A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
I just finished reading Alan Blinder's *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts* and
thought I would post a few of my thoughts. The book is quite good
overall. It is basically the liberal economist we all know writes the
typical econ textbook, with the mask of neutrality pulled off. That's
all for the good - it's far better to argue with positions stated
explicitly rather than insinuated.
Blinder begins by stating his two big principles: the Principle of
Efficiency ("more is better than less"), and the Principle of Equity
("the poor are needier than the rich").
To be finicky, Blinder doesn't seem to realize that his first principle
is normative while the second one is positive. I think he *meant* to
say something like "helping the poor is better than helping the rich,"
which is a very different claim. This would seem like nit-picking,
except that the one time Blinder tries to argue for the Principle of
Equity, he really does act as if the near-tautology that "the poor are
needier than the rich" is in dispute.
I can only hope that Blinder would consider me a fellow "hard-headed"
economist. He did approve my dissertation, so I have hope. But I am
sure that Blinder would label me as one of the "hardest-hearted"
economists he knows. While he recognizes the existence of such, it is
very hard for Blinder to get inside of our heads. Why would anyone
choose to be "hard-hearted"?
There are two main reasons.
1. The less fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that soft-
hearted people - even comparatively reasonable ones like Blinder - are
hypocrites. They fret and fret about "poor" Americans, but barely even
remember the existence of absolutely poor foreigners. There is not a
word in Blinder's book about admitting more immigrants. And all of the
"soft-hearted" social programs we have for domestics are one of the
leading arguments for restricting immigration.
I am confident that Blinder sees our current policy as much more
compassionate than that of the 19th century. But that's just wrong.
There was little government charity, but almost unrestricted
immigration. Native-born "losers" (as Blinder calls them) got little
help, but the world's poor had an amazing escape route from poverty.
Few people in the 19th century narcissistically lauded their own
"compassion," but policy did a lot more for the truly poor.
Perhaps Blinder might say that these remarks indicate that I merely
disagree with the *application* of the principle of equity. I wonder.
Can somehow who says "Tough luck, low-skilled Americans. From now on
you'll be competing with Haitian immigrants" ever be called
"soft-hearted"?
2. The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the
Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there
were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer,
I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more.
They earned it. It is insolent for the less successful to gripe about
it (or for the more successful to gripe on their behalf!).
Thus, my opposition to the "soft heart" is not based on pure
malevolence, as Blinder occasionally implies. The problem is that
equality conflicts with merit. In his discussion of protectionism,
Blinder approvingly quotes Murray Weidenbaum:
"Some of my conversations with business and labor leaders whose
companies are hit hard by imports remind me of the gripes of students
who cut class, do not do their homework, and then complain when you give
them a low grade." (p.118)
What is wrong with such students is that they do not *deserve* good
grades. The same would be true, of course, if the students were
hard-working but stupid. Efficiency aside, if they do F work, they
should get an F. The "soft heart" would council mercy, but it would be
wrong to heed to it.
People give merit its due in academic competition, athletic competition,
artistic competition, and more. Why not economic competition? What is
so hard about showing respect to the "winners," and expecting the
"losers" to keep their disappointment to themselves?
Blinder obviously has little sympathy for people who favor tax cuts for
the rich and spending cuts for the homeless. They just seem "mean." To
paraphrase a Deep Thought by Jack Handey, "If it is 'mean' to think that
smart, productive people don't owe drunken beggars a living, then yes
Mr. Softie, I am a Big Meanie."
I tend to think that the ramifications of merit are so wide-ranging that
little room is left for Blinder's Principle of Equity. Only if
resources "fell like manna from heaven" (as Nozick puts it) would
equity be relevant. But I am less certain of this extreme conclusion
than of the weaker one that merit matters *to some degree*.
Blinder puts forward the plausible position that if a new policy
improves both efficiency AND equity, we should do it. I would suggest
as an alternative that we should look for policies that promote
efficiency, equity, and MERIT.
I am willing to argue
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
I dont know: I think "the poor is needier than the rich" leads nicely into a
discussion that all the greatest value exchanges originate from newly
fulfilling most urgent demands rather than superficial ones
I suspect that if economics really understood this basic construct of
development the world would not only be better but richer; partly because
most people put a lot more of their discretionary energy into making a vital
difference than one for serving the mores of rich people; and partly because
connecting the disconnected has always been a fundamental driver of how the
net could achieve new economies; and this hasnt begun to look at how much
money we would save from having less risk globally and locally by just
caring more about the needier; and how we need to clean up professions that
add so much cost to the world by advising companies how to evade or litigate
rather than just be transparent in the first place
Of course -as the title of the book implies - understanding of what
intangibles really are is needed to fully develop this preferred future case
chris macrae, www.valuetrue.com Transparency Community [EMAIL PROTECTED]
london 0208 540 5304
Europe Union Knoeldge Board sig-editor
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/community/zones/sig/kmei.html
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- Original Message -
From: "Bryan D Caplan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 27 November 2002 1:38 AM
Subject: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
> I just finished reading Alan Blinder's *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts* and
> thought I would post a few of my thoughts. The book is quite good
> overall. It is basically the liberal economist we all know writes the
> typical econ textbook, with the mask of neutrality pulled off. That's
> all for the good - it's far better to argue with positions stated
> explicitly rather than insinuated.
>
> Blinder begins by stating his two big principles: the Principle of
> Efficiency ("more is better than less"), and the Principle of Equity
> ("the poor are needier than the rich").
>
> To be finicky, Blinder doesn't seem to realize that his first principle
> is normative while the second one is positive. I think he *meant* to
> say something like "helping the poor is better than helping the rich,"
> which is a very different claim. This would seem like nit-picking,
> except that the one time Blinder tries to argue for the Principle of
> Equity, he really does act as if the near-tautology that "the poor are
> needier than the rich" is in dispute.
>
> I can only hope that Blinder would consider me a fellow "hard-headed"
> economist. He did approve my dissertation, so I have hope. But I am
> sure that Blinder would label me as one of the "hardest-hearted"
> economists he knows. While he recognizes the existence of such, it is
> very hard for Blinder to get inside of our heads. Why would anyone
> choose to be "hard-hearted"?
>
> There are two main reasons.
>
> 1. The less fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that soft-
> hearted people - even comparatively reasonable ones like Blinder - are
> hypocrites. They fret and fret about "poor" Americans, but barely even
> remember the existence of absolutely poor foreigners. There is not a
> word in Blinder's book about admitting more immigrants. And all of the
> "soft-hearted" social programs we have for domestics are one of the
> leading arguments for restricting immigration.
>
> I am confident that Blinder sees our current policy as much more
> compassionate than that of the 19th century. But that's just wrong.
> There was little government charity, but almost unrestricted
> immigration. Native-born "losers" (as Blinder calls them) got little
> help, but the world's poor had an amazing escape route from poverty.
> Few people in the 19th century narcissistically lauded their own
> "compassion," but policy did a lot more for the truly poor.
>
> Perhaps Blinder might say that these remarks indicate that I merely
> disagree with the *application* of the principle of equity. I wonder.
> Can somehow who says "Tough luck, low-skilled Americans. From now on
> you'll be competing with Haitian immigrants" ever be called
> "soft-hearted"?
>
> 2. The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the
> Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there
> were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer,
> I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more.
> They earned it. It is insolent for the less succe
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
I propose that for next semester Alan Blinder and I exchange faculty positions. Blinder can assume my three-course load at Dayton and I'll assume his one(?) course load at Princeton. Blinder can eat greasy cheeseburgers in the Dayton cafeteria, and I'll dine on lobster savannah in the Princeton faculty club. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that I absolutely do not MERIT a position at Princeton. I make this proposal purely in the interest of promoting Blinder's Principle of Equity. Marc Poitras Assistant Professor of Economics University of Dayton
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 08:38:26PM -0500, Bryan D Caplan wrote: > 1. The less fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that soft- > hearted people - even comparatively reasonable ones like Blinder - are > hypocrites. They fret and fret about "poor" Americans, but barely even > remember the existence of absolutely poor foreigners. There is not a > word in Blinder's book about admitting more immigrants. And all of the > "soft-hearted" social programs we have for domestics are one of the > leading arguments for restricting immigration. [...] > 2. The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the > Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there > were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer, > I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more. > They earned it. It is insolent for the less successful to gripe about > it (or for the more successful to gripe on their behalf!). I agree with your first point, but not the second one. I don't see why, efficiency aside, more able and hard-working people deserve more. Being more able and hard-working should be reward enough by itself. Lazy and incompetent people no doubt did not consciously decide to become lazy and incompetent, so why should they be punished for it, again if efficiency is not a consideration? > People give merit its due in academic competition, athletic competition, > artistic competition, and more. Why not economic competition? What is > so hard about showing respect to the "winners," and expecting the > "losers" to keep their disappointment to themselves? People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, but you can't opt out of economic competition. I think it's a necessary evil, not something to be desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do enjoy competition, and they should certainly be able to participate, but what's the point of forcing competition on people who hate it, besides efficiency?
