Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference FalsificationPreference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities. |
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... freedom to veil - a freedom taken for granted in most parts of the world — is defended primarily by Islamic fundamentalists , who tend to define individual liberties narrowly and consider modern society too permissive . Fundamentalists ...
... freedom and com- pulsion but , rather , between one kind of compulsion and another . Under the circumstances , civil libertarians reject the freedom to veil in order to safeguard a more precious freedom , the freedom not to veil . For ...
... freedom . The bureaucracy was neither homogeneous nor monolithic . Individual bureaucrats may have treasured their own power , but they had no stake in the power of other bureaucrats . As citizens , moreover , they wanted a wider ...
Contents
Collective Conservatism | 105 |
The Obstinacy of Communism | 118 |
The Ominous Perseverance of the Caste System | 128 |
Copyright | |
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