5—What about redistribution?

5—What about redistribution?
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Why eat an ice cream cone when someone in Malawi is starving?
Note:VECCHIA DIFFICILE QUESTIONE

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our personal obligations toward the poor appear strong.
Note:UTILITARISMO IMPOSSIBILE

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less than two dollars a day.
Note:SEVERAL BILION PEOPLE

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millions of children died of preventable diseases such as diarrhea
Note:APRI GLI OCCHI

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how far such obligations extend
Note:DOBBIAMO AIUTARE CHI STA PEGGIO...MA....

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In contrast to utilitarianism, common sense morality typically suggests
Note:COMMON SENSE...UTILITARISM

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Wealthy doctors should spend large parts of their careers, if not their entire careers, in African villages.
Note:SECONDO GLI UTILITARISTI

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Wall Street wizard and then a wealthy philanthropist.
Note:CI SONO MODI ANCORA PIÙ GENIALI

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Are you willing to value the interests of others on par with your own,
Note:SANTITÀ ASSURDA

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a mother might have to abandon or sell her baby in order to raise money to send food to the babies of others.
Note:OBBLIGHI UTILITARISTICI

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Most people would instead become a kind of utility slave,
Note:I NUOVI SCHIAVI

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excessively demanding
Note:IL CONSEGUENZIALISMO

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Peter Singer, who trumpet the call for greater sacrifice
Note:GLI INTEGRALISTI

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I am a pluralist
Note:MEGLIO L ECLETTISMO

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we’ll see that there are some strong and strict limits on our obligations to redistribute wealth,
Note:SE IL FRAME È QS...ANCHE L UTILITARISTA

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siding with common sense morality,

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the correct approach to our cosmopolitan obligations does not lead to personal enslavement
Note:L AOUTO È SEMPRE DOVUTO MA...

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Most of us should work hard, be creative, be loyal to our civilization, build healthy institutions, save for the future, contribute to an atmosphere of social trust, be critical when necessary, and love our families. Our strongest obligations are to contribute to sustainable economic growth and to support the general spread of civilization, rather than to engage in massive charitable redistribution
Note:CONCLUSIONI ANTICIPATE

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we should redistribute wealth only up to the point that it maximizes the rate of sustainable economic growth.
Note:IL NS DOVERE

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Other benefits of redistribution stem from political improvements. Social welfare programs can buy the loyalties
Note:Assicurazione

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social welfare programs make many citizens feel better about their state, again boosting public order as well as political consensus and stability.
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we should describe them as investments—and
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an overly generous level of wealth transfer harms economic growth. Many people end up working less,
Note:Attenzione

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if it is standard procedure to approach government for a handout, that will induce too much rent-seeking,
Note:Altro inconveniente

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create urban cultures of dependency and crime,
Note:Ccc

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non-infrastructure government spending is correlated positively with lower growth rates,
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Excess transfers are bad for another reason, namely that they make it harder to absorb high numbers of immigrants
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resent it when some immigrants receive government benefits.
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rather than redistributing most wealth, we can do better for the world by investing in high-return activities like supporting immigration
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producing new technologies with global reach, such as cell phones

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Many people mock the term “trickle-down economics,” but most social benefits do take a trickle-down form.
Note:Sgocciolamento

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I favor pluralism rather than utilitarianism or common sense morality per se.
Note:Bottom line

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now consider the question of why public and private ethical codes might differ so much in their recommendations.

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Altra questione da qui

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mother is justified in looking after her own baby rather than selling it to send resources
Note:Nella sfera privata

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Yet in the public sphere, it is widely believed that governments should be more impartial,
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not favor the interests of one particular baby over another,

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But why should morality be so bifurcated?

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This is actually just another application of Adam Smith’s classic principle of the division of labor. It’s easy to see why parents do best when they attend to their family priorities and governments do best when they institute a legal regime based on impartiality and the rule of law.
Note:Adam smith

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the case for redistribution would be stronger if the world were going to end in the near future. If the time horizon is extremely short,
Note:Esempio

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imagine that the world were set to end tomorrow. There would be little point in maximizing the growth rate;

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The attitude of historical pessimism is therefore one of the most important critiques of my arguments.