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
> 2. The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the > Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there > were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer, > I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more. > They earned it. It is insolent for the less successful to gripe about > it (or for the more successful to gripe on their behalf!). I think of this as Graham Nash economics. Remember his 1968 protest song "Chicago" (full lyrics appended below)? [Any and all comments about not even being born then are *not* welcome.] Won't you please come to Chicago For the help that we can bring We can change the world Re-arrange the world Graham Nash economics is my overly cute way of complaining about normative economics. Economists offer *opinions* on who should get this or that: the poor, the talented, the hard-working, maybe some combination of the above. I still am not persuaded that economists opinions on these issues are any more important than anyone else's opinion. Does it change the way the world behaves? I am less successful, you are more successful. I say that I am going to take part of your income, you tell me I am insolent. I say "So what? I'm still taking part of your income." Now what do you do? William Sjostrom + William Sjostrom Senior Lecturer Department of Economics National University of Ireland, Cork + CHICAGO Graham Nash Though your brother's bound and gagged And they've chained him to a chair Won't you please come to Chicago Just to sing In a land that's known as freedom How can such a thing be fair Won't you please come to Chicago For the help that we can bring We can change the world Re-arrange the world It's dying ... to get better Politicians sit yourself down There's nothing for you here Won't you please come to Chicago For a ride Don't ask Jack to help you 'Cause he'll turn the other ear Won't you please come to Chicago Or else join the other side We can change the world Re-arrange the world It's dying ... if you believe in justice It's dying ... and if you believe in freedom It's dying ... let a man live his own life It's dying ... rules and regulations, who needs them Open up the door Somehow people must be free I hope the day comes soon Won't you please come to Chicago Show your face >From the bottom of the ocean To the mountains on the moon Won't you please come to Chicago No one else can take your place
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
I agree with your first point, but not the second one. I don't see why, efficiency aside, more able and hard-working people deserve more. Being more able and hard-working should be reward enough by itself. Lazy and incompetent people no doubt did not consciously decide to become lazy and incompetent, so why should they be punished for it, again if efficiency is not a consideration? This is an interesting point. Suppose we carry it a little further. Cruel and dishonest people didn't choose to be cruel and dishonest. Or, if they did at some point choose to be those things, they didn't choose to be the sort of people who would make that choice. So why should they be punished for it? We generally take it for granted that humans somehow deserve more than dogs, or at least more than earthworms or, if there are any earthworm liberation types around, more than rocks. But a rock didn't choose to be a rock. To put it differently, once you take the determinist position, that all your characteristics can ultimately be traced to factors outside of your control, it looks as though "deserve" becomes a meaningless concept. One thing wrong with this is that it takes the entity doing the deserving to be some sort of disembodied identity, stripped of all its actual characteristics--since those characteristics are only accidents which "it" didn't deserve to have. Hence my extreme example of the rock. But when we talk about desert, we aren't saying "the disembodied entity that ended up as Adolf Hitler deserved to have bad things happen to him." We are saying "Adolf Hitler deserved to have bad things happen to him." "Desert" is being predicated of an entity with its actual characteristics, not of the entity stripped of those characteristics, so the fact that the imaginary stripped entity doesn't deserve to have the characteristics it does is irrelevant. I hope that isn't too confusing. It is, I think, an interesting puzzle, but not an insoluble one. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Bryan Caplan wrote: The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the > Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there > were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer, > I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more. > They earned it. It is insolent for the less successful to gripe about > it (or for the more successful to gripe on their behalf!). I think a better reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the "Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in individual preferences and valuations, rather than differences in merit (i.e. differences in the moral character of an action). Of course, if your "merit" ranking is the same as your preference ranking, then there's no problem - but this will rarely be the case. For example, I simply have no idea about the moral character of the actions of the individuals who have made Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. All I care about is how much I value a doughnut, relative to other goods. Other people might hate doughnuts, and so they will have different valuations. Who knows - maybe everyone hates Krispy-Kreme doughnuts, even though the people who make them are "able and hard-working people who deserve more" than the people who make, say, Twinkies. If I did hate doughnuts, but I thought that "able and hard-working people deserve more", should I buy the doughnut? No: it would be inefficient for me to do so. So there is no necessary connection between efficiency and merit. As Hayek states on page 96 of The Constitution of Liberty: "We do not wish people to earn a maximum of merit but to achieve a maximum of usefulness at a minimum of pain and sacrifice and therefore a minimum of merit." and on page 97: "A society in which the position of the individuals was made to correspond to human ideas of moral merit would be the exact opposite of a free society" Alex Robson ANU
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Wei Dai wrote: > People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, but you can't opt out of > economic competition. I think it's a necessary evil, not something to be > desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do enjoy competition, and > they should certainly be able to participate, but what's the point of > forcing competition on people who hate it, besides efficiency? While it is may be true that many people do not "enjoy" the economic competition "forced" upon them by "society" (but they surely benefit from the positive externalities of this competition), is this any ground for political action?? There are many other "forced" kind of competition, that we (thankfully) do not consider grounds for redistribution - like the competition for mates. (I think I have stolen this point blatantly from Nozik, sorry). Would we ever say: "Uhhh, this guy is ugly and no good, bad mannered and ill tempered - but, it's no fault of his own, and he REALLY doesn't enjoy the competition for sexual partner forced upon him by society, so why don't we just force this beautiful girl to have sex with him" I DON'T THINK SO! And if you look at it, the case for "redistribution" is in fact stronger in the case of sexual partners than in the case of economic competition, since the loosers in the latter game, will at least benefit from the positive externalities of economic competition, while the loosers of the sex-game will get NOTHING! - jacob braestrup
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Jacob W Braestrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "Would we ever say: "Uhhh, this guy is ugly and no good, bad mannered and ill tempered - but, it's no fault of his own, and he REALLY doesn't enjoy the competition for sexual partner forced upon him by society, so why don't we just force this beautiful girl to have sex with him"" Um, no. Force would be bad. You could sweeten the deal for her, however, using perhaps pecuinary benefits to level the field. That's one possibility. Whichever you choose, hurry up! I need the help. -jsh > Wei Dai wrote: > > > People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, > but you can't opt > out of > > economic competition. I think it's a necessary > evil, not something to > be > > desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do > enjoy competition, > and > > they should certainly be able to participate, but > what's the point of > > forcing competition on people who hate it, besides > efficiency? > > While it is may be true that many people do not > "enjoy" the economic > competition "forced" upon them by "society" (but > they surely benefit > from the positive externalities of this > competition), is this any > ground for political action?? > > There are many other "forced" kind of competition, > that we (thankfully) > do not consider grounds for redistribution - like > the competition for > mates. (I think I have stolen this point blatantly > from Nozik, sorry). > > Would we ever say: "Uhhh, this guy is ugly and no > good, bad mannered > and ill tempered - but, it's no fault of his own, > and he REALLY doesn't > enjoy the competition for sexual partner forced upon > him by society, so > why don't we just force this beautiful girl to have > sex with him" > > I DON'T THINK SO! And if you look at it, the case > for "redistribution" > is in fact stronger in the case of sexual partners > than in the case of > economic competition, since the loosers in the > latter game, will at > least benefit from the positive externalities of > economic competition, > while the loosers of the sex-game will get NOTHING! > > - jacob braestrup > > > = "...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong." -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "To put it differently, once you take the determinist position" And if we take the free will position, can't we just as easily come to the defense of Aristotlean (sp?) physics where a thrown rock moves of its own impetus until it 'decides' that it no longer has impetus and falls straight to the ground? Acknowledging that humans are the products of their environments, and allowing for that, does not imply that a radical determinist approach to life is necessary. At least, it isn't obvious to me. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Wei Dai wrote: > People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, but you can't opt out of > economic competition. I think it's a necessary evil, not something to be > desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do enjoy competition, and > they should certainly be able to participate, but what's the point of > forcing competition on people who hate it, besides efficiency? Sure you can "opt out." Reduce your expectations. Settle for less. The same, of course, is true of e.g. athletic competition. If you aren't good enough to compete, you "opt out." -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mr. Banks: Will you be good enough to explain all this?! Mary Poppins: First of all I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. Banks: Yes? Poppins: I never explain *anything*. *Mary Poppins*
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
