Preference Falsification

 In an essay about MAGA entering its cringe era in the Washington Post today Kara Voght writes 

Winters, the “War Room” co-host, borrows a term from psychology: “preference falsification.” It’s when people misrepresent their true feelings or beliefs due to social pressure or fear of consequences. One of her major pet peeves is the fact that she believes many Trump supporters know MAGA is looking cringe, but won’t call it out for fear of retribution.

Winters is actually borrowing a term from economics. Preference falsification was introduced by Timur Kuran in  "Chameleon voters and public choice." Public Choice 53, no. 1 (1987): 53-78 and developed in his book Private Truths, Public Lies.

The Wizard of Oz is not a Monetary Allegory

 Unfortunately, while reading the book reviews in the New York Times this morning I saw Alexandra Jacobs review of David McWilliams The History of Money: A Story of Humanity and discovered that he is promoting the story the old story that L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as an allegory about the politics of money in the nineteenth century. 

It was not.

My argument for why you should not believe that it was written as a monetary allegory is presented in 

Hansen, Bradley A. "The fable of the allegory: The Wizard of Oz in economics." The Journal of Economic Education 33, no. 3 (2002): 254-264.

If you do not have access to it but would like to read it, just email me at bhansen@umw.edu.