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Many advocates of greater state spending—especially non-economists—seem to like the idea of a very low discount rate.
Note:Contraddizioni a sinistra... non puoi essere progressista, avere quindi tassi bassi, e voler spendere anziché investire ... per investire bene non devi redistribuire

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like our government to devote more resources to education, to infrastructure, and to improving the environment, all positions associated with the political left overall, at least in the United States. They see a lower discount rate as supporting all of these policies.
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They often favor market-based discount rates, which are relatively high, but when the topic is redistribution, they worry much more about the longer-term consequences.
Note:Contraddizione al contrario a destra... non puoi vedere alti tassi di sconto e non spendere...non puoi essere pessimista e non redistribuire

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A greater orientation toward the future is likely to increase the desirability of policies favoring a market economy, economic growth, and technological innovation.

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Martin Luther King Jr. brought much good to the world
Note:Casi eccezionali

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It would be fair to say that King did the right thing in choosing to pursue higher ideals rather than playing golf all day,
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so it’s not morally clear which individual is obliged to make the sacrifice.
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This becomes a problem of game theory,
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so that it is better if someone makes a sacrifice to achieve a socially valuable end, but it is worse if everyone sacrifices or tries to sacrifice to achieve that end.
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the sacrificers should be the people most inclined to do so.
Note:Si torna al buon senso

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In any case, individuals are more likely to sacrifice too little than too much, and too few individuals are willing to sacrifice much at all.
Note:Legge generale

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We should strengthen our consciences, as well as social norms,
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Should money be redistributed to the rich?
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utilitarianism may support the transfer of resources from the poor to the rich. A talented entrepreneur, for instance, can probably earn a higher rate of return
Note:Controintuitivo

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If we combine the trickle-down effect from the wealth of the wealthy with a zero rate of discount, it is easy to generate scenarios in which utilitarianism would recommend the redistribution of wealth to the wealthy.
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over a sufficiently long time horizon the poor will benefit
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Our obligations to the elderly

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while we should do a good deal to help the elderly, the logic of sustainable growth places limits on these obligations, too.
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“Why don’t we value human lives at replacement cost?”
Note:Poco da vivere

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I’ve been thinking about that question for a long time because it challenges a lot of our moral intuitions.

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So let’s say a human life is worth $4 million,
Note:Esempio

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but we can create another human life for about $10,000, say by subsidizing births
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Virtually all of us would agree that $10,000—it could be even less—is not, in general, an adequate valuation of a life,
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the life we would lose and the new life we would create would not be identical.
Note:Primo

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replacing

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Furthermore, failing to save the first life and investing in helping or creating another life are not usually causally related.
Note:Secondo

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Still, replaceability should not be completely irrelevant to how we think about the value of a life.
Note:Ma

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losing an irreplaceable civilization is a much greater tragedy than losing a civilization in a way which allows for the birth of a new and different one in its place.
Note:Civiltà

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additional wealth that accumulates as a result of economizing on life-saving expenditures does lead people to buy safer cars,
Note:Esempi

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this possibility lowers the value of spending a lot of money to extend a human life.
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My arguments therefore suggest a lower estimate of the value of a life, including an older life, than most other plausible frameworks, because replacement and replenishment of the civilizational flow are considered as one factor among many
Note:Bottom

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To put it more concretely, today in the United States we are spending too much on the elderly and not enough on the young.
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Once-and-for-all changes vs. growth rate changes
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such policies may yield some benefit in a once-and-for-all fashion; imagine increasing the power of all light bulbs for one year. Second, the new benefits may be ongoing and self-augmenting; imagine scientific policies that speed up the rate at which better light bulbs (or other innovations) are developed.
Note:Divide

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To consider a simple example, many scientists believe that global warming will increase the number of virulent and persistent storms on our planet.
Note:Esempio

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More generally, many environmental problems hurt our prospects for long-run sustained growth.
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In contrast to the threat of severe and ongoing storms, some of the costs of climate change take the form of one-time adjustments, such as the cost of relocating coastal settlements.
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The most prominent economic approach to growth, the Solow model,
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National output is the result of capital inputs,
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In this model, the primary way to increase ongoing growth is to induce a higher rate of technological innovation.