"Robson, Alex" wrote: > I think a better reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the "Principle of Equity fails >to recognize differences in individual preferences and valuations, rather than >differences in merit (i.e. differences in the moral character of an action). Blinder would reply that it's the Principle of Efficiency that handles differences in preferences, etc. So you're basically just dumping Equity and making Efficiency everything. > Of course, if your "merit" ranking is the same as your preference ranking, then >there's no problem - but this will rarely be the case. There are strong reasons to expect a general correlation. True, my preferences for pastries have nothing to do with merit. But pretty much all forms of production rely on ability (especially cognitive ability) and effort. The most meritorious doughnut producers deliver better products at a lower cost, though that won't help them if the public doesn't like waffles. In that case, I should add, another form of merit is relevant - having the ability and taking the effort to correctly forecast demand. > If I did hate doughnuts, but I thought that "able and hard-working people deserve >more", should I buy the doughnut? No: it would be inefficient for me to do so. So >there is no necessary connection between efficiency and merit. It's not automatic, but there are some strong reasons for correlation. If they were always identical, of course, there would be no reason to advance multiple principles. > As Hayek states on page 96 of The Constitution of Liberty: > > "We do not wish people to earn a maximum of merit but to achieve a maximum of >usefulness at a minimum of pain and sacrifice and therefore a minimum of merit." Why maximizing output given inputs is not meritorious baffles me. > and on page 97: > > "A society in which the position of the individuals was made to correspond to human >ideas of moral merit would be the exact opposite of a free society" "Made to" correspond to merit? Yes, that's the exact opposite of a free society by definition. *Led to* correspond to merit by the invisible hand? No problem at all. > Alex Robson > ANU -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mr. Banks: Will you be good enough to explain all this?! Mary Poppins: First of all I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. Banks: Yes? Poppins: I never explain *anything*. *Mary Poppins*
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
John Hull wrote: > > --- Jacob W Braestrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Would we ever say: "Uhhh, this guy is ugly and no > good, bad mannered and ill tempered - but, it's no > fault of his own, and he REALLY doesn't enjoy the > competition for sexual partner forced upon him by > society, so why don't we just force this beautiful > girl to have sex with him"" > > Um, no. Force would be bad. You could sweeten the > deal for her, however, using perhaps pecuinary > benefits to level the field. But what if this ugly guy isn't rich--oh! You mean pecuniary benefits taken from *other* people--purely through voluntary donations of course. After all, you consider force to be (morally?) "bad." I'm just looking for some consistency here. But what happens if there aren't enough people who are willing to donate? ~Alypius Skinner
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
William Sjostrom wrote: > Graham Nash economics is my overly cute way of complaining about normative > economics. Economists offer *opinions* on who should get this or that: the > poor, the talented, the hard-working, maybe some combination of the above. > I still am not persuaded that economists opinions on these issues are any > more important than anyone else's opinion. I'm tempted to agree with you. Economists aren't very impressive philosophers. On the other hand, though, they are much better philosophers than the typical undergrad, who is often unable to form any coherent opinion at all. > Does it change the way the world > behaves? A totally different question. Even if you are the pinnacle of moral knowledge, the world could ignore you. It hardly shows you're wrong. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mr. Banks: Will you be good enough to explain all this?! Mary Poppins: First of all I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. Banks: Yes? Poppins: I never explain *anything*. *Mary Poppins*
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
If there > > were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer, > > I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more. > I don't see why, > efficiency aside, more able and hard-working people deserve more. Being > more able and hard-working should be reward enough by itself. Lazy and > incompetent people no doubt did not consciously decide to become lazy and > incompetent, so why should they be punished for it, again if efficiency is > not a consideration? > And another response: > This is an interesting point. Suppose we carry it a little further. > > Cruel and dishonest people didn't choose to be cruel and dishonest. > Or, if they did at some point choose to be those things, they didn't > choose to be the sort of people who would make that choice. So why > should they be punished for it? Part of the answer is that people do respond to incentives in the environment. Giving people an equal share of the annual economic pie regardless of their conduct will not give them any incentive to curb their antisocial impulses. But, on the other hand, there is an argument for some degree of redistribution. There is a limit to how much people can raise their competence level in response to incentives. No one is born a blank slate. Some people have a higher potential for achievement than others, and, in the genetic lottery, some people will always be born with very limited potential. Some of these persons are obviously helpless to survive without assistance even as adults, but then there are the marginal cases--people with limited educability who will eke out a marginal existence in good times but often find themselves unable to do so in bad times. Thus some sort of balance must be struck between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining the incentives for temptation-prone people (who are often the same as the incompetent or semi-competent people) to resist temptation. The biggest problem with public aid to the poor may be that it is value neutral. Very few moral demands are made on the recipients, perhaps because morality is intimately entwined with religion, and the lawmakers and opinion shapers are generally determined to keep "church and state" rigidly separated, apparently even in countries that have legally established churches! There is also an exaggerated concern with not "imposing" moral values on welfare recipients, which is a policy guaranteed to increase abuse of taxpayer generosity. ~Alypius Skinner
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
> John Hull wrote: > > Um, no. Force would be bad. You could sweeten the > > deal for her, however, using perhaps pecuinary > > benefits to level the field. > Assuming you are not just joking, this implies that things such as "ability to atract mates" should be taken into account when redistributing income today. After all, you acknowledge that money may "sweeten the deal" for any potentila partner, thus it would be unfair to take money from a rich, ugly man (or woman) and give them to a poor, good looking man (woman), since the former needs them to improve his / hers chances in the mating game. And while we are at it: why not also control for happines? What is all this focus on money? - why strive for equality only on that parameter and not the more "important" ones?? - jacob braestrup
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
At 10:16 29.11.2002 +0100, you wrote: > John Hull wrote: > > Um, no. Force would be bad. You could sweeten the > > deal for her, however, using perhaps pecuinary > > benefits to level the field. > Assuming you are not just joking, this implies that things such as "ability to atract mates" should be taken into account when redistributing income today. I think everyone agrees that this would be absurd or impractical for a variety of reasons. When discussing equity, however, these reasons may not be all that relevant. We might find that there is some ideal that we would wish to have realised, even if this ideal for practical reasons may be unattainable. For instance, we could discuss what the "perfect energy source" would be characterised by, without claiming that it can actually be found in practise. The question, as I see it, is whether we wish to defend the de facto differences in 'welfare' that we see around us as morally right, and if so, on what basis. One could argue, as Charles Murray has done, that incentives are required for society to function, even if no individual "deserves" to be better off than any other in some metaphysical sense. In other words, one might believe that everyone should be equally well off in an ideal world, but that the attempt to realise this would cause a collapse in society as no one would then have an incentive to produce anything. Or one could argue, as it seems some people do in this group, that there are moral criteria that can be used to determine how much each individual deserves, and that this ideal distribution is indeed realised by the market. Here's a thought experiment that may illustrate one reason why this "market distribution is the correct distribution" seems problematic to some: Imagine that all babies born each week were pooled and then reassigned randomly to the parents. Your adult personality, opportunities and welfare would to a large extent be a function of the parents you drew in this lottery. You could end up in the household of a millionaire or a single mum working at McDonalds. Is your luck in this draw morally relevant? Is the difference in welfare outcomes morally acceptable? And, returning to our real world, to what extent is the present criteria for the assignment of infants to parents (based, ordinarily, on genetic factors) reflective of merit? Ole
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Wei Dai wrote: > People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, but you can't opt out of > economic competition. I think it's a necessary evil, not something to be > desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do enjoy competition, and > they should certainly be able to participate, but what's the point of > forcing competition on people who hate it, besides efficiency? Sure you can "opt out." Reduce your expectations. Settle for less. The same, of course, is true of e.g. athletic competition. If you aren't good enough to compete, you "opt out." -- Prof. Bryan Caplan (To Bryan-a fine Mary Poppins quote) Wei Dai added here a fine "contrarian" note (for this list). But in the "opting out", Bryan is not clear/blunt enough: (1) you can choose to be homeless, take no jobs nor responsibility, and peacefully beg from others who, "if it's voluntary", can give to you (or not) with no moral problems. (This includes living with parents or other loved ones, from whom receipt of resources isn't quite begging from strangers.) (2) You can become a thief, and take other's property by force/ fraud/ in secret -- illegally, until you get caught & punished. (3) You can voluntarily offer to do work/ be useful to somebody else, in return for money--welcome to the rat race. Honest & voluntary, that's where I'm at and most normal folks. Because begging and stealing are not attractive options, many may wrongly fell that "you can't opt out of competition". There does exist option (4): beg from the government, who will steal/ take other's money, for you. (A case could be made that most academics are in this category -- but prolly a majority of folks in the US get at least a portion of their income from gov't supported programs, depending on the indirect inclusiveness.) And the problem with gov't redistribution is that the gov't collection is NOT voluntary; it is NOT something that folks can opt out of. I truly don't see any other living alternatives, "forced" by reality. The free market and honest capitalism is all about (3), making (and keeping) the best voluntary agreements. And the materialist benefits available ONLY to such market participants is usually enough incentive to join up. But nobody has challenged you, Wei: do you know anybody admirable who "hates" competition? Ghandi comes to mind as a stereo-type, living in rags, spinning his own cotton threads, a very unhappy wife ... Tom Grey
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
"But nobody has challenged you, Wei: do you know anybody admirable who "hates" competition? Ghandi comes to mind as a stereo-type, living in rags, spinning his own cotton threads, a very unhappy wife ..." Yes, perhaps the stereotype of Ghandi, but not the historical Ghandi. The real Ghandi lived surrounded by doting admirers and servants, serving him specially-prepared meals for the sake of his chronic constipation. As one wag observed, "It takes an awful lot of money to keep Ghandi living in poverty." Marc Poitras
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
