If an opinion poll was taken, during Galileo’s time, asking citizens if the Earth was round or flat, guess what the outcome would be?
Nearly everyone would have said the Earth was flat, of course. That was how it felt. That was what common sense dictates. That was what dogma said. It was, at that time, punishable to say otherwise.
The idea that the Earth was round — and, not only that, rotating on its axis — was totally laughable. It defies the common sense. Galileo was taunted in the streets for his proposition and asked why the seas did not spill over from a round, rotating planet.
If opinion polls then had the political impact they enjoy today, poor Galileo would not have been simply asked to retract his proposition. He would have been burned at the stake for heresy in order to please the mob, win political points and conserve the dogma.
Fortunately for Galileo, opinion polls were not yet in fashion during is time. A practical man, he quickly recanted what he knew was true, telling his apprentice there was no sense pushing an idea no one was prepared to accept. Recanting did not diminish the truth. It simply ensured everyone’s comfort, Galileo’s primarily.
Unfortunately for us, opinion polls are in fashion during our time. They ask the totally uninformed to render an expert opinion.
The results are treated as news. They grab the headlines. They influence the design of policy. They dictate the behavior of political leaders. They shape public expectation of what ought to be done. They conserve dogma.
And it is called democracy. The way that word is understood these days is that it is a condition where the banal opinions of the uninformed should take precedence over the sound conclusions of the expertly informed.
If we take this notion of democracy to undue extents, much tragedy could be produced.
For instance, if we ask people by means of an opinion poll if they wanted to be taxed, guess what the outcome would be? If, by means of an opinion poll, we asked them to choose between a proper national budget or simply distributing cash to every citizen, they will likely choose the latter.
If opinion polls were to be obeyed, we would have a regime that collects no taxes, subsidizes oil and food and gives away housing to all who have none. It would be a regime that is bankrupt, paralyzed and mired in debt. But what the heck, it will be a regime with high approval ratings — although eventually it will be a regime that runs out of the means to meet pompous public expectation and be overthrown.
In Venezuela today, the rich and the educated are marching in the streets to oppose a constitutional amendment that would allow Hugo Chavez to seek reelection indefinitely. Why are they doing that? Because Hugo Chavez will win every election in sight. He is popular. He has used the country’s oil income to dole out to the poor and subsidize everything he can.
But, after Zimbabwe under the leftist Robert Mugabe, Venezuela under Chavez has been the second fastest declining economy in the world. From having South America’s highest per capita income, it now has the lowest. In the name of some variant of socialism, this clown has redistributed poverty, not wealth. And the grateful poor will, by valid democratic means, reelect him to power indefinitely. The opinion polls will validate that.
A few days ago, the SWS released a poll where 13% said they were better off now after the peso appreciated and 30% said they were better off before appreciation. 57% said things were the same. In the usual neat way that SWS outcomes are reported, the numbers are broken down into income brackets and across regions of the country.
The news media dutifully carried out the results as a big story, concluding, as the SWS does, that the peso’s appreciation by a net effect of -17% harmed more Filipinos than it helped. The implication is that the peso’s appreciation is bad.
But how did we know that?
Those who said their lives were better before might have been simply reporting the usual erosion of inflation on fixed incomes rather a negative effect of peso appreciation. But since the SWS questionnaire linked income erosion to peso appreciation, we are all brought to what might be a contrived conclusion. It is entirely possible we might get the same profile of responses (or even worse) if the peso was depreciating.
And what about the 57% who said the behavior of the currency did not matter? That is a pretty impressive number. Why was this not the headline story?
Some of my readers have asked me this really unwarranted question: If the peso was behaving so well, why are oil prices still rising?
Well, over the past few months, the price of crude simply rose faster than the peso appreciated. From about $30 a barrel, the price in now well over $90 so quickly. If the exchange rate remained the same, we would be paying P100 per liter for fuel.
That did not happen. And that is what is important.
Surveys do not ask people to report on what did not happen. Most respondents do not know what did not happen. A certain degree of economic literacy is required to understand what did not happen.
When a calamity does not happen because of excellent weather forecasting, that is not news. It does not make the headlines. There are no dramatic pictures of weathermen issuing a bland advisory for all ships to remain in port.
There lies the usual slant.