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Boomsday
The new Christopher Buckley novel Boomsday concerns a blogger -- Cassandra -- who proposes that a cash-strapped, demographically-burdened society pay old people to do themselves in. The elderly are to kill themselves for tax breaks. In Swiftian fashion we can improve this idea by convexifying the choice. Let's make it a risk and subsidize sky-diving for the non-working elderly.
There are two positive externalities from the resulting deaths; first, a bequest of material wealth passes to other individuals, second, the deadweight loss of taxation falls. The negative externality from the death falls upon other family members and friends; whether the would-be victim internalized those costs in the first place is difficult to calculate. Have I mentioned that economics has few good ways of modeling two-way altruism and keeping the standard welfare theorems intact? Distribution and efficiency are no longer separate, but hey that's the real world.
Here is a New York Times review. Buckley is one of the most entertaining public speakers I have heard, hire or go hear him if you can.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 27, 2007 at 02:16 PM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Just imagine, if Newt Gingrich and the '94 Republicans had succeeded in reducing the increase in Medicare spending from 5% pre year to 3% per year, the elderly would have all been eating dog food.
Posted by: Matt at Mar 27, 2007 2:29:11 PM
C. Buckley: not funny.
P.J. O'Rourke: not funny.
Libertarians: Good at economics, terrible at comedy.
Posted by: Duke at Mar 27, 2007 2:49:46 PM
Duke: Terrible at commenting.
Posted by: R. S. Porter at Mar 27, 2007 2:59:26 PM
Skydiving probably isn't risky enough. You'd have to subsidize a very large number of jumps. Doing so would offset the . . . fiscal gains. It'd probably be easier to subsidize smoking and switch to a single-payer health care system.
Posted by: Trieu Truong at Mar 27, 2007 3:14:45 PM
The Boomers are pretty much screwed. I don't see a reason to demonize them as well unlsess you want to rhyme real hard with the German '30s.
Posted by: Max at Mar 27, 2007 3:19:47 PM
Skydiving probably isn't risky enough. You'd have to subsidize a very large number of jumps.
doesn't that depend on how healthy the skydivers are? selection bias ... :-)
Posted by: brianS at Mar 27, 2007 3:38:00 PM
I've often wondered what the world would be like if painless means of suicide were widely available to the elderly. I'm middle-aged have had one parent die in her 60s after two years of extreme debilitation. I think she wanted to live right up to the very last second, but I would like to have the option of painless suicide if I reach a point where permanent pain, dementia, or incapacity seems to be unavoidable.
Posted by: jp at Mar 27, 2007 3:45:30 PM
Who isn't expecting to see at least a slight increase in deaths in those worth more than 1 million in 2011 presuming congress doesn't undo the sunset provisions before then?
Posted by: bluto at Mar 27, 2007 3:51:26 PM
Soylent green is people!
Posted by: evm at Mar 27, 2007 4:11:28 PM
Dammit! I got banned from Brad DeLong's site for suggesting precisely this, and now there's a book! You snooze, you lose.....
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Mar 27, 2007 4:41:28 PM
Why is the target "non-working elderly"? Shouldn't the target be "elderly electing to receive
a government subsidy"?
Posted by: Person at Mar 27, 2007 4:54:26 PM
There was a Sliders episode that had a version of this. ATM machines dispensed free cash to all and "reverse lottery tickets". If your lottery number was called you had to report to the extermination location. In the show there were lines of people waiting at the machines.
Posted by: TK at Mar 27, 2007 4:55:22 PM
Remember the tobacco companies had some very solid research that if you included social security payments that early cancer deaths actually meant that smoking really saved the government money. the courts should have made the government pay the tobacco companies, not the other way around.
Posted by: spencer at Mar 27, 2007 5:09:31 PM
(This is off-topic.)
Hi Professor Cowen,
I'm just writing to let you know, I've recently crowned you "my favorite thinker I don't like". :) In short, it's because you write about so many topics that are of interest, but from an angle I don't particularly care for. Topics include the repugnant conclusion and animal welfare, and the angle is ordinal, humans-only, consumption-based utilitarianism. (Or am I misinterpreting your underlying ethics?) So, keep up the interesting writing and the blogging, and I'll let you now when we come up with a better means of comparing interspecific utility. We're working on it!