> Wei Dai wrote: >> you can't opt out of economic competition. > Sure you can "opt out." Reduce your expectations. Settle for less. > Prof. Bryan Caplan Since many resources and goods are scarce and rival, in the broadest economic sense, nobody can opt out of economic competition except by dying. As Bryan Caplan implied, one can reduce one's competition by reducing one's employment, investment, and consumption of goods. But nobody living can entirely opt out. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Jacob W Braestrup wrote: > . . . And while we are at it: > why not also control for happines? What is all this focus on money? - > why strive for equality only on that parameter and not the > more "important" ones?? Reminds me of a story in one of the sf magazines - an abnormally cheerful man was found to have an abnormally high level of endorphins, and was compelled to take treatment to compensate, because we can't have people running loose on what amounts to a permanent drug trip. I wonder how many read the story and thought it a good idea. (And where's my cut of that guy's excess?) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
> > Does it change the way the world behaves? > > A totally different question. Even if you are the pinnacle of moral > knowledge, the world could ignore you. It hardly shows you're wrong. Suppose, according to some moral code, you are right, but no one pays you any attention. My point is, first, if no one pays you attention, it does not matter whether you are right, and second, you cannot in any event empirically verify that your moral code is in fact the correct one. William Sjostrom + William Sjostrom Senior Lecturer Department of Economics National University of Ireland, Cork Cork, Ireland +353-21-490-2091 (work) +353-21-427-3920 (fax) +353-21-463-4056 (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ucc.ie/~sjostrom/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
What is all this focus on money? - why strive for equality only on that parameter and not the more "important" ones?? - jacob braestrup Let me expand on this point a little. All economists are familiar with the standard declining marginal utility argument for income redistribution. I'm not sure how many realize that it depends on a specific assumption, and that if we make a different, less plausible but not wildly implausible, assumption the argument reverses. The implicit assumption is that differing incomes reflect differences in productive abilities rather than in the utility function for consumption. We thus think of a population as if it consisted of people all of whom had the same utility function, able to sell their labor at different prices--or with different income endowments. On that model, declining marginal utility of income, which is plausible although not provable, implies that the higher your income, the lower your marginal utility of income. Suppose we instead assume that everyone has the same ability to convert leisure into income and the same utility function for leisure, and the difference is in how much we value income. Further assume declining marginal utility for leisure. High income people are those who greatly value consumption, hence are willing to sell a lot of their leisure. In equilibrium, their marginal utility of income is higher than that of low income people. That must be the case, because their marginal utility of leisure is higher (they have less of it, having sold more), and in equilibrium marginal utility of leisure equals marginal utility of income times the price of leisure. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Here's a thought experiment that may illustrate one reason why this "market distribution is the correct distribution" seems problematic to some: Imagine that all babies born each week were pooled and then reassigned randomly to the parents. Your adult personality, opportunities and welfare would to a large extent be a function of the parents you drew in this lottery. You could end up in the household of a millionaire or a single mum working at McDonalds. Is your luck in this draw morally relevant? Is the difference in welfare outcomes morally acceptable? And, returning to our real world, to what extent is the present criteria for the assignment of infants to parents (based, ordinarily, on genetic factors) reflective of merit? This gets back to the point I made earlier, with some additions. 1. The question isn't whether you deserve to be the sort of person you turned out to be. It is whether the person you turned out to be deserves certain outcomes. 2. Nozick's distinction between desert and entitlement is useful here--and connects to the puzzle of moral luck. One version of the latter is to observe that there are many people, perhaps most, who if they had been in the setting of Hitler's Germany and offered the position of concentration camp guard would have accepted. Does that mean we should regard all of those people with the same moral repulsion we would regard someone who actually had been a concentration camp guard? Should we regard the driver who drove dangerously fast after drinking a little too much, skidded, and just missed a small child in the same way as the driver who, under the same circumstances, killed the child? Combining my first and second points. One strong moral intuition, although not the only one, is that you deserve what you create--that people who make a large contribution to the society deserve a large reward. How large a contribution you make depends on a variety of factors, none of which the hypothetical disembodied identity that represents you stripped of all genetic and environmental characteristics "deserves" to have, some of which are characteristics of that identity with genetics added, some of that with genetics and environment added, and some pure luck. If you find this way of thinking of it entirely implausible, consider Nozick's example of two men, each of whom is entitled to is current assets by whatever the morally correct rule may be, who bet a dollar on the flip of a coin. Nobody will say that one of them deserved to win the bet. Yet most of us would say that the one who wins the bet is entitled to have the dollar. And if the previous distribution was just, and just distributions cannot depend on morally irrelevant criteria such as luck, that means that we have just approved a move away from a just distribution. All of which suggests that end state ethics--you deserve to end up with X share of the pie--have problems. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Bryan D Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Economists aren't very impressive philosophers. That may well be true, but an interesting question is whether economists have been better or worse philosophers than most professional philosophers, with respect to what is directly relevant to economics, namely ethical and political philosophy. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 09:53:17AM +0100, Jacob W Braestrup wrote: > There are many other "forced" kind of competition, that we (thankfully) > do not consider grounds for redistribution - like the competition for > mates. (I think I have stolen this point blatantly from Nozik, sorry). In fact, we do have laws designed to reduce competition for mates, namely laws against polygamy. Without those laws, inequality in the outcome of this competition would be even greater than they are today. On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 09:42:58PM -0500, Bryan D Caplan wrote: > Sure you can "opt out." Reduce your expectations. Settle for less. Are you prepared to tell that to the person living in the streets or starving in some third world country? Even if you are, I think most people are not, and you're not going to be able to convince them otherwise by drawing analogies with atheletic competitions. On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 01:34:10AM -, William Sjostrom wrote: > Graham Nash economics is my overly cute way of complaining about normative > economics. Economists offer *opinions* on who should get this or that: the > poor, the talented, the hard-working, maybe some combination of the above. > I still am not persuaded that economists opinions on these issues are any > more important than anyone else's opinion. Does it change the way the world > behaves? I think the answer is yes. For good or ill, economists' opinions do count more than other people's, on average. >From Hayek's "The Intellectuals and Socialism": The most powerful of these general ideas which have shaped political development in recent times is of course the ideal of material equality. It is, characteristically, not one of the spontaneously grown moral convictions, first applied in the relations between particular individuals, but an intellectual construction originally conceived in the abstract and of doubtful meaning or application in particular instances. Nevertheless, it has operated strongly as a principle of selection among the alternative courses of social policy, exercising a persistent pressure toward an arrangement of social affairs which nobody clearly conceives. That a particular measure tends to bring about greater equality has come to be regarded as so strong a recommendation that little else will be considered. Since on each particular issue it is this one aspect on which those who guide opinion have a definite conviction, equality has determined social change even more strongly than its advocates intended. (end quote)
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 11:04:53AM -0800, david friedman wrote: > 1. The question isn't whether you deserve to be the sort of person > you turned out to be. It is whether the person you turned out to be > deserves certain outcomes. What's the difference between these two questions? Why is the second one relevant and the first one not? Or, to ask the question another way, consider a criminal as he is now and as a child before he committed any crimes. If we punish the criminal a week from now, don't we also punish the child version of him, since this future punishment has negative utility for both of them? Can we justify this punishment if it has no efficiency effects (i.e., no deterrence effect)? > 2. Nozick's distinction between desert and entitlement is useful > here--and connects to the puzzle of moral luck. One version of the > latter is to observe that there are many people, perhaps most, who if > they had been in the setting of Hitler's Germany and offered the > position of concentration camp guard would have accepted. Does that > mean we should regard all of those people with the same moral > repulsion we would regard someone who actually had been a > concentration camp guard? Should we regard the driver who drove > dangerously fast after drinking a little too much, skidded, and just > missed a small child in the same way as the driver who, under the > same circumstances, killed the child? > > Combining my first and second points. One strong moral intuition, > although not the only one, is that you deserve what you create--that > people who make a large contribution to the society deserve a large > reward. How large a contribution you make depends on a variety of > factors, none of which the hypothetical disembodied identity that > represents you stripped of all genetic and environmental > characteristics "deserves" to have, some of which are characteristics > of that identity with genetics added, some of that with genetics and > environment added, and some pure luck. All of our current theories and intuitions about desert and entitlement are linked with their effects on efficiency. I'm not arguing against rewarding people for making contributions to society, all things considered. Instead I'm arguing against Bryan's position that merit is a good independent of efficiency. > If you find this way of thinking of it entirely implausible, consider > Nozick's example of two men, each of whom is entitled to is current > assets by whatever the morally correct rule may be, who bet a dollar > on the flip of a coin. Nobody will say that one of them deserved to > win the bet. Yet most of us would say that the one who wins the bet > is entitled to have the dollar. And if the previous distribution was > just, and just distributions cannot depend on morally irrelevant > criteria such as luck, that means that we have just approved a move > away from a just distribution. > > All of which suggests that end state ethics--you deserve to end up > with X share of the pie--have problems. That's an interesting point which I'll have to think about. But one response is that the person who won the dollar is NOT entitled to it, but we ignore the injustice because it would be too costly to rectify. We do have laws against gambling, which suggests that most people do not approve of transfers based on luck.
