "self-interest" to be whatever it is that motivates voters to act in a particular way. The word "self-interest" has its rhetorical uses as with Thomas Frank's famous thesis. I believe Frank uses a specific income-based definition of self-interest as do many economists. Richard Dawkins uses a somewhat different definition and intellectual opportunists everywhere pick and choose a definition that serves their purpose at any given time. I am not interested in playing such silly word games. -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
