There are two different ways to use economics to analyze political activism. (Well, more than two, but in this article I will only talk about two of them.) First, what do I mean when I say political activism? I mean things like attending rallies or protests, signing petitions, voting in elections, advocating and frequently trying to persuade people to a particular point of view or in favor of some kind of political policy, things of that nature.
One way to think about activism is as a form of production. In this model, the activist engages in activism in order to produce some sort of outcome. So, activists with grievances against the justice system demonstrate in the streets, sign petitions, vote, and raise arguments to try to produce a better justice system. Environmental activists engage in these activities in order to produce the outcome of better environmental health, however one might define that, and so on. Considered as a form of production, activism can be said to seek to ensure or improve the production of public goods. In the case of the environment, for example, improving air quality would be a public good – it is neither rival nor exclusive.
The second way to look at activism is not as a form of production, but as a form of consumption. What does it mean to be a consumer of activism? It means that the activist engages in activism in order to gain certain private benefits. These benefits include things like a sense of belonging to a community and other activists, gaining social status, and a sense of purpose and meaning. While activism as production is oriented toward the production of public goods, activism as consumption is aimed at gaining private goods. When engaged as a form of consumption, the broader outcomes of activism are repercussions.
As education Activism can be both a form of human capital accumulation and a form of social signaling, but it can also be a form of production and a form of consumption. Any activist may be motivated by one or the other of these forms, or by both to varying degrees. But each form of activism has very different implications for what we should expect.
If we think of activism as a form of production, we expect the activist to be knowledgeable on the subject – environmental science, criminal justice or otherwise. It must have well-defined end goals – a clear point from which one can say “mission accomplished” and once that mission is accomplished, activism ceases. The activist must carefully monitor how his or her activities move things closer or further away from the desired goal. This motivates him to self-examine and correct course if an approach seems ineffective or counterproductive.
When activism is considered a form of consumption, none of the above conditions need apply. Since the activist seeks personal psychological and emotional satisfaction, as well as social esteem, there is no particular need to be deeply informed about the subject. One would expect to see people who protest passionately about an issue while being unable to answer the most basic questions about that same issue. The activist will also not be able to clearly identify and define what the desired outcome is, and how he or she will know that it has been achieved, except in the most vague and indefinable way. Rather than saying “mission accomplished” at all times, the activist will constantly be moving the goalposts. The effectiveness with which activism achieves its stated goals will also not be examined by the activist, and new approaches will not be adopted if a particular mode of activism appears ineffective or actively counterproductive. Instead of focusing on the most pressing issues and using the most effective methods, the activist will be motivated by the issues that are most fashionable, or that make them feel the best. Their activism will be focused on activities that send the strongest signal and elevate their social status, rather than on what effectively achieves the stated goal.
Activism as production has a number of features that make it potentially socially beneficial in ways that activism as consumption does not. The course-correction methods one would expect to find in activism as production will of course be imperfect, but they will at least help steer the movement in a direction that leads to the production or improvement of a public good. But activism as consumption lacks these mechanisms, so it is only by pure chance that the externalities of this consumption will be positive rather than negative. And the a priori probability that the externalities will be negative is higher—there are more ways to make things worse than to improve them, so activities that lack methods of assessment and correction are much more likely to do harm than good.
It seems to me that the vast majority of political activism today is the consumption of a private good with strong negative externalities, with relatively few productive activities actually contributing to the creation or improvement of a public good. Those who view activism and political engagement as a commodity are best described by a line from TS Eliot’s play The cocktail:
Half the evil that happens in this world is caused by people wanting to feel important. They don’t want to do harm, but harm doesn’t interest them. Either they don’t see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
