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Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification Reprint Edition

by Timur Kuran (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 51 ratings
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Preference 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.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India's caste system.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0674707583
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0674707580
  3. Edition
    Reprint
  4. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  5. Publication date
    September 30, 1997
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6.12 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches
  8. Print length
    448 pages
  9. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
51 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

William Mumma
5.0 out of 5 stars An answer to group think…
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
The author gives a sociological explanation of how people respond to regimes that suppress the truth. He draws mostly on the experience of the Soviet system, but also on the Islamic theocracies. His theory goes beyond regimes that rely on violence and offers a powerful answer to current American challenges to free speech and free thought. Although academic and not polemical, this book is a powerful argument for hope and courage.
5 people found this helpful
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Technophobe01
5.0 out of 5 stars A profoundly important book to read
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2021
Verified Purchase
Timur in writing this book has (in my view) made a significant contribution to human understanding of social interaction. He has done this by articulating the connection between our public actions and those of our peer group, identifying the necessities and connection between our public actions and the social consequences of our public and private actions. These connections and feedback loops are used to show how they force us as individuals to temper our public actions and thinking due to the risk of social reprisal.
2 people found this helpful
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Spunky
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating premise carefully developed
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
Fascinating premise painstakingly developed in the style of a careful economist. Not a five-star review because it is a dense read - but full thesis development precludes light reading here. The premise is very valuable and explains much of why our politics appears polarized on every issue. Usually such books give a taste of the writer's political views, but I honestly cannot tell whether the writer is a liberal or a conservative - except that he eschews pat narratives. Which may in itself reflect a political orientation.
21 people found this helpful
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Ujjval K. Vyas
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book that should be read by all those interested in policymaking.
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2014
Verified Purchase
I read this a while ago but remember it as being absolutely fascinating and brilliant. The work has many applications and should be a cautionary tale for all those who think that consensus leads to acceptable solutions with moral validation. Anyone who has been on a committee knows what is being described and analyzed in this book, but the clear and precise manner of the exposition is brilliant. The capacity to distill this down to a proper economic description that can do work as an analytical tool is demonstrated in spades by the later example chapters.
14 people found this helpful
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Richard Albarino
5.0 out of 5 stars Predicted Trump's Election!!
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2017
Verified Purchase
This book, which describes the obvious fact that people lie in surveys enabled me to predict that Trump would win the election. With the entire mainstream media waging war on him and vilifying him ceaselessly (they haven't stopped yet; it's now a habit) what would you say to a total stranger who asked you if you would vote for Trump. You'd Lie! Add to that, who trusts surveyors anyway. Won a bunch of dough. Thank you Timur!
23 people found this helpful
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seemore
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an important book for people who are trying ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2016
Verified Purchase
This is an important book for people who are trying to understand how public opinion is formed and maintained - and how it can shift so suddenly. It offers important analytic tools for a review of shifts in opinion that are driven by or enforced on unconnected mass audiences by media, as well as by peer pressure on more specific and narrowly defined audiences.
12 people found this helpful
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J. Beghin
5.0 out of 5 stars prophetic book
Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2020
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Great book and 20 years before its time. The best integration of economics and political science I have read in my long career.
11 people found this helpful
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Tidewater
4.0 out of 5 stars Complements "The Myth of the Rational Voter"
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2013
The specific issues the author deals with are all at bottom political.

As an academic in a prestigious institution, Prof. Kuran seems well aware that in the U.S. at least, much ground has been gained by the numerous disciples of George Lakoff, the linquist/political activist, who are interested in creating and maintaining a body politic in agreement on the social/political verities as they are dictated to them, even if some at least of the citizenry might be holding contradictory views but nevertheless utilizing "preference falsifications" in order to preserve their standing among their colleagues.

What is troubling, the author notes, is that preference falsification leads to opinions unspoken which become hidden, then forgotten as new generations are born not having received the benefit of the unspoken opinions of their predecessors. This has happened in Islam over the centuries with devastating consequences, and the professor has written previously on this subject. Also troubling to me is the anemic response to this important book on this Amazon web page. Could it be that Professor Kuran's work, which is not complimentary about two shibboleths of the progressives' agenda--affirmative action and multiculturalism--is being boycotted because it is so politically incorrect?

A seminal work, difficult in places. In it's way, it enlarges on, and deepens, the insights of Bryan Caplan in "The Myth of the Rational Voter." In today's environment, not an encouraging read.
28 people found this helpful
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