Matthew Yglesias » Strange Swing

Dec 2nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Strange Swing

Joe The Plumber has a list of recommended books and the only non-plumbing volume is written by Ludwig von Mises? How is it, exactly, that we were supposed to believe this guy was a swing voter?

Comments
43

43 Responses to “Strange Swing”

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December 2nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
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matt (not the famous one) Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Somehow I have a hard time believing he really knows or cares anything about monetary theory. This bit from the article was nice, though: Joe’s first book, Fighting for the American Dream, is available for pre-order now, and will be available in remainder bins shortly thereafter.
RoboticGhost Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
What are the odds that JTP actually read the book? I read it long ago and bet if I walked up to Joe and and started talking about regression theorem Joe would react about the same if I was speaking Russian. Find the right wing talkie who has been referencing Mises, and you’ll find the threshold of Joe’s understanding of monetarism.
werenotgonnatakeit Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Matt probably meant to say he was presented as a swing voter.

JTP is a fraud, Palin is a fraud, the entire rightwing is a fraud.
werenotgonnatakeit Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
RoboticGhost – the odds are ZERO. Reading is for elitist intellectual homos to guys like JTP. It’s the exact same thing as when the McCain “campaign” rolled out the “Obama is a socialist” meme. The next day every toothless illiterate boob was walking around with the word “socialist” coming out of their mouths as if they had spent the night before in the leather chair of their study, pondering the tenets of socialism versus free market capitalism, sipping brandy and smoking a pipe.
24AheadDotCom Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Further proof that MattY and DaveWeigel are the same person. Either that, or just not-so-great minds more or less thinking alike.
OhioBoy Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Simple: we’re supposed to be idiots. It’s difficult to understand Republican political strategy without keeping that in mind.
Matt Weiner Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Matt probably meant to say he was presented as a swing voter.

OK, but he wasn’t really, or at least not by McCain in the debate. McCain just said he was a plumber that Obama talked to.
Bloix Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
“At last night’s presidential showdown, a star was born. And no, we don’t mean John McCain’s tongue. We’re talking Joe the Plumber, a small businessman who sparred with Barack Obama on tax policy earlier this week, and was then mentioned a whopping 26 times during the debate.

It stands to reason that if Joe Wurzelbacher was an IT consultant named Adlai, he would have never been mentioned at all. But with his iconically anonymous name and blue collar profession, some are hailing Joe the Plumber as the kind of swing voter who could decide an election.”
http://www.iconocast.com/EB000000000000044/Y9/News1.htm
mad6798j Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Shortly after talking to Obama, JTP went on Neil Cavuto’s show pretending to be a swing voter. This was before the debate.
too many steves Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
It’s odd that Joe overlooked von Mises’ excellent work on water heater insulation.
Adam Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“Is Matthew’s point that nobody that like Ludwig von Mises could be undecided a month before the election?”

His point is, of course, that the number of non-Ron Paul-supporting plumbers who could name a single economic idea Ludwig von Mises, let alone recommend his economic philosophy is very probably zero. Thus, for this selection to appear is another piece of evidence that he’s a tool of the far right, and very likely has been since the day he popped up.
Joe Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Damn you! I never wanted to hear about him again.
nos Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
i find it amazing that he things it’s a plus that the privy’s were made with non-union labor.
Krishnan Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Too bad he did not cite Rose George’s The Big Necessity. After all his job is to make sure that the big necessity is discharged sanitarily.
Sonic Charmer Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Adam writes

His point is, of course, that the number of non-Ron Paul-supporting plumbers who could name a single economic idea Ludwig von Mises, let alone recommend his economic philosophy is very probably zero.

Leaving aside that I don’t think this was actually Matthew’s point, where did you get this in-depth knowledge of plumber demographics you speak from? Why is the intersection (plumbers) and (don’t support Ron Paul) and (can name a von Mises idea) zero? How do you know that? Are plumbers by nature too stupid to understand an idea of von Mises? Is everyone who understands a von Mises idea a Ron Paul supporter? Or does that apply to only the plumbers among them? Does this mean that if I want to become a plumber I have to either (1) start supporting Ron Paul or (2) forget everything I ever knew about von Mises?

Fascinating.

Matthew’s real point was just that Joe the Plumber was and is a rightwinger and not a “swing voter”. While perhaps true, why he thinks this was an important thing to clarify, or some kind of impressive point to score, I have no idea. Like Al, I’m not sure who ever claimed he was a “swing voter” in the first place. Nor, if someone had, why that would stick in Matthew’s craw.

What is so special about “swing voters” in the first place that disproving that someone is a “swing voter” is supposed to prove a point of some kind?
Nylund Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
If he had named a Friedman book, maybe even a Hayek book, I’d possibly believe he chose the books himself, but Mises?

I’ve only read Mises because one of my Econ profs is the world’s foremost living expert on Mises.

