13 ms·

Good comment. Going to "work" is not the only way an individual can be beneficial to society.

watmough 17y ago
If you're dis-incented to work, that may allow you to lead a better life on less, say one partner earning instead of both, whilst someone who needs a primary income will take that higher paying job. Don't underestimate the beneficial effect of one person being able to stay home, look after a house, cook fresh food, save on childcare, consume less fuel etc etc.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  That sounds like the broken window fallacy to me.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    Having a parent at home is a broken window?
    - CWuestefeld 17y ago
      See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window In a nutshell, it's the story of kids playing baseball and accidentally hitting a ball through someone's window. The fallacy is that by breaking the window, they've helped out the economy. The homeowner will now pay the glazier to fix it, whose wife will now have money to buy a new dress, etc. It's a fallacy because it ignores the productivity that the money would have resulted in had it been used for its original intent. Perhaps his car needs new tires, or whatever -- but there was something that the homeowner would have preferred but for the necessity created by the ball. By analogy, perhaps the hypothetical second parent, who is now staying home, might instead be a doctor helping people, or a teacher, or even a garbage collector. Whatever, it's something that we would have gotten had it not been for this disruption.
      - Retric 17y ago
        I suspect the broken window fallacy takes place, but in the other direction. If a parent stays home and takes care of their children there is zero apparent economic activity, or less if the stay at home parent cooks. No childcare, less eating out, no maid services etc. However, the stay at home parent is doing that work which benefits the family and is probably also doing a better job of it than low cost help. PS: This also depends on how much the primary income is, how much time it takes, and how old the children are. If a family with three young children is supplementing a 140k primary income with a full time job that pays less than 50k it’s probably of little net benefit. If on the other hand it’s 40k and 40k and the children are in school it’s probably a significant net gain. Time is also a factor; one of the better and more common setups for families with school age children is a teacher parent. They share the same breaks, and the added stability can be a huge help.
      - Psyonic 17y ago
        Or maybe a daycare worker, taking care of someone else's children, instead of her own...? You think that taking care of and raising your child is inherently unproductive?
      - sokoloff 17y ago
        And if they do that, then they aren't working as a full-time child-care provider, cook, cleaner, errand runner, concierge, etc. The broken window fallacy says that purely destructive actions don't actually stimulate the economy in a useful way. In no way is one adult staying home to perform "home work" logically equivalent (at least, not in my opinion).
        CWuestefeld 17y ago
        I think that everyone is missing the point of the broken window fallacy. It's not that something is destructive. It's also not that something involves monetary transactions or not. The point is that some external agent forces someone to change their plans, foregoing what they originally intended. (Economics deals with making choices between the available alternatives; money is only the tip of that iceberg) In the parable as I outlined it, the employment of the glazier is presented as a positive outcome, while ignoring that the homeowner is now unable to buy his new tires, and thus the homeowner has lost the tires and the garage has lost that business. In the stay-at-home-parent scenario, there's a visible gain of a parent giving the child a close bond and (presumably) good upbringing. But the fallacy hides the fact that had someone else not meddled, that parent would be doing something else that also has a positive outcome (else an employer wouldn't be willing to pay for it). We can see that in both examples, the person whose behavior was forced now must be satisfied with a plan that is inferior to their initial intent. And assuming that all are rational actors (as economists generally do), then we can conclude that the total utility thus delivered (over the entire economy) is lower than that of the initial intent.
    - billybob 17y ago
      Choosing parenting over work is great. But it doesn't mean we should devalue work in order to get it. Better to have people choose between two good options than to make one option lousy.
thejake 17y ago
Who deems what is benefical to society?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
ewanmcteagle 17y ago
Yes, we're taking your stuff. Don't worry it's for your own good. If it's not then it's at least good for society. Look, we're taking your stuff here's a list of excuses just pick one.
- pyre 17y ago
  So we would all be better off in a society with no policies to increase the education of the poor/working class? Lower literacy rates are a boon to society? Or just a boon to you because you are literate and have money so screw everyone else?
  - sp332 17y ago
    Yes. If I care about improving the lot of poorer people, I'll do it with my own money and probably with less beaurocracy. If not, get your hand out of my wallet.
    - Locke1689 17y ago
      ... he says as society crumbles around him and the unfortunate kill him for his stuff...
      - sp332 17y ago
        The only reason a society would tax itself and give the money to the poor, is if (at least) some individuals in that society wanted to give their money to the poor. If no one in the society wants to give their money to the poor, then the society as a whole wouldn't tax itself for that reason, either. As a believer in personal property rights, I think that those individuals who care about the poor should be free to give their money to the poor. But I don't think that their moral high horse gives them a right to use other people's money.
        gjm11 17y ago
        The argument that I think you're making in your first paragraph is fallacious. In particular, it can happen that (1) everyone wants to give some money to the poor but (2) if they all have to do it individually (rather than a universal tax) no one will do it. This will happen, for instance, if everyone strongly dislikes being worse off than their neighbours, but weakly prefers that the poor be helped. (This is the same idea as in the familiar situations of "prisoners' dilemma" and "tragedy of the commons". It's also why some sports have officially-enforced requirements for safety measures: everyone's better off if everyone's protected, but if it's optional then that's at best an unstable equilibrium because a player or team that chooses to forgo the protection may get an advantage over those who don't. But once no one is protected, all those competitive advantages go away and everyone's worse off than if everyone had been protected.) Now, if (as your second paragraph suggests) you really believe that taxation is so fundamentally evil that it cannot be justified whatever its good consequences, then of course the above will leave you entirely unmoved. But if you are prepared to consider trading off harms against benefits, then I don't think you're entitled to dismiss the possibility that some redistributive taxation is a good thing overall; in particular, you can't just say "if people want to give money to the poor then let them do so" unless you have good reason to think that the sort of situation I described above doesn't obtain.
araneae 17y ago
It's true. For instance, raising children is imperative for the preservation of society.
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  Perhaps more direct incentives might be in order then. Estonia pays mommies a stipend to say home for a year or so, and the amount is based somewhat proportionally on the woman's income pre-baby.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Estonia? Canada pays 55% of a salary for a year in the form of Employment Insurance for maternity leaves that can be 1 year for a mother and up to six months for a father.
    - gnosis 17y ago
      It's not just Estonia. I've heard that in England the mother gets 1 year (fully) paid leave. Same with Sweden and Germany. In Sweden it might even be two years (but my memory is failing me). I would be willing to bet that at least a full year of paid maternity leave is quite standard in northern Europe. Some countries (the Netherlands, for instance) even pay their citizens to have children.
      - run4yourlives 17y ago
        1 year maternity leave is pretty much the standard globally for established countries, just like state run healthcare. It's the US that is different here.
    - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
      Estonia came to mind because of an Economist article a couple of years ago.

