Top Highlights

• My first two essays on preference falsification, technical pieces drafted in 1983 and published four years later in Public Choice and the Economic Journal, sought to bring realism to the economic theory of politics through insights from sociology and psychology. As my thinking progressed, it became apparent that preference falsification touches eve...
• preference falsification, the act of misrepresenting one’s genuine wants under perceived social pressures.
• I argue that preference falsification generates inefficiencies, breeds ignorance and confusion, and conceals social possibilities. Yet preference falsification is not an unmitigated social menace. It can benefit others by suppressing the communication of knowledge that happens to be false. It can harmonize our social interactions by restraining imp...
• Religious Dissimulation One illustration of preference falsification involves movements aimed at fostering religious conformity. Responding to the pressures exerted by such movements, heterodox believers have often sought refuge in dissimulation.
• The efforts often prove worthwhile, because taking an unpopular position in public can be very costly. It can turn one’s friends into enemies, damage one’s reputation, and extinguish one’s career, among other possibilities.