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Bryan Caplan is not a blank slatist. "Let's Ban Discrimination: A Socratic Dialogue" makes it clear that he at least thinks HBD is "a distinct possibility." More like he believes in indestructible institutions.
The West is great, even shitty people become much more productive when they come here, let's bring as many of them here as possible and let them earn their keep by finding their comparative advantage. Worried they will go on welfare or vote for communism? Let them come without eligibility for welfare or the right to vote.
It's completely delusional (how long did blacks remain slaves, again?), but it's not leftism.
If he wants A and B, but B is impossible, then he is no different than any other supporter of A. He clearly doesn't think of himself as a leftist, and he didn't choose to become one. He just stood still while the Overton window moved to where he was standing.
Glad to hear that he thinks HBD is a "possibility", although how you could be anything other than a fervent believer in HBD in 2026 is puzzling.
I don't think he's a bad guy. He's just wrong about the things that matter, and the things he's right about don't matter.
Caplan is one person I just can’t develop a theory of mind for him. He seems smart. He doesn’t seem to have any interest that would prevent him from understanding this issue since he’s tenured at GMU in their Econ department. And GMU Econ is known for probably being the most intellectually tolerant department in any US university. Garret Jones similarly blogs and writes books for the masses and Garret Jones is fairly racists. All the arguments for why Caplans arguments on immigration are unworkable are probably discussed in the GMU Econ faculty lounge.
I can understand when a Harvard guy plays down some unfortunate truths because Harvard is a political place but GMU is not Harvard.
I've tried. The best I can come up with is that he is driven more by contrarianism than anything else. There seems to be almost an aggressive refusal to think through the details of his 'invite the entire world but abolish the welfare state I guess' positions. Every post on his blog where he visits another country ends with him saying 'this country's successes prove that libertarianism plus open borders is great' or 'this country's failures prove that it should embrace libertarianism plus open borders' and then ignoring the dozens of commenters pointing out how this wouldn't work and him ignoring them.
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