If you're dis-incented to work, that may allow you to lead a better life on less, say one partner earning instead of both, whilst someone who needs a primary income will take that higher paying job. Don't underestimate the beneficial effect of one person being able to stay home, look after a house, cook fresh food, save on childcare, consume less fuel etc etc.

CWuestefeld 17y ago
That sounds like the broken window fallacy to me.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  Having a parent at home is a broken window?
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window In a nutshell, it's the story of kids playing baseball and accidentally hitting a ball through someone's window. The fallacy is that by breaking the window, they've helped out the economy. The homeowner will now pay the glazier to fix it, whose wife will now have money to buy a new dress, etc. It's a fallacy because it ignores the productivity that the money would have resulted in had it been used for its original intent. Perhaps his car needs new tires, or whatever -- but there was something that the homeowner would have preferred but for the necessity created by the ball. By analogy, perhaps the hypothetical second parent, who is now staying home, might instead be a doctor helping people, or a teacher, or even a garbage collector. Whatever, it's something that we would have gotten had it not been for this disruption.
    - Retric 17y ago
      I suspect the broken window fallacy takes place, but in the other direction. If a parent stays home and takes care of their children there is zero apparent economic activity, or less if the stay at home parent cooks. No childcare, less eating out, no maid services etc. However, the stay at home parent is doing that work which benefits the family and is probably also doing a better job of it than low cost help. PS: This also depends on how much the primary income is, how much time it takes, and how old the children are. If a family with three young children is supplementing a 140k primary income with a full time job that pays less than 50k it’s probably of little net benefit. If on the other hand it’s 40k and 40k and the children are in school it’s probably a significant net gain. Time is also a factor; one of the better and more common setups for families with school age children is a teacher parent. They share the same breaks, and the added stability can be a huge help.
    - Psyonic 17y ago
      Or maybe a daycare worker, taking care of someone else's children, instead of her own...? You think that taking care of and raising your child is inherently unproductive?
    - sokoloff 17y ago
      And if they do that, then they aren't working as a full-time child-care provider, cook, cleaner, errand runner, concierge, etc. The broken window fallacy says that purely destructive actions don't actually stimulate the economy in a useful way. In no way is one adult staying home to perform "home work" logically equivalent (at least, not in my opinion).
      - CWuestefeld 17y ago
        I think that everyone is missing the point of the broken window fallacy. It's not that something is destructive. It's also not that something involves monetary transactions or not. The point is that some external agent forces someone to change their plans, foregoing what they originally intended. (Economics deals with making choices between the available alternatives; money is only the tip of that iceberg) In the parable as I outlined it, the employment of the glazier is presented as a positive outcome, while ignoring that the homeowner is now unable to buy his new tires, and thus the homeowner has lost the tires and the garage has lost that business. In the stay-at-home-parent scenario, there's a visible gain of a parent giving the child a close bond and (presumably) good upbringing. But the fallacy hides the fact that had someone else not meddled, that parent would be doing something else that also has a positive outcome (else an employer wouldn't be willing to pay for it). We can see that in both examples, the person whose behavior was forced now must be satisfied with a plan that is inferior to their initial intent. And assuming that all are rational actors (as economists generally do), then we can conclude that the total utility thus delivered (over the entire economy) is lower than that of the initial intent.
  - billybob 17y ago
    Choosing parenting over work is great. But it doesn't mean we should devalue work in order to get it. Better to have people choose between two good options than to make one option lousy.