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 10:57:53AM -0800, Anton Sherwood wrote: > Reminds me of a story in one of the sf magazines - an abnormally > cheerful man was found to have an abnormally high level of endorphins, > and was compelled to take treatment to compensate, because we can't have > people running loose on what amounts to a permanent drug trip. > > I wonder how many read the story and thought it a good idea. > > (And where's my cut of that guy's excess?) If we really cared about happiness, we would just rewire everyone's brains to be happy all of the time, like this guy in the SF story. The fact that we don't spend any resources on research into this technology suggests that we don't really care about happiness. What we value are real accomplishments, and happiness is just something we use to motivate ourselves.
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
William Sjostrom wrote: > > > > Does it change the way the world behaves? > > > > A totally different question. Even if you are the pinnacle of moral > > knowledge, the world could ignore you. It hardly shows you're wrong. > > Suppose, according to some moral code, you are right, but no one pays you > any attention. My point is, first, if no one pays you attention, it does > not matter whether you are right, This just begs the question. It assumes that the only way something can "matter" is by affecting behavior. It matters to me and many other people even if it doesn't affect anyone's behavior. > and second, you cannot in any event > empirically verify that your moral code is in fact the correct one. This is getting too philosophical for the list. There are plenty of other places to debate moral realism. :-) > William Sjostrom > > + > William Sjostrom > Senior Lecturer > Department of Economics > National University of Ireland, Cork > Cork, Ireland > > +353-21-490-2091 (work) > +353-21-427-3920 (fax) > +353-21-463-4056 (home) > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.ucc.ie/~sjostrom/ -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mr. Banks: Will you be good enough to explain all this?! Mary Poppins: First of all I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. Banks: Yes? Poppins: I never explain *anything*. *Mary Poppins*
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Wei Dai wrote: On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 11:04:53AM -0800, david friedman wrote: 1. The question isn't whether you deserve to be the sort of person you turned out to be. It is whether the person you turned out to be deserves certain outcomes. What's the difference between these two questions? Why is the second one relevant and the first one not? Or, to ask the question another way, consider a criminal as he is now and as a child before he committed any crimes. If we punish the criminal a week from now, don't we also punish the child version of him, since this future punishment has negative utility for both of them? Can we justify this punishment if it has no efficiency effects (i.e., no deterrence effect)? The difference I think is obvious. The criminal does deserve punishment, the child who was going to become the criminal didn't. He had the bad fortune to become someone who would be deserving of punishment. As to why it is the second that is relevant, I don't have a theory from which I can rigorously derive oughts. I'm merely pointing out that our intuitions about oughts have certain characteristics, and that abstract reasoning about those intuitions might produce a persuasive but logically invalid argument--as, in this case, I think it does. I can reverse your question--why is it the fetus who was going to become a mass murderer who we should judge for the mass murderer's crimes, instead of the mass murderer himself? > If you find this way of thinking of it entirely implausible, consider Nozick's example of two men, each of whom is entitled to is current assets by whatever the morally correct rule may be, who bet a dollar on the flip of a coin. Nobody will say that one of them deserved to win the bet. Yet most of us would say that the one who wins the bet is entitled to have the dollar. And if the previous distribution was just, and just distributions cannot depend on morally irrelevant criteria such as luck, that means that we have just approved a move away from a just distribution. > All of which suggests that end state ethics--you deserve to end up with X share of the pie--have problems. That's an interesting point which I'll have to think about. But one response is that the person who won the dollar is NOT entitled to it, but we ignore the injustice because it would be too costly to rectify. That's a possible response, but I don't think it is plausible as a description of how we feel. It implies, for example, that if you had an opportunity to risklessly reverse the transfer, say by stealing a dollar from the winner and slipping it into the losers pocket, you ought to do so. Is that your view? We do have laws against gambling, which suggests that most people do not approve of transfers based on luck. I don't think so. For one thing, lots of forms of gambling are legal. Going back to the more general issue, one problem with the way you want to think of the question is that, carried to its logical extreme, the implication is that nobody deserves anything. A fertilized ovum has no characteristics that imply desert, at least as most of us see it--indeed, most people regard procedures to keep such from implanting as morally blameless. Hence nobody deserves anything. Hence there is no reason to criticize a blatantly unequal society, say a caste system. Some people in it get a little stuff they don't deserve, some get a lot they don't deserve--but nobody is failing to get what he deserves, because nobody--at the point at which you want to judge people--deserves anything. Carry that one step further back and you are at my rock--which deserves as much, and as little, as you do, since it isn't its fault it is a rock or yours that you aren't.