The Theory of Money and Credit was written in German, in 1912, ie, before the Federal Reserve even existed! Before the roaring twenties, before the great depression, before either world wars. In short, its NOT the kind of thing a “plumber” just happens to read for kicks (and I doubt many econ students these days even read it).
Nylund Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 pm
What follows is an excerpt from the Mises book Joe “The Plumber” recommended. Odd recommendation from a Joe Six Pack, Blue Collar, “Real” American who distrusts those evil elitists in their ivory tower:

“In opposition to Roscher, Knies made room for money in the classification of goods by replacing the twofold division into production goods and consumption goods by a threefold division into means of production, objects of consumption, and media of exchange. His arguments on this point, which are unfortunately scanty, have hardly attracted any serious attention and have been often misunderstood. Thus Helfferich attempts to confute Knies’s proposition, that a sale-and-purchase transaction is not in itself an act of production but an act of (interpersonal) transfer, by asserting that the same sort of objection might be made to the inclusion of means of transport among instruments of production on the grounds that transport is not in itself an act of production but an act of (interlocal) transfer and that the nature of goods is no more altered by transport than by a change of ownership.”

Fun reading, right?
Sonic Charmer Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 am
Nylund,

In short, its NOT the kind of thing a “plumber” just happens to read for kicks

….because, plumbers are too stupid. That’s your point, right?
tomemos Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 am
Sonic Charmer, how disingenuous can you get? The whole point of Joe the Plumber was that he was a Working Joe, a Joe Six-Pack, etc.–anti-elitist, common-sensical, in contrast to socialist eggheads. Either that was a ruse or else his reading list is (at least, one-fifth of it).

As for him being a swing voter, the whole premise of why we should listen to him, and why McCain brought him up at the debate, was that he was an independent and undecided voter who became scared by Obama. He was, again, supposed to be an Average Unaffiliated American. You’re right that there’s no reason a swing voter (or a plumber) wouldn’t read Mises; the point is that his whole image has always been a transparent construct.

I’m not saying any of this is that worthy of argument–he’s always been a footnote, moreso now that his guy lost. But your disingenuousness rankles.
Sonic Charmer Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:32 am
The whole point of Joe the Plumber was that he was a Working Joe, a Joe Six-Pack, etc.–anti-elitist, common-sensical, in contrast to socialist eggheads. Either that was a ruse or else his reading list is (at least, one-fifth of it).

Still not sure I understand. A working Joe couldn’t like von Mises? What exactly is this contradiction you see between (a) being against socialist eggheads and (b) liking von Mises? The fact that he likes von Mises somehow disproves that he stands in contrast to socialist eggheads? Huh?

As for him being a swing voter, the whole premise of why we should listen to him, and why McCain brought him up at the debate, was that he was an independent and undecided voter who became scared by Obama.

I wasn’t aware that this was “the whole premise of why we should listen to him”. Not that I ever understood why we “should listen to him” at all. But I see now, you’re debunking whatever group of people asserted we “should listen to him” solely ‘because he was an independent’. Fine, consider that group debunked. But what about the people who asserted we should listen to him because of, like, the point he was making?

The corollary of this focus on debunking his “swing” status, of course, is that if he really had been an independent and undecided voter, then we should indeed have listened to him. Is that your belief? Or can we both just agree that this idea that there’s something magical and special about a “swing voter” which merits paying their views special heed and giving them a megaphone is nonsense when either faction does it?

I don’t give a rat’s ass whether he was a “swing voter” or not. The important question is whether he was correct or not in whatever claims I put forth. That would be a real, perhaps even interesting, discussion. I don’t know what this post, and thread, are.

You’re right that there’s no reason a swing voter (or a plumber) wouldn’t read Mises

Ok then. Tell the others, so I don’t have to repeat myself…
Barbar Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 am
But what about the people who asserted we should listen to him because of, like, the point he was making?

Ah yes, what about those people. Let’s not forget about the crackheads.

What point was he making again? That Obama’s election would be the death of Israel?
Sonic Charmer Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 am
What point was he making again?

Funny, I’d think that to actually argue with him you’d have had to know that. No, apparently all you have to do is observe that he recommended a von Mises book, and (therefore?) can’t be a “swing voter”, which (apparently) automatically disproves whatever he said. Or something.

Thanks, this has been fun.
Trevor Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 am
Joe’s second memoir “A Chance Plunge” will be out on New Year’s Eve. The gripping story of an ordinary Joe who stepped in shit and found flash, trash, and cash (i.e. The American Dream). Kirkus Review calls it “A stercoraceous trip through the bowels and septic tanks on the way to The Road To Riches”.
Lennart Regebro Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
“How is it, exactly, that we were supposed to believe this guy was a swing voter?”