thejake 17y ago

Who deems what is benefical to society?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

ewanmcteagle 17y ago

Yes, we're taking your stuff. Don't worry it's for your own good. If it's not then it's at least good for society. Look, we're taking your stuff here's a list of excuses just pick one.

pyre 17y ago
So we would all be better off in a society with no policies to increase the education of the poor/working class? Lower literacy rates are a boon to society? Or just a boon to you because you are literate and have money so screw everyone else?
- sp332 17y ago
  Yes. If I care about improving the lot of poorer people, I'll do it with my own money and probably with less beaurocracy. If not, get your hand out of my wallet.
  - Locke1689 17y ago
    ... he says as society crumbles around him and the unfortunate kill him for his stuff...
    - sp332 17y ago
      The only reason a society would tax itself and give the money to the poor, is if (at least) some individuals in that society wanted to give their money to the poor. If no one in the society wants to give their money to the poor, then the society as a whole wouldn't tax itself for that reason, either. As a believer in personal property rights, I think that those individuals who care about the poor should be free to give their money to the poor. But I don't think that their moral high horse gives them a right to use other people's money.
      - gjm11 17y ago
        The argument that I think you're making in your first paragraph is fallacious. In particular, it can happen that (1) everyone wants to give some money to the poor but (2) if they all have to do it individually (rather than a universal tax) no one will do it. This will happen, for instance, if everyone strongly dislikes being worse off than their neighbours, but weakly prefers that the poor be helped. (This is the same idea as in the familiar situations of "prisoners' dilemma" and "tragedy of the commons". It's also why some sports have officially-enforced requirements for safety measures: everyone's better off if everyone's protected, but if it's optional then that's at best an unstable equilibrium because a player or team that chooses to forgo the protection may get an advantage over those who don't. But once no one is protected, all those competitive advantages go away and everyone's worse off than if everyone had been protected.) Now, if (as your second paragraph suggests) you really believe that taxation is so fundamentally evil that it cannot be justified whatever its good consequences, then of course the above will leave you entirely unmoved. But if you are prepared to consider trading off harms against benefits, then I don't think you're entitled to dismiss the possibility that some redistributive taxation is a good thing overall; in particular, you can't just say "if people want to give money to the poor then let them do so" unless you have good reason to think that the sort of situation I described above doesn't obtain.

araneae 17y ago

It's true. For instance, raising children is imperative for the preservation of society.

ShabbyDoo 17y ago
Perhaps more direct incentives might be in order then. Estonia pays mommies a stipend to say home for a year or so, and the amount is based somewhat proportionally on the woman's income pre-baby.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  Estonia? Canada pays 55% of a salary for a year in the form of Employment Insurance for maternity leaves that can be 1 year for a mother and up to six months for a father.
  - gnosis 17y ago
    It's not just Estonia. I've heard that in England the mother gets 1 year (fully) paid leave. Same with Sweden and Germany. In Sweden it might even be two years (but my memory is failing me). I would be willing to bet that at least a full year of paid maternity leave is quite standard in northern Europe. Some countries (the Netherlands, for instance) even pay their citizens to have children.
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      1 year maternity leave is pretty much the standard globally for established countries, just like state run healthcare. It's the US that is different here.
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    Estonia came to mind because of an Economist article a couple of years ago.