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The Solow model helps us to understand the phenomenon of catch-up growth,

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In the model, the rate of return on capital diminishes as the capital stock increases.
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In contrast to the Solow model, the increasing returns model suggests that growth begets more growth.
Note:Romer

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In this view, larger economies should grow more rapidly than smaller economies,
Note:Divergenza

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Ideas, and their non-rival nature, are often cited as the fundamental source of increasing returns.

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Paul Romer,

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To put these growth theories into my own terminology, the increasing returns model suggests that there are lots and lots of Crusonia plants
Note:Bottom

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The increasing returns growth model will therefore make us more wary of non-growth-enhancing wealth redistribution than will the Solow growth model.

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Individuals who believe in the increasing returns model should be much more skeptical of non-growth-enhancing redistribution than individuals who believe in the Solow catch-

10 The Perfect Tax, Deconstructed Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg

10 The Perfect Tax, Deconstructed Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg - #fiscoefficientefiscooppressivo #criticaarawls:elautoritàcentrale? #ildeficitdelle12generazioni #contrrawls:perchènonredistribuiretuttoinafrica? #ipotesigrabbing #controrawls:simpatiaebellezza? #controrawls:immanentismooplatonismo? #ilsensodiequitàdibuffett #redistribuzionecomeassicurazione #controrawls:ilsentimentoolimpico #talentoecorpo #furtoestupro #genioemerito #ilpoteredellanalogia

contro rawls (il potere dell'analogia):

• autorità centrale
• analogia ripugnante: redistribuire all'estero
• analogia ripugnante: il sentimento olimpico
• analogia ripugnante: trattare la bellezza, la simpatia ecc. come il talento nel business
• filosofia: colo il platonista puo' concepire l'esperimento dei non nati; non invece l'immanentista
• ipotesi alternativa e credibile: grabbing

continua

10 The Perfect Tax, DeconstructedRead more at location 1453

Note: Il problema di una tassa efficiente: nn disincentiva il politico avido e spendaccione visto che nn rischia di uccidere la sua gallina dalle uova d'oro. I fallimenti della politica si moltiplica... Paradosso: la tassa inefficiente affossa l'economia. La tassa efficiente nn pone limiti alla politica implicando la tirannia. Soluzioni 1) nessuna tassa (x redistribuzione) 2) un compromesso (tassa mista)... Le tasse - sia quelle efficienti che quelle inefficienti - richiedono un' autorità centrale, e qui sorgono altre preoccopazioni... Critica a Rawls: nel suo contratto nn si accenna alle istituzioni ma da chi è tenuto a far rispettare un contratto dipende il contenuto del contratto stesso. Es. nessun codice fiscale pone limiti alla tassazione ma qs è la prima cosa che richiediamo nel c. di Rawls... Redistribuzione e ambientalusmo. I verdi ci chiedono sacrifici x le generazioni future. Ma qs è chiedere ai poveri x dare ai ricchi. Tra una dozzina di generazioni l'americano medio guadagnerà quanto Bill Gates... Quando si tagliano le tasse si leva il solito allarme: il deficit sarà a carico dei ns nipoti. Ma nessuno obbliga qs. gufi a scaricare alcunchè sui suoi nipoti: risparmi e lasci eredità cospicue... Redistribuzione: 1) se fatta con tasse inefficienti è inefficiente 2) se fatta con tasse efficienti è oppressiva e legittima la schiavitù (che ci ripugna) 3) nessuno ci crede realmente (altrimenti aiuteremmo l'africa) 4) nessuno ci crede realmente altrimenti appianerebbe anche le altre diseguaglianze (pensa alla sfortuna di chi nasce poco attraente e si accoppia raramente) 5) la teoria della ridistr. come furto sofisticato spiega molto... L'unica cosa che spiega la rid. e la tassazione prog. è il tentativo di legittimare un furto. Ma xchè molti ricchi sposano la causa?... Se il ricco considera doveroso ridistribuire potrebbe firmare un assegno al Ministero. Dire: "nn lo faccio se nn lo fai anche tu" nn sembra una buona ragione... Pragmatismo: "aiutiamo i poveri o si ribelleranno". Una simile soluzione ha conseguenze spiacevoli: "aiutiamo i brutti o si ribelleranno"… Xchè nn tutte le diseguaglianze ci sensibilizzano? La teoria del "grabbing" risponde bene a qs domanda... Il sesso forzato dei bello coi brutti offende la ns. dignità. Non tolleriamo lo stupro e poco importa se il brutto è stato sfortunato. La mia bellezza la sentiamo nostra e ci sentiamo lesi nella ns dignità se stuprati al fine di riequilibrare le fortune. Lo stesso dicasi x il furto di proprietà... Altro argomento. Nordhaus: l'innovatore cattura il 3% della ricchezza che crea. Non vi sembra che abbia così adempiuto alle sue eventuali obbligazioni sociali?… Edit