Well, anybody reading a book like that must reasonably realize that Republican protectionism is no better or no worse than Democrat protectionism? Or?
joe from Lowell Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 am
Sonic Charmer,

Ludwig von Mises is an obscure writer, known and read only within a couple of circles – econ geeks, and political geeks. The fact that Mr. Wurzelbacher cited this book means that he is either an econ geek (which he’s not, as his confusion between a corporate income and owner’s profits demonstrates), or a political geek (and not the ordinary-guy, swing-voter who just wants to work hard and get ahead), or he named it because some political activist got him to name it.

None of this has anything to do with intelligence, but you just keep climbing up on the cross.
joe from Lowell Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
And also, this particular “plumber” is, indeed, too effing stupid to read and understand von Mises.

Someone who read von Mises would most likely know enough about the American tax system to realize that corporations aren’t taxed on their gross income.

So I’m going with #3 above: he named the book because he’s a Republican political activist, and another Republican political activist turned him onto it.
Blackadder Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Is this list real or a joke? Based on the choice of titles (all books about plumbing, plus one on monetary theory), it kind of sounds like this could be a repeat of the “is Lou Dobbs a magazine” post.
Brian J Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
The issue isn’t whether JTP is stupid. It’s whether this (relatively) uneducated man is reading a fairly obscure economics work. It’s definitely possible that he has read von Mises’ work before, but how likely is it?

Or to put it another way, is it more likely that an average citizen is reading a foreign policy book by Madeline Albright or by Candian academic Michael Mandel?
Travis Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
On top of that, it’s not even a “popular” work by Mises.

If Joe had said Human Action, it would be more believable. TOMC is an absolutely amazing work and is still one of the best books on monetary policy that I have ever read, but there is no way that JTP chose one of Mises’ obsucre early writings.
Atreju Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
It’s certainly possible that he just likes a little bit of the old Ludwig von. Unfortunately we will never know. The odds of a celebrity journalist knowing enough about the Austrian School to ask Joe the Plumber an intelligent question are worse than those of an average swing voter curling up on the couch with Interventionism, An Economic Analysis.
Nylund Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
No, its not because plumbers are too stupid. Its because its a fairly boring and dry technical read and I just don’t think many people outside the profession would have the time or inclination to invest so time into reading it, especially if they are not familiar with the history of the field.

A lot of what is in the book is the same sort of stuff now taught to undergraduates in a low level Money and Banking course, kids just out of high school. They get it just fine (well, some don’t) and I have no doubt that many plumbers would understand it as well.

Its not the difficulty I question, its the motivation. That paragraph I quoted isn’t “hard” to read, its just really boring and full of obscure references and I find it doubtful that its commonly read just for kicks by anyone at all, much less someone supposedly represents the exact opposite of the “elites” (as the GOP calls them) in academia.

Go contact a thousand plumbers and tell me how many of them read 100 year old economic texts for fun. I doubt you’d find Joe’s reading habits are representative of the social average.

My point is that he either is not representative of the average Joe like Palin/McCain claimed (We are ALL Joe the Plumber) and has questionable motivations (beyond representing the average person), or someone is pulling the strings and using him as a vehicle to promote a certain ideology.

Either way, the inclusion of that book speaks volumes against the myth creating by the GOP of who Joe is and what he represents.

Very few people are too stupid to understand any economic text (although, in many cases a proper understanding would entail familiarity with background materials that might take years to accumulate). Its just very rare that they’d bother with it, and very rare things are usually a good sign that something is afoot.
John Skookum Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Joe the Plumber is ahead of the times. The name of Mises will be on average peoples’ lips in the next two or three years.

Our economy is a cluster fuck. We are doomed. Bush and his Goldman cronies are floundering. The unqualified affirmative-action mascot will do even worse, significantly worse, once he gets in. All the Ivy League degrees in the world will not save the boob.

Panicked interventions and liquidity injections and spending sprees on our grandchildren’s tab may reanimate the corpse of fiat money for a few months or years, but in the end the crash will be all the more painful in proportion to our interference with the free market.

We are headed for catastrophe on par with Zimbabwe, and Mises and Hayek offer our only way out. If things get bad enough, adoption of Austrian economic policy may carry a candidate to victory. It may be Palin, but my money is on Bobby Jindal or a smart Democrat like Bill Richardson.
Chris Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 5:54 am
John Skookum,
Fortunately, that “unqualified affirmative-action mascot” picked Richardson to be his Commerce Secretary.
anon Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 10:58 am
The list is supposed to be a joke. Duh.
Bilwick1 Says:
December 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I thought it was a joke, although since I’m not in the “liberal” cocoon, I suppose it’s possible Joe actually reads Von Mises. I wish Obama would. In fact I’d be happy if Obama and the cocooners who post here just read Henry Hazlitt’s ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON.
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It’s by Fred von Mises, the one who invented the self-sealing trap drain.
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Matt Yglesias

Strange Swing

43 Responses to “Strange Swing”

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