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Wei Dai wrote: > In fact, we do have laws designed to reduce competition for mates, namely > laws against polygamy. Without those laws, inequality in the outcome of > this competition would be even greater than they are today. Polygamy laws do not prevent that some individuals end up having many more and better quality sex partners in their lives than others. First of all since there is no requirement to marry; secondly because adultery is not outlawed... ...and here I haven't even taken the quality perspective into consideration. Even if we were all confined to (and guaranteed) one sex partner throughout life - were is the fairness of the spontaneous quality distribution??? My point with the example is this: when there are so many things in life that are blatantly "unfairly" (if you believe in equality) distributed among us, why this preoccupation with wealth / income - especially when it is conceeded that effeorts to redistribute existing income / wealth will inevitably reduce future income / wealth. - jacob braestrup
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Alypius Skinner wrote Thus some sort of > balance must be struck between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining > the incentives for temptation-prone people (who are often the same as the > incompetent or semi-competent people) to resist temptation. But where do you suppose such a balance is most accurately struck? in a public market for redistribution - or a private one? my money is on te latter - jacob braestrup
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Jacob W Braestrup wrote: > Alypius Skinner wrote > > Thus some sort of > > balance must be struck between compassion for our fellow man and > maintaining > > the incentives for temptation-prone people (who are often the same as > the > > incompetent or semi-competent people) to resist temptation. > > But where do you suppose such a balance is most accurately struck? in a > public market for redistribution - or a private one? > > my money is on te latter > > - jacob braestrup > All government programs are a form of redistribution. For example, public police and fire protection subsidize the safety of the poor at the expense of the rich (if I may oversimplify the class structure). So the real question is whether the optimal balance would be one of no public redistribution or some public redistribution. If there were no public redistribution, there would be no need for a state, yet if a state did not exist, one would soon emerge because the stateless society would be so obviously suboptimal for an economy beyond the level of the hunter gatherer. For example, when the bloated west Roman state collapsed in western Europe, the life of the average peasant probably improved, but trade also collapsed, which made society in the aggregate poorer. This is an example of swinging from one suboptimal extreme of public redistribution to another. I would certainly argue that the current level of public redistribution is above the optimum rather than below it--probably well above. But I would not argue that the optimum is zero public redistribution. Of course, this question of whether we should have an inherently redistributionist public sector is a different question than whether the public sector should micromanage the private sector. ~Alypius Skinner
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Alypius Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > if a state did not exist, one would soon emerge because the stateless society would be so obviously suboptimal for an economy beyond the level of the hunter gatherer.< > ~Alypius Skinner If this is indeed obvious, please provide the explanation, because the obviousness is not evident to me. > For example, when the bloated west Roman state collapsed in western > Europe, the life of the average peasant probably improved, but trade also > collapsed, which made society in the aggregate poorer. If the vast majority of the population were peasants, and their lives improved on average, how could society be poorer? Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Alypius Skinner wrote So the real > question is whether the optimal balance would be one of no public > redistribution or some public redistribution. If there were no public > redistribution, there would be no need for a state, yet if a state did not > exist, one would soon emerge because the stateless society would be so > obviously suboptimal for an economy beyond the level of the hunter gatherer. [...] I would > certainly argue that the current level of public redistribution is above the > optimum rather than below it--probably well above. But I would not argue > that the optimum is zero public redistribution. > > Of course, this question of whether we should have an inherently > redistributionist public sector is a different question than whether the > public sector should micromanage the private sector. > But this argument does not sound like "striking a balance between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining the incentives for temptation-prone people" as you first put it. But more like finding the optimal balance for the sake of our own self interest - however narrowly defined. Either way, I still cannot the logical argumnet why striking this balance is done more optimal using force, than voluntarily [btw: I do not disagree that something resembling states as we know them will emerge from a stateless society - but I do disagree that they necessarily must be based on cohersion - this I believe follows directly from your argument that some form of state is in everybodys (save very few) self interest]. - jacob braestrup - jacob
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Jacob W Braestrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "My point with the example is this: when there are so many things in life that are blatantly "unfairly" (if you believe in equality) distributed among us, [1]why this preoccupation with wealth / income - [2]especially when it is conceeded that effeorts to redistribute existing income / wealth will inevitably reduce future income / wealth." 1: My guess: Because wealth & income are relatively easy to measure objectively, as opposed to "mate satisfaction." So it is an easy proxy. It seems to be a fairly good one, too, since money is a numeraire good. 2: Does the logic/math of the 2nd Fund. Welfare Thm. imply that lump-sum redistribution, so that a more "favorable" market outcome obtains, necessarily lowers output? Optimization is still a calculus problem after all. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Grey Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "(1)you can choose to be homeless, take no jobs nor responsibility, and peacefully beg from others who, "if it's voluntary", can give to you (or not) with no moral problems. (This includes living with parents or other loved ones, from whom receipt of resources isn't quite begging from strangers.) (2) You can become a thief, and take other's property by force/ fraud/ in secret -- illegally, until you get caught & punished." As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to admit the debt that they incure to those who choose option #1. -jsh = "...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong." -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Alypius Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "But what if this ugly guy isn't rich--oh! You mean pecuniary benefits taken from *other* people--purely through voluntary donations of course. After all, you consider force to be (morally?) "bad." I'm just looking for some consistency here." That's funny. I'm assuming that I don't really need to justify why I feel there is a difference between taxation & sexual slavery. -jsh > > > > John Hull wrote: > > > > --- Jacob W Braestrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Would we ever say: "Uhhh, this guy is ugly and no > > good, bad mannered and ill tempered - but, it's no > > fault of his own, and he REALLY doesn't enjoy the > > competition for sexual partner forced upon him by > > society, so why don't we just force this beautiful > > girl to have sex with him"" > > > > Um, no. Force would be bad. You could sweeten > the > > deal for her, however, using perhaps pecuinary > > benefits to level the field. > > But what if this ugly guy isn't rich--oh! You mean > pecuniary benefits taken > from *other* people--purely through voluntary > donations of course. After > all, you consider force to be (morally?) "bad." > I'm just looking for some > consistency here. > > But what happens if there aren't enough people who > are willing to donate? > > ~Alypius Skinner > > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "Suppose we instead assume that everyone has the same ability to convert leisure into income" I'm not disputing the logic. The assumption does seem awfully unrealistic. All zygotes are created equal, except the ones with the wrong number of chromosones (oh, and maybe not some with nasty genetic predispositions), but the family one comes into along with a host of factors beyond one's control do play a role in affecting who one becomes, including the ability to convert leisure into income. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Jacob W Braestrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "'John Hull wrote:...' Assuming you are not just joking, this implies that things such as "ability to atract mates" should be taken into account when redistributing income today." Mostly joking. I was more concerned with the idea that forcing marriage on people was the only way to level the playing field for mates. It does seem that fincanial security & luxury goods really can "sweeten the deal," at least for some people. That's not to say that such a program would be practical. However, ugly people do get shafted in life. If that could be reasonably accounted for as a component in a redistribution scheme that met the approval of the polity, then I probably wouldn't oppose it. "...it would be unfair to take money from a rich, ugly man (or woman)..." They'd just pay less in taxes than a rich, beautiful person. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- john hull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > why this preoccupation with wealth / income? One reason is that income can buy other things. For example, beauty is unequally distributed, but much of beauty is created rather than natural; the wealth can afford better hair stylists, have plastic surgery, avoid physically risky occupations, etc. With more money, the poor can bathe, get haircuts, wear better clothes, etc., and look better. Even love is better with money; one can go out more often, get better dates, etc. Money is also more easily redistributed than physical attributes. Moreover, government does try to reduce the benefits of better talent and better ability by taxing it so that it is less rewarding. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "One strong moral intuition, although not the only one, is that you deserve what you create--that people who make a large contribution to the society deserve a large reward. How large a contribution you make depends on a variety of factors, none of which the hypothetical disembodied identity that represents you stripped of all genetic and environmental characteristics "deserves" to have, some of which are characteristics of that identity with genetics added, some of that with genetics and environment added, and some pure luck. ... If you find this way of thinking of it entirely implausible, consider Nozick's example of two men, each of whom is entitled to is current assets by whatever the morally correct rule may be, who bet a dollar on the flip of a coin. Nobody will say that one of them deserved to win the bet. Yet most of us would say that the one who wins the bet is entitled to have the dollar. And if the previous distribution was just, and just distributions cannot depend on morally irrelevant criteria such as luck, that means that we have just approved a move away from a just distribution." In the first quoted paragraph, you say that at least some of what determines how well a person can contribute is associated with luck and forces beyond that person's control. In the second, you imply that these outcomes of chance are analogous to a small bet between two consenting adults. I don't see the analogy. To say that the person one becomes determines what this person deserves is reasonable, but not as an absolute. The person one becomes is a product of myriad factors, many of which are outside said person's control. Suppose that a person is born into a family of Philistines--truly ignorant buffons and semi-literate at best. Odds are that this person will not enjoy the same fruits as a more-or-less identical person born into a family of doctors, judges, and industrialists. To say that the first person deserves less and the latter more smacks of punishing a child for the crimes of a parent. It certainly doesn't sound like like consenting adults making a small bet on the flip of a coin. -jsh = "...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong." -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
