Are Germans Who Voted for the Nazis in the 1930's Morally Blameworthy? If so how much?

Is a German citizen who voted for the Nazis in the 1930's morally blameworthy? Why should he be? His vote was not pivotal in giving power to Hitler. If his vote was still a small force for evil, then abstaining for voting would also have been a force for evil, albeit a smaller one, because a vote for no-one is a vote which could have been placed on someone relatively "good" but was wasted. (All of this blog post assumes that power does not incentivize swayholders to pursue very particular actions, so that different people would actually act differently if given power.)

 

If voting decisions are morally important, then so are very many other decisions as well. In life one faces a vast array of ethical problems but time permits satisfactory handling of vanishingly few of them (how should I raise my kid, how well should I take care of my parents, should I tell my friend's wife if he has been unfaithful, to name just some of the bigger ones). I recently wrote about these problems on this blog. The fact that several ethical problems deserve much more of an individual's time than does voting need not lead to immoral political decision-making if all but a few voters randomize, with the remaining few voting in accordance with sound moral theory (whatever that is), for then moral soundness wins in expectation. Alas, this is a pipe dream.

 

The - absolutely correct - view that only individuals make decisions leads to biases in the infinitesimal moral thought devoted to political decision-making. Akin to Frédéric Bastiat's famous distinction between the seen and the unseen, the vast majority of people who - rightly - devote extremely little moral thought to political decisions are apt to think mostly about what is obvious and little about what is hidden below the surface. Thus, they swallow ethically challenged nonsense such as the proposition that it is better to pour money on war-torn countries than admit more refugees because the refugees really want to stay where they are, or bans on trade in internal organs on the basis that, were it allowed, poor people might sell them, as if being given an option one needn't use is so horrible.

Once part of a large-scale apparatus for collective decision-making, there is nothing one can do to avoid doing harm inside this apparatus, except to neglect far more important ethical problems deserving of much more attention, because for them what one does will be pivotal. Alas, what is morally blameworthy is the system itself. A market for states would erase these moral shortcomings, so that one joins a state like one joins a club, pays fees ("taxes") and enjoys the benefits and switches to another state-club if one does not like one's present one.

What moral shortcomings might such a system produce?

Voting Schmoting

These days, citizens of EU countries have the opportunity to decide the composition of the EU Parliament for the next five years. Typically, there are hundreds of candidates to choose from. EU citizens are evidently expected to acquaint themselves with all of them, their character, their most cherished issues and whatever else is a criterion for whether a politico might have one's vote (and there is both theory and evidence to suggest that it does not matter for whom one votes anyway).

How does anyone have time for this? After jobs and hobbies, family and friends, why spend time sifting through the popinjays and the charlatans searching for someone whose views might correspond to one's own? I suspect only very few people do this, yet very many people actually do vote and look down their noses at people who abstain.

For the vast majority of good, decent folks, to vote intelligently is not to vote at all.

What Is a Model, Anyway?

In yesterday's post, I briefly outlined the events of a small altercation involving NHS-related comments made by Professor Steve Levitt. Professor Noah Smith asked for a model, but was not happy with what Professor Levitt provided (see yesterday's post for links).

But Professor Levitt did provide a model! Granted, he starts out by discussing the policy proposal, so the small model is a bit buried in his blog post, but it is there, and it goes like this:

If it turns out that consumers are sensitive to prices (i.e. that the most basic principle of economics holds, and demand curves slope downwards), total spending on health care will decrease.

Professor Levitt goes on to highlight two important sources of the decrease in expenditure, namely that low-valued services consumed only because they come at a zero price will be cut out by consumers who have to pay a positive price for them, and that competition for consumers who are now price sensitive will lead to increased efficiency.

 

The model is not very fleshed out, but I am not sure it really needs to be (Professor Levitt refers to simulations of the model also, but does not go into details). The essence of many hugely successful models in economics can be described in just a few simple words and that is a most welcome thing.

There are details for which Professor Levitt's model does not account, but maybe there are not too many of them, since Professor Smith embraces the policy proposal which is based upon the model. This strengthens the case for viewing health care as a market fairly much like other markets.

What would a model of Weetabix consumption look like? Well, one should start by positing that marginal willingness to pay is decreasing and that consumption stops once marginal willingness to pay is below the price. Welfare losses can result if prices are nor permitted to equate marginal cost and marginal willingness to pay; services are consumed which cost more to produce than the value consumers place upon them. An analogous market for health care will have similarly important policy implications.

This is not too advanced and will impress few people, but the criticism which Professor Levitt's model has come across, coupled with the widely agreed-upon sense of the resultant policy proposal, is evidence, both that the simple lesson needs to be said, and that remarkably simple models can be remarkably useful.