Cheers,
Seth Baum
...The links there are to Felicifia, an online utilitarianism community I blog for. The site runs SoapBlox, which means anyone can post diaries, in addition to comments. We're hoping to make it a one-stop shop for all things utilitarianism.
Posted by: Seth Baum at Mar 27, 2007 5:44:33 PM
TK, There is a famous short story called "The Lottery" that did the same thing. http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html . and i am sure there are ancient antecedents.
Posted by: DK at Mar 27, 2007 5:44:59 PM
Seth: I think you are at least partially wrong. I see Tyler as a strong animal welfare advocate and far more willing than most to put them in the calculus.
Kevin
ps. one stop shopping for utilitarianism?? jeez, what, was puritanism already taken??
pps. good one RS Porter!!!!
Posted by: kevin at Mar 27, 2007 5:54:57 PM
Painless euthanasia is generally available with a plastic bag and a supply of helium. You die because of loss of oxygen, but never feel like you can't breathe because you still exhale CO2.
http://www.togopeacefully.com/DYING.html
What about agreeing to euthanasia at a particular date in return for an immediate cash payment that is less than the cost of future social security and medicare? (hah, no I'm not really suggesting that as a good idea)
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Mar 27, 2007 7:00:38 PM
This comment thread has gotten a little creepy.
Posted by: Trieu Truong at Mar 27, 2007 7:42:56 PM
Thanks for the link, Mr. E. What I would hope for (someday) is the opportunity to have the lawful assistance of a doctor, to make sure everything goes the way it should.
Posted by: jp at Mar 27, 2007 8:43:47 PM
kevin: The work of Cowen's I was looking at (that cited here) ignores the welfare of the animals. To his credit, he's (1) taking on the topic and (2) acknowledging that animal welfare could be included under a different framework. I see he's also written about animal welfare here, where he seems to take the interesting but in my view disagreeable stance of weighing all non-human lives less than any human lives. Curiously, he supported the humane society there, even though money spent on it could save human lives.
Do point me to other work he may have done on the topic.
Re "ps. one stop shopping for utilitarianism?? jeez, what, was puritanism already taken??": Do you mean to equate utilitarianism with puritanism, or label utilitarianism as obscure, or something else? I don't quite follow.
Posted by: Seth Baum at Mar 27, 2007 10:55:03 PM
I still think the elderly should be fighting the wars.
That would solve alot of our problems....
Posted by: glenn at Mar 28, 2007 4:28:02 AM
Strong agreement Glenn. More problems than you think. Imagine $100B/year of military budget devoted to rejuvenative medicine. The impact would almost surely be to increase remaining life expectancy at age 60 or 80.
Seth Baum: I have almost never met a real live utilitarian who acts accordingly. If you are legit, PLEASE contact me at my main address, e.g. michael dot vassar at g-m-a-i- l dot com
If you live near NYC, some friends and I are bringing in Zell Kravinsky (look him up) for a presentation. You would probably like it.
Posted by: michael vassar at Mar 28, 2007 11:40:39 AM
Bernard, getting banned from De Long's site is a badge of honor.
Maybe we should start a group blog.
"Too Hot for De Long"
"Banned by Brad"
"Too Bad for Brad"
"Speaking Truth to Ivory Tower"
I'll be here all week.
Posted by: Keith at Mar 30, 2007 5:31:28 PM
I was thinking that the proposed strategy was already being implemented by privatizing social security and healthcare under the insurance umbrella. Many of the private pensions are controlled by them already. Armed with a personal health score that includes genetic testing results and a net worth statement, folks can easily be culled from the herd at the appropriate time.
Posted by: Bud at Mar 31, 2007 7:15:42 AM
Saw Mr. Buckley last night with Chris Matthews - as usual when people or the media talk about social security no one mentions the hundreds of thousands people each year who die long before they receive any social security payments. Forget the baby boomers - thousands die in their 20s and 30s. I have just start collecting ss payments at 67 - among all the relatives and friends I have - out of about 50 - only 10 lived long enough to collect any social security. Also what about all the special social security benefits that are paid to young people. I don't intend to read "Boomsters" - I'm sure I would be appalled by it.
Posted by: J. Harmon at Apr 6, 2007 11:00:28 AM
