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Best triplet sentence I read yesterday
Many of you say paternalism is to protect the very stupid. Would you support Would-Have-Banned stores with an min IQ rule? If so, what would that IQ be?
That's Robin Hanson, advocating stores devoted to selling banned products.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 5, 2007 at 02:20 PM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
On balance I would in fact support Would-Have-Banned stores, but I should point out that I did not actually advocate them in that post. :)
Posted by: Robin Hanson at Mar 5, 2007 4:14:15 PM
That is an easy one: my IQ minus one.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Smith at Mar 5, 2007 8:01:25 PM
Answers: Yes. Zero.
Posted by: Scott W at Mar 6, 2007 12:04:11 AM
Let us frame it this way:
Imagine all companies must keep law firms on retainer to defend them in liability cases. Further, imagine that companies pick their law firms by means of a heuristic: they think law firms whose clients paid less in settlements and damages are *better* law firms. Thus law firms will charge higher fees to clients who are more likely (in the law firm's judgment) to actually be successfully sued. This will effectively put firms that have high liabilities out of business, because they cannot retain legal representation while remaining profitable.
Now you might say, "What kind of system is this? This system is paternalistic! Corporations and investors should be able to decide whether their legal liabilities are efficient themselves, rather than being pushed out of business by a poorly structured legal system!" But the response is that the extent of a corporation's legal liabilities, and whether they will keep the corporation from operating, are *always* structured by the legal system, and never by some pure Platonic realm of liability-Ideas.
The case of paternalism -- of the sort mentioned in this post -- is no different. Think carefully about it. On the one hand, the state is forbidding the sale of certain damaging products. (Damaging to whom? Damaging compared to what? Good questions, but read on.) Why not just *not* forbid the sale of these products, and let the consumers decide whether they are dangerous? You could do that, of course... but remember, part of the consumers decision about whether to buy something is determined by what sorts of damages he can extract legal compensation for. Whether a consumer views a product as "good on the whole" or "bad on the whole" depends partly on whether certain bad things that come from the product are "caveat emptor" or "caveat vendor". Symmetrically, whether a firm decided that developing a certain product would be profitable or unprofitable depends on what bad things that happen to the consumers of the product are the firm's responsibility. (If I buy a computer and trip over it, not the firm's fault. If I buy a computer and it explodes and burns down my house, the product is judged "defective" and the firm must compensate me. Between these extremes, there are millions of possible ways to draw the line.)
So we can only say that the state prejudges the danger of the product, a judgment that could be better left to the end-users, when we ignore the greater context within which the state determines *what will constitute danger, and what will constitute defect.* Further, the state in its infinite wisdom also determines the limits on liability. So unless you are willing to argue against liability and tort law entirely, along with all the related topics in civil and criminal law such as fraud and crimes of persuasion, then you are in a bad position to argue against paternalism.
Posted by: asearchstring at Mar 6, 2007 12:20:06 AM
This line of reasoning is like a satire of libertarianism. It might seem credible because the U.S. is overregulated now, but just because reducing paternalism would be marginally beneficial doesn't mean we should go all the way.
For a good example of why it's more complicated than just giving consumers "would-have-banned" info, consider the case of black market antibiotics in poor countries, where people buy partial doses, take them without doctor's supervision and end up creating drug-resistant bacteria. The black market is a good example of a would've-banned shop, as it's explicitly illegal but the laws are known to be nonenforced.
Part of the story here is an externality, and this is something that arises in other regulatory situations too: e.g. when a building falls down then third parties can be killed and it can be hard to fully compensate them for this.
But another important part is that people don't make decisions by individually optimizing their utility functions, not even if they're "high IQ." For example, I fly coach because that's what my employer will pay for. Similarly, I go to licensed doctors because my insurance will cover that. If previously unlicensed doctors became legal, then their quality would improve somewhat and maybe then insurance plans would only pay for visits to Would-Have-Banned doctors, with the price of fully licensed doctors rising as they become the equivalent of flying first class. And even if I would've paid the difference before, now the new deluxe fully-licensed doctors cost too much for me.
And when someone gets sick in a poor country, and has to scrounge money for treatment for relatives, it can be hard to justify paying many times more and travelling much farther to the clinic for a full course of antibiotics.
The point is that our choices (a) are often tiered, rather than continuous, and (b) are socially constrained and collective, rather than individually decided.
Posted by: aram at Mar 6, 2007 4:20:44 AM
1) Someone has to pay for the damage that these banned products cause, in the case of ones that cause damage to the health of the user, it'll prolly be the government, which would indirectly cause a rise in taxation.
2) Most ppl believe that it morally wrong to allow something to happen that would cause hurt to another, this is an electoral looser.
3) Few products are truly banned. Most products are just banned from sale. Which is an effective way to reduce the ppl having the item, but not knowing how to use the item, to virtually nil. (ie. anyone can synthesize any drug if they have enough knowledge and a well stocked lab, only illicit drugs are 'banned' drugs) Also exemptions are usually included in the appropriate legislation too.
Posted by: Factory at Mar 6, 2007 4:49:19 AM
"That is an easy one: my IQ minus one.
Jeff"
Jeff, I'm the opposite: my IQ plus one.
You smart guys need protecting from yourselves.
Posted by: knackeredhack at Mar 6, 2007 9:05:26 AM
asearchstring:
By the same token, those of you who favor freedom of speech fail to recognize the role of government in deciding cases involving libel law, copyright, etc. Therefore, if you support libel law and copyright, you're in a poor position to argue against banning offensive books and political tracts.
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