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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... revolution , whether journalistic or scholarly , typi- cally give revolutions the appearance of inevitability , even when they seemed anything but inevitable until they occurred . Preference falsi- fication contributes , in other words ...
... Revolution , " Uncaptive Minds , 3 ( January - February 1990 ) : 11 . 45. William H. Kaempfer and Anton D. Lowenberg , " Using Threshold Models to Explain International Relations , " Public Choice , 73 ( June 1992 ) : 436 . 46. For the ...
... Revolutions , p . 39 ; and William Henry Cham- berlin , The Russian Revolution , 1917-1921 , vol . 1 ( New York : Mac- millan , 1935 ) , p . 73 . 72. Chamberlin , Russian Revolution , vol . 1 , p . 76 . 73. Ibid . , pp . 73–77 . 74 ...
Contents
Collective Conservatism | 105 |
The Obstinacy of Communism | 118 |
The Ominous Perseverance of the Caste System | 128 |
Copyright | |
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