>> --- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> "Suppose we instead assume that everyone has the same >> ability to convert leisure into income" > > The assumption does seem awfully unrealistic. > -jsh It has its limitations, but workers are quite able to control their amount of leisure on several margins: 1) the numbers of hours worked, for those with the option of overtime or else simply doing more work for the same pay, or shifting to part-time work. 2) having, or not, a second, third, etc., job, including consulting. 3) using sick leave 4) retiring earlier or later 5) being, or not, a second or third family member with a job 6) moving closer to work and spending less time commuting 7) spending more time and resources to reduce taxation (less leisure, more income) 8) students postponing their first employment to indulge in travel or graduate school. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
jsh writes In the first quoted paragraph, you say that at least some of what determines how well a person can contribute is associated with luck and forces beyond that person's control. In the second, you imply that these outcomes of chance are analogous to a small bet between two consenting adults. I don't see the analogy. The fall of the coin is the result of "luck and forces beyond that person's control." That demonstrates that, in at least some cases, we consider such outcomes relevant to what someone is entitled to get. To say that the person one becomes determines what this person deserves is reasonable, but not as an absolute. The person one becomes is a product of myriad factors, many of which are outside said person's control. Suppose that a person is born into a family of Philistines--truly ignorant buffons and semi-literate at best. Odds are that this person will not enjoy the same fruits as a more-or-less identical person born into a family of doctors, judges, and industrialists. To say that the first person deserves less and the latter more smacks of punishing a child for the crimes of a parent. It certainly doesn't sound like like consenting adults making a small bet on the flip of a coin. I agree that the person one becomes is a result of factors at least some of which, arguably all of which, are outside of one's control. My point is that moral worthiness isn't being predicated of the newborn infant or fertilized ovum but of the adult that it turned into. Whatever the reasons are that I am cruel and dishonest, cruel and dishonest people deserve to have bad things happen to them. That, at least, is a moral intuition that many people find convincing. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "Suppose we instead assume that everyone has the same ability to convert leisure into income" I'm not disputing the logic. The assumption does seem awfully unrealistic. So does the assumption needed to make the more conventional version of the argument rigorous--that people all have the same ability to convert income into utility (i.e. the same utility function). Presumably, differences in income reflect in part differences in ability to convert leisure into income, in part differences in ability to convert income into utility. My point was that, while the first cause, considered alone, leads to the conventional conclusion that we can increase utility by transferring from rich to poor, the second leads to the opposite conclusion. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/2/02 2:10:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Alypius Skinner wrote So the real > question is whether the optimal balance would be one of no public > redistribution or some public redistribution. If there were no public > redistribution, there would be no need for a state, yet if a state did not > exist, one would soon emerge because the stateless society would be so > obviously suboptimal for an economy beyond the level of the hunter gatherer. [...] I would > certainly argue that the current level of public redistribution is above the > optimum rather than below it--probably well above. But I would not argue > that the optimum is zero public redistribution. > > Of course, this question of whether we should have an inherently > redistributionist public sector is a different question than whether the > public sector should micromanage the private sector. > But this argument does not sound like "striking a balance between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining the incentives for temptation-prone people" as you first put it. But more like finding the optimal balance for the sake of our own self interest - however narrowly defined. Either way, I still cannot the logical argumnet why striking this balance is done more optimal using force, than voluntarily [btw: I do not disagree that something resembling states as we know them will emerge from a stateless society - but I do disagree that they necessarily must be based on cohersion - this I believe follows directly from your argument that some form of state is in everybodys (save very few) self interest]. - jacob braestrup - jacob >> Yes, it strikes me as odd that anyone would seek to measure my compassion by my willingness to use the government's monopoly (or in the American case, quasi-monopoly) on the legitimized use of force to transfer income earned by Jacob and Alypius to some third party. While there may be perfectly non-redistributive means of funding that monopoly, inadvertantly redistributing a tiny fraction of incomes by funding a tiny government with minimal taxes differs profoundly from using large, deliberately redistributive taxes to fund massive, deliberately redistributive social welfare and corporate protectionist programs. David Levenstam
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/2/02 3:58:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- Grey Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "(1)you can choose to be homeless, take no jobs nor responsibility, and peacefully beg from others who, "if it's voluntary", can give to you (or not) with no moral problems. (This includes living with parents or other loved ones, from whom receipt of resources isn't quite begging from strangers.) (2) You can become a thief, and take other's property by force/ fraud/ in secret -- illegally, until you get caught & punished." As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to admit the debt that they incure to those who choose option #1. -jsh >> What debt is that? Perhaps I can start begging as a way of increasing my contribution to society. DBL
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/2/02 4:03:15 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- Alypius Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "But what if this ugly guy isn't rich--oh! You mean pecuniary benefits taken from *other* people--purely through voluntary donations of course. After all, you consider force to be (morally?) "bad." I'm just looking for some consistency here." That's funny. I'm assuming that I don't really need to justify why I feel there is a difference between taxation & sexual slavery. -jsh >> Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind.
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "'As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to admit the debt that they incure to those who choose option #1. -jsh' What debt is that?" Exactly. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "My point is that moral worthiness isn't being predicated of the newborn infant or fertilized ovum but of the adult that it turned into. Whatever the reasons are that I am cruel and dishonest, cruel and dishonest people deserve to have bad things happen to them. That, at least, is a moral intuition that many people find convincing." Well put. I'm not an existentialist, but I do agree to at least some extent that we make our own moral choices. My point is merely that, since some of who we become is the product of things outside of our control, even hard-hearted* policies should have a soft edge. -jsh *I don't like the term "hard-hearted." It reminds me of PETA: c'mon! Is anybody really for the UNethical treatment of animals? Or do we just have different standards of ethical? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "My point was that, while the first cause, considered alone, leads to the conventional conclusion that we can increase utility by transferring from rich to poor, the second leads to the opposite conclusion." Oh, okay. My bad. Sorry about that. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:56 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "'As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to admit the debt that they incure to those who choose option #1. -jsh' What debt is that?" Exactly. >> No, seriously, how do I benefit others by begging? Do I give them a needed sense of superiority? Or do I serve as an excuse for government to steal your money and give it to bureaucrats in the name of helping me?
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:15 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "My point is that moral worthiness isn't being predicated of the newborn infant or fertilized ovum but of the adult that it turned into. Whatever the reasons are that I am cruel and dishonest, cruel and dishonest people deserve to have bad things happen to them. That, at least, is a moral intuition that many people find convincing." Well put. I'm not an existentialist, but I do agree to at least some extent that we make our own moral choices. My point is merely that, since some of who we become is the product of things outside of our control, even hard-hearted* policies should have a soft edge. -jsh >> Well let's say that it turns out that my poverty isn't due to my laziness and weakness, as my family always thought, and instead because I have obsessive compulsive disorder, manic depression (called "biploar disorder" by the politically correct these days), attention deficit disorder and a panic disorder (apparently there's more than one so I'm not sure which one I might have). We might all agree that I deserve better than what I've been able to manage for myself and that I didn't ask to be a bundle of mental illnesses. Now how does any of that give me the right to point a gun at you and force you to give me your money? Since I don't have that right myself, how could I possibly delegate it to the government to extort money from you on my behalf? It's certainly not your fault I'm a basket case. DBL
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
I apologize for being flip. I hope I did at least get a smile. Seriously, I think that I tend to believe, and I think what Machiavelli was driving at, is that in a free society we all agree to participate peacefully and not try to usurp power and authority. The 2000 election was a good example, in my limited judgement, because it seems that in many places (and eras) an event like that could have easily occasioned serious violence. The logical leap to the case of the bum I assume is my own. I cannot ask Machiavelli how he feels about it. When I see a bum begging, it seems to me that he could just as easily prey on innocent people as pray for their goodwill. Of course, one could argue that the penalty for crime is severe and it is better to be an honest beggar than an inmate. I question the weight of this argument since crime (for lack of a better term) seems to be endemic to the human condition. The peaceful beggar doesn't seem to benefit too greatly from society's largesse. Through a series of bad decisions, a few strokes of bad luck, or an inability to obtain adequate mental health care, inter alia, he has become homeless and remedy has not been obtained--since he remains homeless. Yet he still participates in civic society. Were I in his place, I'm not so sure I'd be so civil. This does not make the bum "superior" to me. I could easily view him as a non-productive blight offensive to the eye and (yuck!) nose, and seek to have him banished through my influence with the polity or by threats and harassment. But I don't. Hence, I consider the debt to be reciprocal. Does that make sense? It's one of those things that is difficult for me to put into words. To put another way, "every civil member of a free and civic society owes a debt to every other civil member" seems to me to be a guideline far superior to the Golden Rule. -jsh --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:56 AM, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > "'As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to > admit the debt that they incure to those who choose > option #1. > -jsh' > What debt is that?" > > Exactly. >> > > No, seriously, how do I benefit others by begging? > Do I give them a needed > sense of superiority? Or do I serve as an excuse > for government to steal > your money and give it to bureaucrats in the name of > helping me? > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
