Have To, Revisited
By Josh Weil | Published: April 10, 2010
Sorry, I’ve got something else I have to do.
This a very useful phrase to respond to other people when you can’t make an event. Now that I know better, I feel guilty saying it because it’s a lie. I don’t have to do anything. I am choosing between two things I want to do. A decision between multiple courses of action are based on my calculated expected utility (marginal benefit – marginal cost). For most decisions, the calculation is something we do with minimal effort.
“Have to” describes a process. Certain steps have to be taken to accomplish a goal. Here is a simple example.
If I want to put a nail through the piece of wood, I have to hit it with a blunt object. “Want to” describes my decision, and “have to” describes how I carry it out.
The confusion between “want to” and “have to” strongly influences peoples’ decision to ignore a useful cost-benefit analysis. “Have to” relieves responsibility for making a decision. If I said that child labor benefits starving children, someone would object, “but they have to work in a factory or else they will starve so they don’t actually have a choice.”
“Have to” will be how they make the clothes in the factory. “Want to” will be a decision based on the person’s next best alternative. Call it a sweatshop, but that doesn’t change the fact that unless it’s slavery, it’s a person’s voluntary decision to offer their labor for wages (which they will use to purchase goods and services). Ultimately, a person knows much more about his personal situation than a government bureaucrat.
Everyone has a choice between the things he wants to do more than others. Even if the worst option is death, a person still would choose between the life option or the death one.
It’s sad that a given child in India wants to work in a factory more than eat out of garbage piles, but it doesn’t change the fact that a person always chooses what he wants to do. You do not make someone better off by eliminating their best option. They know better than you and will make a private decision. Offer them alternatives or information, do not restrict their choice set.
People aren’t perfect in their decisions. But they are the least likely to suffer the false consciousness error.
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