Note: 10@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit

The problem with an efficient tax system is that it provides no built-in brake on the government’s avarice.Read more at location 1460

Note: LA IATTURA DI UN FISCO EFFICIENTE Edit

vaunted efficiency is no clear virtue.Read more at location 1468

Add a note

An inefficient tax is too costly because it invites malingering; an efficient tax is too dangerous because it invites taxation.Read more at location 1474

Note: PRIMA CONCLUSIONE Edit

no taxes at all, at least for the purpose of redistribution.Read more at location 1476

Add a note

Or we might cobble together a compromise: Maybe we could construct some variation of the trait tax that is imperfectly efficientRead more at location 1477

Add a note

inefficient tax system is not by itself sufficient to prevent the rise of tyranny; ask anyone who’s old enough to remember the Soviet Union.Read more at location 1480

Note: URSS Edit

any tax—it will always require a tax collector.Read more at location 1482

Note: IL PROBLEMA DELL AUTORITÀ Edit

Hopenhayn and Kahn have told us that we’d accept redistribution, but we’d reject a package that combines redistribution with inefficiency. What I’m suggesting here is that what we’re actually offered is a somewhat different package, but an equally unattractive one: a package that combines redistribution with a lot of centralized authority.Read more at location 1490

Note: AUTORITÀ CENTRALE Edit

If there’s one thing an unborn soul would want to insure against, it’s being born in the wrong country—Cuba or Albania or Mali instead of Canada or Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. tax code does exactly nothing to provide that kind of insurance.Read more at location 1495

Add a note

The best forecast, then, is that your descendants will have to wait more than a few generations, but not more than a few dozen, to achieve a Gates-like living standard. So each time the Sierra Club impedes economic development to preserve some specimen of natural beauty, it is asking people who live like you and me to sacrifice for the enjoyment of future generations who will live like Bill Gates.Read more at location 1521

Note: TUTTI COME BILL GATES Edit

Note: ES DI ASSURDITÀ: I VERDI Edit

The Sierra Club’s agenda is to take from the relatively poor (us) and give to the relatively richRead more at location 1524

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The conservationists are not alone in their pathological concern for future generations; the same impulse has launched an epidemic of hysteria over federal deficits.Read more at location 1532

Note: ISTERIA SUL DEFICIT Edit

I have news for them: nobody can force you to live well at your grandchildren’s expense. If you think your lifestyle is too extravagant, all you have to do is spend less and bequeath the savings to your grandchildren.Read more at location 1534

Note: MESSAGGIO X GLI ANSIOSI SUL DEFICIT Edit

redistribution is unacceptably costly, in terms of both efficiency and the centralization of power.Read more at location 1549

Note: CONCLUSIONE 1 Edit

Second, nobody seems actually to believe the philosophical case for redistribution anyway.Read more at location 1551

Note: CONTRO RAWLS Edit

If we think we’re fulfilling an insurance contract, why don’t we recognize that most of the beneficiaries live outside the United States?Read more at location 1552

Note: PERCHÈ NN REDISTRIBUIRE ALLORA FUORI DALLA NAZIONE? Edit

If that’s not based on a philosophically coherent belief in redistribution, then what is based on?Read more at location 1555

Add a note

The most obvious answer is that it’s strictly a “might makes right,” “you’ve got it; we’re taking it” kind of thing.Read more at location 1556

