Mark Twain’s Dog

This brilliant posting explores a problem that is very vexing. As Mark Twain put it:

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

The essay explores the problem of “freeloaders” and their resentment of those who actually provide for them. But looking at the situation in that light alone can lead you to a wrong answer. Here’s my fuller description of the problem.

In every society, there are those who cannot provide for themselves. Human empathy drives us to provide for these truly needy. Yet, whenever we do, there will be some people who fraudulently go along for the ride. They could provide for themselves, but they choose not do, and they pose as truly needy and benefit from other’s charity.

It’s tempting to tighten standards to ensure that undeserving do not benefit from the aid intended for the deserving. But enforcing tighter standards can increase the burden on the deserving and even cost more than what would otherwise be misdirected to the undeserving. I can only conclude that any attempt to help the deserving, no matter how efficient, will also help the undeserving. Our true choice, at the extremes, is between helping the undeserving or not helping the deserving. And whether we help the deserving or the undeserving, we will always have the problem of Mark Twain’s dog.

Despite all this, the best answer is not to abandon charity. We should know in advance that charity will be abused and resented. That only goes to make it more charitable.

Congress: Ripe for Shredding

I’d love to see this happen. It would make a lot more sense than McCain’s complaints about lobbyists. It seems we need lobbyists to keep Congress from making an even worse hash of things. He might want to emphasize this as well.

Health Care Reform

It’s good to see at least some states doing something sensible about health care reform. What’s amazing is that the Florida legislature passed the new law unanimously. There are (at least) two lessons here:

• Government attempts to increase the availability of health care can easily decrease the availability of health care. The same goes for a lot of other things too. This is Hayek’s knowledge problem at work.
• When government is in the business of writing checks, lots of people show up to argue why they should also get a check. The argument is always that it is good for “the people”, but it is “the people” who ultimately pay the bill.

I hope some other states follow Florida’s lead.

Serving Others and the Invisible Hand

David Boaz has a good opinion piece in the WSJ lamenting an attitude shared by Senators Obama and McCain. I agree with his opinion and was especially taken with this quote:

Every human life counts. Your life counts. You have a right to live it as you choose, to follow your bliss. You have a right to seek satisfaction in accomplishment. And if you chase after the almighty dollar, you just might find that you are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do things that improve the lives of others.

The last sentence understates the case. Unless you make your living as a thug or a fraud, the only way you make money is by being of service to others. Of course, you can be of service to others without making money, but you can’t make legitimate money without being of service to others. What’s more, it’s quantifiable. We know we are making a more valuable contribution when the pay is better. The non-paid service to others is of unknown value because services are provided to those who cannot pay. People tend to think of the non-paid service as morally superior, but it’s not obviously true.

There was a time when the main path to wealth was to be a thug. I suspect this is why we have a cultural suspicion of the wealthy. And enough people do well enough being thugs or frauds, so are suspicions are constantly being re-enforced.

Regardless of what we might be inclined to think, the greatest aid to the poor, the suffering, the sick, and the hungry may well be a byproduct of people pursuing their own selfish interests. As if led by an invisible hand….

The Land Of Hypothetical Issues

I enjoy reading Megan McArdle. But Megan’s on vacation and has arranged for several substitute bloggers to sit in for her. They’re good, but they’re not Megan. Having said that, let me commend this post by Conor Friedersdorf. This concerns the abortion debate and where it might head in the future. Conor’s assertion is that the debate may disappear due to technology. It may become possible to perform an abortion without killing the fetus. Think about it.

I suspect that Conor is right - I’m just not sure about the time frame. Changing technology has already created many new ethical issues - it would be nice to see technology make one go away. Ethical issues arise due to circumstances. The circumstances may change and the issues many diminish in importance, but the issues still remain, even if only hypothetically. But wouldn’t it be great if the huge “abortion debate” was relegated to the Land of Hypothetical Issues?

Political Theater

Somehow I missed this older post on political analysis, but it’s still worth reading. I think Mr. Kling gets the problem right, though I’m not so sure about the solution. The post identifies three major and distressing trends in political activity. It’s the second one (an increase in the theatrical component of politics) which rang a bell for me. If you think through the campaign activity of Clinton, Obama, and McCain over the last few weeks, it seems full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Ready for change? Concerned for the little guy? Want national honor? Think about the charges of sexism, racism, and ageism. Sure, there are some general distinctions between the Democratic and Republican political and economic philosophies, but nothing much is new there. It’s mostly theater - and expensive theater at that. I’d be happier with Macbeth, Othello, or King Lear!

Belief, Intention, and Thinking

Don Boudreaux has a great article on environmentalism. He points out that many “green initiatives” are based on unsupported beliefs, good intentions, and sloppy thinking. He is so right! Of course, it’s not just environmentalism that is tainted in this way. This blog is littered with examples of how schemes to help the poor actually harm them, plans to improve health care make it worse,  schemes to  keep us safe endanger us - it goes on and on. I sometimes complain that this is due to ignorance of economics, which is true, but more fundamentally it is a failure to think things through. The beauty of good intentions and naive belief is that you don’t have to spend all that time and energy thinking. I doubt that this is a new phenomenon. Human progress might have been greatly accelerated if so many of our ancestors weren’t enamored by faith and repelled by thinking. For better or worse, this is our legacy.

A Free Trade Argument

In 1776, Adam Smith described how free trade helped ordinary people. This is almost a bedrock principle of economics. Yet popular opinion continues to view free trade as a threat and some politicians pander to popular ignorance. You can hardly read an economics blog without sensing the frustration that economists feel. But there are glimmers of hope. A very nice article on free trade has shown up in an unexpected place. It’s an argument based on pragmatic facts rather than economic theory, but it might be the kind of argument that makes more sense to ordinary people. It’s certainly an easier sell than trying to get someone to understand comparative advantage.

Conservatism

Fred Thompson has some good advice for the Republican party and takes a rough cut at defining conservative principles. I’ve written a lot about what constitutes conservative principles versus liberal principles. I’m not sure that there is widespread agreement about what “conservative” and “liberal” mean. Still, I can offer these points as key to a sensible conservative ideology:

• The Laws of Economics cannot be circumvented, so we should not try.
• Power corrupts, so we should do what we can to limit the concentration of power.
• Tradition reflects previously discovered wisdom, so we should be slow to change.
• While people have potential for great good, they also have a capability for evil.

There are more. I’ll work on it.

Google’s Monster

Google is unleashing a monster. It’s called Google Sites. It allows you create Web sites. Unlike Google Pages, Google Sites has a strong site orientation. The editing and overall control are far better than Google Pages. The best part is that you can control access to sites you create as well a collaborate and have multiple owners. Holy cow! What’s going to happen when every household, club, church, sports team, band - really, any group of people - realize that they can construct professional looking Web pages for any purpose whatsoever without much technical expertise? I expect that the consequences will be widespread and quite surprising.