How Different a Market is Health Care?

Professor Steve Levitt has come under a bit of attack lately because of some comments he made, in part to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and in full to Cameron's team when the PM had walked out. He asked, essentially, if the PM would be happy with a system under which Britons could come to a car dealership and pick up a car, financed - just like the National Health Service - by the state. Among those upset with these comments is Professor Noah Smith, who has argued (here and here) that health care is a different kind of market than that for cars.

 

I think Professor Levitt is essentially right on this. Now he never actually claimed that there are no differences between health care and other markets, but it is clear from context that he considers health care and other markets to have rather a lot in common. Certainly you would expect huge quantities to be demanded in the market for health care with services available at a zero price, just like you would expect huge quantities to be demanded under similar conditions in basically any other market.

 

So what is different about health care? Among the contenders are adverse selection and moral hazard. Adverse selection means that insurance buyers know more about their health than do sellers, but this is true in very many other markets as well (by the way, the health insurance market is characterized by propitious, not adverse, selection, according to very many studies - just one terrific paper with data on the issue is here). Moral hazard means that insured folks have an incentive not to take care of themselves as well, but this, too, is present in many other markets. (This issue is not primarily about insurance, but it is a common way of financing health expenses and Professor Smith mentioned these specifics in one of the posts linked to above.)

 

A related problem of asymmetric information is that those seeking to purchase health care do not know a lot about the product. But this, again, is true for a wide variety of other markets, such as cars, computers, plumbing services and dentistry. For most food I buy I have no idea what has been added to it. Nor do I care much, because sellers compete and have reputations to maintain.

Another issue pertaining to (lack of) information is how to determine which hospital is best while in acute need of medical attention. Will stroke sufferers "shop around"? Of course they will not, but that holds under any system. Would hospitals charge "exorbitant" fees for those coming in for heart attacks? They clearly have an incentive to do so, but competing hospitals have the same incentive. Distance may give some monopoly power, but not too much because of the presence, a bit farther away, of other hospitals.

One issue on which health care really does differ is that of (partial) unpredictability tied to possibly lethal consequences. I think this may be a reason behind the widespread impression that health care should be the business of the government because it is so "important". Bread and Weetabix are also "important" but they lack the other aspects. I think this also explains the presence of the subsidy in Professor Levitt's policy proposal for the British politicos. Given these widespread beliefs, it would be very hard to argue for no subsidy at all, so Professor Levitt's proposal seems a very good one to me.

Notice, lastly, that the aforementioned difference is not really a difference in the mechanics of the market for health care. Rather, it is simply a difference in widespread perceptions of the services offered in this market. So if free markets tend to work better than regulated ones, it really should show in performance. I am in the deep end of the pool attempting to assess the evidence on this, but I believe it is noteworthy that the Singaporean model - which as far as I can gather comes close to what Professor Levitt tried to propose to Cameron - typically receives a great deal of praise.

"Turn off the **** Light!"

Adherents of theories of moral rights run into difficulties when they find they are compelled by their own logic to defend a variety of "outrageous" demands, such as that of an individual whose beauty sleep is ruined by photons trespassing on his property from the night light which his neighbour likes to keep. Property rights are violated by that night light, because it changes the character of adjacent land. Lights from aeroplanes and even breathing could be similar examples. This is indeed a serious problem. Consequentialists usually bring forth examples of this variety when criticizing rights-based ethics.

 

I submit that for consequentialists to legitimately criticize theories of moral rights on the above sort of basis, they must be able to plausibly argue that the consequences of rights-based arrangements are sufficiently horrible. So what would happen if we took the extreme view of property rights and acknowledged the right of the sleep-deprived not to have intrusive photons on his property?

 

Under the most extreme view of negative moral rights, disputes would have to be settled in private courts (there would be no state). Individuals pay for a collection of rules under which they want to live and which they want to see upheld in disputes with individuals living under different sets of rules. This means that if the photon-emitting individual is willing to pay more for those photons to intrude on others' property than property-owners are willing to pay in order not to be disturbed in this fashion, photons can be emitted sans fear of the law.

 

But this is partly evading the issue. After all, according to the theory of negative moral rights, a wrong is committed if photons invade a person's property without his consent. So whatever private courts decide, the invaded's rights have been infringed upon. Whether he is found to be entitled to compensation or not, morality says that he is. So what will the justifiably outraged individual do to protect his rights? Here enters the question of retributive justice.

