TELLING RIGHT FROM WRONG The Pitfalls of Democracy – The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life – Steven E. Landsburg
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Punti chiave: Chi giudica fa filosofia – Il democraticismo come filosofia morale e la sua impossibilità – Criteri minimali: Pareto e simmetria – Il velo d’ignoranza e i suoi problemi – La morale degli economisti: l’efficienza, ovvero fare un passo indietro –
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My dinner companion was passionate in her conviction that the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes. I didn’t understand what she meant by “fair,”
Note:IL SIGNIFICATO DI GIUSTO
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What she lacked was a moral philosophy.
Note:FILOSOFIA MORALE
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Which is better: A world where everyone earns $40,000 a year, or a world where three-fourths of the population earns $100,000 a year while the rest earn $25,000?
Note:LA DOMANDA DA FARE AI POLITICI
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One of the first rules of policy analysis is that you can never prove that a policy is desirable by listing its benefits…And if you are going to argue that a program does more good than harm, you must at least implicitly take a stand on a fundamental philosophical issue…
Note:GIUDICARE È FILOSOFEGGIARE
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any meaningful policy proposal must entail a huge number of trade-offs
Note:DILEMMI OVUNQUE
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It is easy to get carried away making long lists of pros and cons, all the while forgetting that sooner or later we must decide how many cons it takes to outweigh a particular pro.
Note:IL LATO OSCURO DELL’ANALISI COSTI BENEFICI
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During his presidency, George Bush was particularly fond of saying that it would be good to lower interest rates..Everybody also knows that lower interest rates can devastate people who are saving for their retirement….
Note:ESEMPIO: INTERESSI
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I do not yet know what justice is. But I do believe that economics illuminates the possibilities.
Note:L’ECONOMIA COME PREMESSA
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One approach to justice is the extreme democratic view that the majority should always rule.
Note:DEMOCRATICISMO
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I do not know anyone, or expect to know anyone, or want to know anyone, who believes that the majority should prevail when 51% of the populace vote
Note:ASSURDO
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A problem with majority rule is that it provides no guidance on what to do about multiple options, none of which garners a majority…Any voting procedure must include rules for what to do when there are many options….To choose randomly among these alternatives would be at best unsatisfying….
Note:PROBLEMA DELLE OPZIONI MULTIPLE
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it seems uncontroversial to require that if everybody unanimously prefers Tinker to Chance, then Chance should not be able to win
Note:PRIMO REQUISITO X DEFINIRE LA DEMOCRAZIA
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Second, the outcome of a vote ought not depend on arbitrary choices about the order in which things are carried out.
Note:SECONDO REQUISITO: NEUTRALIZZARE LA FORTUNA
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Third, a third-party candidate with no chance of winning should not be able to affect the outcome of a two-way race.
Note:TERZO REQUISITO IRRILEVANZA DEL TERZO CANDIDATO
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In the early 1950s, the economist Kenneth Arrow (subsequently a Nobel prize winner) wrote down a list of reasonable requirements for a democratic voting procedure…Arrow was able to prove—with the inexorable force of pure mathematics—that the only way to satisfy all of the requirements is to select one voter and give him all the votes….
Note:ARROW E L’IMPOSSIBILITÀ DEMOCRATICA
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a moment of pause to anybody who imagines it is possible to conduct an ideal democratic voting system.
Note:IL SISTEMA IDEALE DI VOTO
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we have absolutely no justification for the expectation that democracy leads to good outcomes.
Note:UNA RAGIONE PIÙ FONDAMENTALE PER RESPINGERE IL DEMOCRATICISMO
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It is often asserted that our system of republican government works well in this regard, because the passionate minority can organize
Note:ANTIDOTO
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Any assertion of “rights” appeals to our preferences for specific rules as opposed to the consequences of those rules.
Note:DIRITTI
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Economics offers no objection to a philosophy of rights. But consequences matter also
Note:CONSEGUENZE
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If happiness is measurable, then it is easy to list a menu of consequentialist moral philosophies
Note:FELICIOMETRO
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Pursue the greatest good for the unhappiest person.
Note:ESEMPIO DI CRITERIO NORMATIVO
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happiness can be equated with income
Note:ASSUNTO
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Maximize the sum of human happiness.
Note:ALTRO CRITERIO
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“seek the greatest good for the greatest number.”
Note:UN CRITERIO AMBIGUO DA SCARTARE
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The problem with all these criteria is that the choice among them seems entirely arbitrary.
Note:IL PROBLEMA
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we might require that whenever there is an opportunity to make everybody better off, our normative criterion ought to approve it…
Note:REQUISITO DI PARETO PER IL CRITERIO DI EQUITÀ
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our normative criterion treat everyone symmetrically
Note:REQUISITO DELLA SIMMETRIA
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Which of your reasonable requirements are you most willing to abandon?
Note:PASSO SUCCESSIVO
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we seem to have deep visceral preferences for requirements like symmetry.
Note:VISCERALITÀ
Second approach to the problem
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we must imagine ourselves behind a veil of ignorance…According to Rawls, the just society is the one we would choose to be born into if forced to choose from behind the veil….
Note:VELO D’IGNORANZA
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We know that when people can insure at fair odds against catastrophic diseases, they typically do so. It is reasonable to infer that if we could insure against being born untalented or handicapped or otherwise unlucky, we would do that as well.
Note:CATASTROFI
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Harsanyi gave an argument—just slightly too technical for reproduction here—demonstrating that under certain reasonable conditions we would be forced to agree on a sum-of-happiness formula.
Note:HARSANYI
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Should abortion be legal? My answer behind the veil might well depend on whether “aborted fetus” was one of the identities I thought I might be assigned.
Note:MA CHI STA DIETRO AL VELO?
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I suspect though that the choice of a normative criterion is ultimately a matter of taste.
Note:GUSTO
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If you took a poll of economists, you would probably find a clear preference for a normative criterion that I have not yet mentioned. The criterion goes by the deceptively calloussounding name of economic efficiency
LA MORALE DEGLI ECONOMISTI: L’EFFICIENZA
