the left's Nirvana Fallacy

Asking the Right Question

michaelsmith@substack.com

When “As compared to what?” is the question, more often than not, America is the answer.

MICHAEL SMITH OCT 30

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Given the mid-terms are upon us, I’ve been thinking about potential outcomes and what America means to you, to me, and the world. In this age of narrow victories and losses, the outcomes matter - but what matters even more are the factors that go into making that choice and marking it on a ballot.

I’m sure you are like me when sometimes I watch political and social commentary on YouTube and other sources and wonder whether the people producing them inhabit the same planet I do. We are ostensibly looking at the same events, living under the same laws, and experiencing the same human condition, yet our conclusions are sometimes so radically different that I wonder whether we even agree on what constitutes reality.

I have generally attributed these differences to experience, education, ideology, or the peculiar human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel morally superior, but I suspect something more fundamental is at work. Perhaps the great intellectual divide in modern society is not between liberals and conservatives, or even individualists and collectivists. Perhaps it is between those who understand that life is an exercise in managing tradeoffs and those who insist on measuring reality against an imaginary standard of perfection.

We live in a world of almost infinite theoretical possibilities, but a decidedly finite number of practical alternatives. Every decision involves constraints imposed by resources, knowledge, time, human nature, and circumstances beyond our control. Consequently, outcomes rarely fall neatly into categories of good and bad. More often, they occupy positions along a sliding scale ranging from mostly good with some undesirable consequences to mostly bad with a few redeeming qualities.

Sometimes our choices are between bad and worse. Rational decision-making is not about discovering an alternative without disadvantages but identifying the best achievable outcome among those actually available - yet an astonishing amount of modern sociopolitical discourse proceeds as though the existence of an undesirable consequence proves that a better alternative must exist.

Often, due to limitation of the time, place, and situation there simply are none.

Economists have a name for one manifestation of this intellectual defect: thenirvana fallacy. It describes comparing an imperfect real-world arrangement against an idealized alternative rather than another arrangement that could realistically exist. Capitalism provides a useful example. Critics point to poverty, inequality, economic insecurity, and exploitation as evidence that capitalism is fundamentally defective. Those conditions certainly exist, but the relevant question is whether another achievable economic system has demonstrated a superior ability to create prosperity, reduce deprivation, encourage innovation, and improve the human condition. The historical record provides considerable evidence on that question, although it apparently lacks the emotional appeal of imagining a society in which everyone is smart, tall, good looking, and $100 bills rain from the sky.

There is nothing inherently wrong with imagining a better world. The problem arises when the desirability of an objective is mistaken for evidence of its feasibility. Eliminating poverty and crime is desirable, as is providing everyone with excellent healthcare, comfortable housing, and economic security. Unfortunately, declaring something desirable does not suspend the laws of economics, overcome limitations of human nature, or magically produce sufficient necessary resources.

But any society that confuses aspirations with achievable outcomes will inevitably become frustrated with reality, and that frustration is fertile ground for political movements that make impossible promises.

Thomas Sowell explored the philosophical foundations of this disagreement in A Conflict of Visions, distinguishing between constrained and unconstrained understandings of human nature. The constrained vision recognizes enduring limitations in human knowledge, judgment, and moral character. Institutions must accommodate those limitations, channel self-interest toward productive ends, and restrain destructive behavior. The unconstrained vision places greater confidence in humanity’s capacity to overcome its shortcomings through reason, enlightened leadership, and deliberate social organization.

Of course, these are not absolute categories, but they illuminate a profound disagreement about what government and society can reasonably accomplish and what it can’t.

It would be foolish, however, to ignore which political forces routinely ignore reality and substitute impossible expectations and standards.

The distinction becomes consequential when applied to political power. If human nature is truly and fundamentally constrained, concentrating authority in the hands of a supposedly enlightened few is dangerous. Those few remain subject to the same limitations as everyone else, with the added disadvantage of possessing sufficient power to impose their mistakes on an entire population. If human nature is considered sufficiently malleable, and social problems are attributed primarily to defective institutions, government becomes an irresistible instrument of human improvement. Every persistent imperfection becomes evidence that society has not been sufficiently reorganized and every failed reform becomes justification for another, usually more ambitious reform. Apparently, the only thing standing between humanity and paradise is our stubborn refusal to give the right people enough authority - and this is where the failure of comparative reasoning becomes especially destructive.

Rational policymakers should ask three questions: What is possible? What is probable? What is preferable?

And the sequence matters. Possibility establishes the boundaries of reality, probability requires examining likely outcomes, including unintended consequences, and preference allows us to choose among feasible alternatives. Much of modern political argument reverses this process. It begins with a morally attractive objective, assumes that objective must be achievable, and treats objections concerning feasibility as evidence of moral deficiency. Questioning whether a government program will reduce poverty becomes opposition to helping the poor. The effectiveness of the proposed means becomes secondary to the righteousness of the intended end. It is a wonderfully convenient arrangement for anyone who prefers moral posturing to the considerably more demanding business of solving problems.

There is also a peculiar asymmetry in how actual institutions and imagined alternatives are evaluated. While existing systems must answer for every failure, inequity, and unintended consequence, their proposed replacements are judged almost exclusively by their intentions. Capitalism must defend itself against every instance of poverty, while socialism is permitted to describe what it hopes to accomplish, and in most cases, using the most luridly suggestive language. Constitutional government must explain why injustice persists, while social justice warriors assume that concentrated power will somehow become benevolent once entrusted to sufficiently virtuous hands.

Reality must produce evidence. Utopia need only produce promises.

It seems impossible to imagine a more intellectually dishonest contest, yet this game is played every single day.

None of this means existing institutions are beyond criticism or that radical improvements are impossible. It means serious criticism requires consideration of serious alternatives. Neither tradition nor novelty is a substitute for reason.

Perhaps that explains why two people can examine the same world and reach irreconcilable conclusions. One sees an imperfect civilization that has nevertheless produced extraordinary human progress. The other sees persistent imperfections and concludes that civilization itself must be defective. One evaluates what exists against what has demonstrably been possible. The other evaluates it against what ought to exist in a world unconstrained by economics, history, and human nature.

Sowell asked this very simple question: Compared to what?

I happen to think America is on the positive side of just about any answer to that question. People who fall on the other side are just complaining that reality has failed to live up to some figment of their fevered imagination.