Note: GRABBING Edit

But that doesn’t explain the preferences of the many voters near the top of the income distribution who support higher taxesRead more at location 1558

Note: MA IL PARADOSSO BUFFETT? Edit

If you really want to pay higher taxes, what’s stopping you?Read more at location 1560

Note: E IL PARADOSSO BUFFETT? Edit

To do otherwise is to say that you’re willing to stop stealing, but only if everybody else does. That position is logically defensible, but it’s pretty unappealing. It’s unappealing precisely because it violates the symmetry principle. It treats your stealing as less important than everybody else’s.Read more at location 1564

Add a note

justifies redistribution on purely practical grounds—something like “If we don’t give to the poor, their neighborhoods will breed crime or pestilence.”Read more at location 1585

Note: REDISTRIBUZIONE COME ASSICURAZIONE Edit

George Bernard Shaw:Read more at location 1589

Add a note

Try this variant: It is “fair” that attractive people should be coerced into granting occasional sexual favors, because without such a system, those same attractive people would be more often victimized by rape.Read more at location 1596

Note: UNA VARIANTE IMBARAZZANTE Edit

If it is intrinsically fair to subsidize with cash those who are born without the skills to earn a decent income, is it also intrinsically fair to subsidize with sex those who are born without the skills to attract desirable partners?Read more at location 1600

Note: ALTRO PARADOSSO ANTI RAWLS. PLATONICI O IMMANENTISTI? SE IMMANENTISTI L ESPERIMENTO DI RAWLS È IMPOSSIBILE Edit

we’d insure ourselves against bad luck in both lotteries. While you were waiting in line for your appearance and personality assignments, you might happily have signed a contract requiring attractive people—whoever they turn out to be—to feign interest in their unattractive neighbors.Read more at location 1603

Note: RICCHEZZA... E BELLEZZA Edit

Yes, attractiveness is a matter of luck. Yes, that luck is distributed unequally. Yes, we’d all have preferred a more equal distribution if we’d been asked in advance. Yes, it is possible, through coercion, to improve life for the least fortunate at the expense of their more advantaged neighbors.Read more at location 1606

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But does anyone doubt that such coercion would be hideously wrong? Maybe we can learn something by thinking about why it’s wrong.Read more at location 1608

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we each have a sense that the ones we’ve been given are ours. They belong to us. Dignity is the pride of ownership.Read more at location 1613

Note: NOI SIAMO ANCHE I NOSTRI TALENTI Edit

To take a man’s property, you must destroy his dignity.Read more at location 1616

Note: LA DIGNITÀ Edit

That’s exactly why we recoil from coerced sex,Read more at location 1617

Add a note

the knowledge that our bodies belong to us.Read more at location 1618

Note: IL TALENTO CI APPARTIENE QUANTO IL CORPO Edit

Both rape and theft offend our dignity because they violate the rights of ownership. If you balk at one, you must balk at the other. And in the end, redistribution is theft. That really is why we don’t allow children to forcibly redistribute toys on the playground.Read more at location 1622

Note: FURTO E STUPRO Edit

suspect—though I do not know—that something very similar would happen if we could identify the top 1% of the population in terms of gumption, and exclude them from participation in economic activity.Read more at location 1644

Note: GENIO E MERITO Edit

If my guess is right, then people like my young woman friend owe almost all of their prosperity to a very small number of scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. And it seems to me that we ought to account for that debt when we calculate social obligations.Read more at location 1646

Note: L INGIUSTIZIA DI PUNIRE IL GENIO. UN OBBLIGAZIONE SOCIALE ASSOLTA Edit

In 1953, an economist named John Harsanyi invented the metaphor of social obligations as the fulfillment of pre-birth contracts. In 1971, the influential philosopher John Rawls used those contracts—contracts signed behind the “veil of ignorance” that shields us from knowledge of the particular traits we’ll be born with—as the cornerstone of his Theory of Justice, which has dominated the philosophical literature on justice since it appeared.Read more at location 1655

Note: I PROTAGONISTI DELLA DISCUSSIONE Edit

I want her to know that shocking analogies are a great weapon against false platitudes. I have in mind the analogies between sex and income that I used above.Read more at location 1664

Note: POTERE DELL ANALOGIA