If you really believe that taxation by a representative (and constitutional) government is equivalent to putting a gun to one's head, then we have a lot of issues regarding the nature, legitimacy, and role of government to work out before we can fruitfully address the current question. That has not been said in any pejorative sense; I have great respect for your opinion. -jsh --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:15 AM, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > << --- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > "My point is that moral worthiness isn't being > predicated of the newborn infant or fertilized ovum > but of the adult that it turned into. Whatever the > reasons are that I am cruel and dishonest, cruel and > dishonest people deserve to have bad things happen > to > them. That, at least, is a moral intuition that many > people find convincing." > > Well put. I'm not an existentialist, but I do agree > to at least some extent that we make our own moral > choices. > > My point is merely that, since some of who we become > is the product of things outside of our control, > even > hard-hearted* policies should have a soft edge. > > -jsh >> > > Well let's say that it turns out that my poverty > isn't due to my laziness and > weakness, as my family always thought, and instead > because I have obsessive > compulsive disorder, manic depression (called > "biploar disorder" by the > politically correct these days), attention deficit > disorder and a panic > disorder (apparently there's more than one so I'm > not sure which one I might > have). We might all agree that I deserve better > than what I've been able to > manage for myself and that I didn't ask to be a > bundle of mental illnesses. > Now how does any of that give me the right to point > a gun at you and force > you to give me your money? Since I don't have that > right myself, how could I > possibly delegate it to the government to extort > money from you on my behalf? > It's certainly not your fault I'm a basket case. > > DBL > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
RE: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Hi there. I'm not sure where the Machiavelli quote comes from, but are you sure he wasn't arguing, by a kind of appeal to majority opinion, that there is no debt to people who have done no wrong? Here's his quote again as you copied it: "...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong." -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. And here's your paraphrase: "As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to admit the debt that they incure to those who choose option #1." [option #1 being someone's choice to be a peaceful vagrant as opposed to a violent criminal] See, Machiavelli says that people aren't willing to admit THAT they have a debt; you say no one is willing to admit this debt. In your summation, you assume that there is such a debt, and that people aren't willing to admit it. Machiavelli states simply that people aren't willing to admit something. He makes no claims about whether that something does or does not exist. Indeed, given no other information, that might lead one to believe that Machiavelli is saying, "No one in his right mind believes such a debt exists." Am I missing something crucial not having read the context of that quote? Akilesh > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > On Behalf Of john hull > Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 12:53 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts* > > > I apologize for being flip. I hope I did at least get > a smile. > > Seriously, I think that I tend to believe, and I think > what Machiavelli was driving at, is that in a free > society we all agree to participate peacefully and not > try to usurp power and authority. The 2000 election > was a good example, in my limited judgement, because > it seems that in many places (and eras) an event like > that could have easily occasioned serious violence. > > The logical leap to the case of the bum I assume is my > own. I cannot ask Machiavelli how he feels about it. > When I see a bum begging, it seems to me that he could > just as easily prey on innocent people as pray for > their goodwill. Of course, one could argue that the > penalty for crime is severe and it is better to be an > honest beggar than an inmate. I question the weight > of this argument since crime (for lack of a better > term) seems to be endemic to the human condition. > > The peaceful beggar doesn't seem to benefit too > greatly from society's largesse. Through a series of > bad decisions, a few strokes of bad luck, or an > inability to obtain adequate mental health care, inter > alia, he has become homeless and remedy has not been > obtained--since he remains homeless. Yet he still > participates in civic society. Were I in his place, I'm not > so sure I'd be so civil. > > This does not make the bum "superior" to me. I could > easily view him as a non-productive blight offensive > to the eye and (yuck!) nose, and seek to have him > banished through my influence with the polity or by > threats and harassment. But I don't. Hence, I > consider the debt to be reciprocal. > > Does that make sense? It's one of those things that > is difficult for me to put into words. To put another > way, "every civil member of a free and civic society > owes a debt to every other civil member" seems to me > to be a guideline far superior to the Golden Rule. > > -jsh > > > --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:56 AM, > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > "'As Machiavelli pointed out, no one is willing to > > admit the debt that they incure to those who choose > > option #1. > > -jsh' > > What debt is that?" > > > > Exactly. >> > > > > No, seriously, how do I benefit others by begging? > > Do I give them a needed > > sense of superiority? Or do I serve as an excuse > > for government to steal > > your money and give it to bureaucrats in the name of > > helping me? > > > > > __ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com > >
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear > distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind. There is no clear distinction. Money is a medium, and the underlying reality is goods exchanging for other goods. If you have a ticket for a show which costs $5 plus $1 in tax, the tax is not really on the ticket, but on the show. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/4/02 1:14:42 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear > distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind. There is no clear distinction. Money is a medium, and the underlying reality is goods exchanging for other goods. If you have a ticket for a show which costs $5 plus $1 in tax, the tax is not really on the ticket, but on the show. Fred Foldvary >> I'm inclined to think there is no clear distinction, which is why I asked the original author of the comment (js I believe) to provide one. Still I must admit that there does seem to be, on some emotional level, a difference among having one's goods confiscated, being forced to perform manual labor or other services not of a sexual nature, and being forced to perform sexual services. Without being able to draw any clean lines of distinction myself, I just not that the second seems more invasive than the first, and the third more in vasive than the second. David
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "'Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind.'...I'm inclined to think there is no clear distinction,which is why I asked the original author of the comment (js I believe) to provide one." I don't think it was me, I think it was in response to something I wrote. Aren't payments in kind worth less than payments in cash, when the value is a significant portion of one's income, because they impose the consumption decision (for lack of a better term) on the individual? I thought I remember learning how that was modeled, but it was a while ago. If that is true, then maybe taxes in kind may be analogous? Just a guess. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
In a message dated 12/5/02 12:56:04 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "'Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind.'...I'm inclined to think there is no clear distinction,which is why I asked the original author of the comment (js I believe) to provide one." I don't think it was me, I think it was in response to something I wrote. Aren't payments in kind worth less than payments in cash, when the value is a significant portion of one's income, because they impose the consumption decision (for lack of a better term) on the individual? I thought I remember learning how that was modeled, but it was a while ago. If that is true, then maybe taxes in kind may be analogous? Just a guess. >> Well I think it depends on the person and the time you're asking. Right now while I'm being paid and under the stress of impending finals and final papers, if some attractive woman voluntarily offered me payment in kind :) I'd accept that over the equivalent in cash (which I understand in the DC area can come to hundreds of dollars per hour). If you ask me in the summer when I'm not stressed from classes (though I suspect I'll be stressed from studying for prelims) and I have less money to spend, I'll probably prefer the cash. David
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- john hull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Aren't payments in kind worth less than payments in > cash, when the value is a significant portion of one's > income, because they impose the consumption decision > (for lack of a better term) on the individual? Yes, assuming no tax difference. Many payments are made in kind today because the employee does not have to pay an income tax on it, or because it is tax deductible for the employer but not for the employee. Note, however, that psychic income is paid in kind. > If that is true, then maybe taxes > in kind may be analogous? Just a guess. Yes, taxes in cash are in general preferred to taxes in kind, such as to be drafted into the military or serve on a jury. There is an economic difference, but no moral difference in terms of being coercive. The tax of restrictive regulations is paid in kind. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Actually it would be interesting to hear someone delinate a clear > > distinction between taxation on money and taxation in kind. > > There is no clear distinction. > Fred Foldvary > > there does seem to be, on some emotional level, a difference > David There is no distinction between taxation in money vesus in kind as pertains to the act of taxation, i.e. taxation qua taxation. There are indeed differences in costs, based on subjective preferences, i.e. the utility of money relative to the item in kind. The burden on a horse of carrying a saddle depends not just on the weight of the load, but also how it the weight is distributed. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- Fred Foldvary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "There are indeed differences in costs [of taxes], based on subjective preferences, i.e. the utility of money relative to the item in kind. The burden on a horse of carrying a saddle depends not just on the weight of the load, but also how it the weight is distributed." Right, that's what I was thinking. Let's use a transfer for example, if I receive a transfer of $1,000 I can split it up however I want, maybe half on housing and a quarter each on medicine and food. But if I'm given $1,000 in housing, I'm not as well off as I would be with the cash because I that much housing is sub-optimal for me. So the in kind transfer of equal dollar value is actually worth less to me. I assumed that a in kind vs. cash tax would be similar, with in kind taxes being more of a burden. -jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
equity vs. efficiency; was: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
--- "Ole J. Rogeberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The question, as I see it, is whether we wish to defend the de facto > differences in 'welfare' that we see around us as morally right, and if > so, on what basis. > One could argue, as Charles Murray has done, that > incentives are required for society to function, even if no > individual "deserves" to be better off than any other in some > metaphysical sense. Compared to the status quo, the economies of all countries can be made both more equal and more efficient, so the fact that incentives are desirable does not imply any necessary trade-off between productivity and a more equal distribution of income relative to today's economies. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