Since retributive justice may differ in outcomes from what private courts decide, it will happen that individuals who are losing legal battles will be in the right when they wish to seek retribution by their own individual efforts. Most consequentialists would, I believe, argue that these individuals should just accept the verdicts. This is also roughly what would happen under a private-law regime. An individual unhappy with a verdict which goes against sound moral theory is free to challenge it. Precisely how much he may escalate the resultant conflict (inflict property damage? kill?) depends on what view of retributive justice one has in mind, but an analogy with armed robbery suffices to indicate that the vast majority of persons would accept private courts' verdicts. When confronted with a gun and the words "your money or your life!", people invariably give away their possessions. In the cases under discussion, challenging verdicts with violence probably means being punished later, the analogy with armed robbery is not a bad one. People won't challenge verdicts by private courts.

Is the theory of negative moral rights thereby immune to attacks from consequentialists? I don't think so at all, but I believe that, if what I have just written is correct, certain classes of attacks appear to be more "survivable" for rights-based ethics than one may at first think. Adherents of the theory of negative moral rights may not necessarily be happy with the outcomes, but I don't see how they could be any less unhappy without violating their own principles.

The bottom line is that consistent application of the theory of negative moral rights results in a market for legislation which may turn out to bring consequences which are not at all in line with the theory of negative moral rights prescribes. But those consequences of consistent application of negative moral rights should be rather palatable to consequentialists, so what case do the consequentialists have against it?

In writing this blog post, I am reminded by a similar argument I made a while ago here.

Unpopular Taxation As a Master Stroke for Reduced Tax Pressures?

A new paper by LSE economists estimates levels of tax fraud in the UK before and after the late Margaret Thatcher's hugely unpopular poll tax, which was levied in large part independently of payer's income and lasted from 1990 to 1992. The picture that is worth  a thousand words (click to enlarge):

Tax evasion here means the share of tax liabilities not paid, calculated on the basis of independently-assessed property valuations. The figure shows averages from British councils. Before and after the poll tax, rates were levied based upon valuations of payers' accommodation. I know too little about the differences between these systems to be able to tell, but I suppose there might be some subtle difference in the systems which could be behind some of the discovered change (I have not read the paper very carefully).

But the figure is very interesting. The trend went towards lower levels of tax evasion before and after the poll tax years. This trend was resumed after its abolition, but from a higher level. The authors argue that this is due to a norm establishing itself to the effect that "one ought to pay one's taxes". This norm suddenly became expensive to a significant fraction of citizens, and their evasion had ring-effects which further eroded the norm.

Norms and habits are often analysed as separate phenomena, but this illustrates a link between them. Person A pays most of his taxes in part because others do. In the aggregate, this looks like habit persistence. But a small but sufficient increase in the "price" of the "habit" can result in great decreases in tax compliance. This does not in any way show that norms and habits are inextricably linked, only that it may not always be that easy to tell which factor is the operative one.

This, however, is very much an aside. If unpopular taxation can lead to more tax evasion, it is an interesting potential trick for those wishing to ease the tax burden without sounding too radical. Simply think of some horrendously insane tax and introduce it. The effects of this may be good or bad, but it is an interesting strategy. However, the unpopularity that comes with a tax like this makes it a sure-fire election loser for anyone who tries this strategy. Just like what happened to the Iron Lady.

The results remind me of what Milton Friedman used to argue was a drawback of heavy-handed government: That resultant crazy legislation erodes respect even for sane legislation. I have always been a keen admirer of Milton Friedman's, but I have never put too much stock into this argument, simply because I don't think anyone is likely to think murder is less wrong because, say, avoiding compulsory military service is also punishable. But maybe some version of Friedman's argument has more merit than what first meets the eye (or met my eye, anyway).

Committing Suicide with a Bit of Class (No, Not My Note)

Jerry Seinfeld once remarked that if one's going to kill oneself, the least one could do is to leave a note (this happened in the second-season episode 'The Phone Message'). I tend to agree with this. The note should not point fingers ("it was my wife's fault!"), but simply outline what was troubling the deceased and his reasons for doing the deed, along with some final wishes not expressed elsewhere. There is an even better way of doing it, which I will come to below.

I have little doubt in the rationality of many suicides. Certain variants have near-universal approval, in particular decisions by terminally ill individuals not to medicate or to be euthanized. Maybe some "diseases" affect the mind and are just as terminal as the diseases leaving physiological traces? If so, one cannot claim that suicides by seeminly healthy individuals are in error while simultaneously thinking the cases by the terminally ill are right. Once the decision to off onself is arrived at rationally - there is nothing anyone can say to change the situation for the better. No advice works.

This is not to suggest that one should not urge suicidal persons not to do it, because how can outsiders be certain that the decision was arrived at rationally? And maybe some sort of side-payment could be arranged in order to keep the suicidal person in this life. Even rational suicides are extremely tragic. The people left behind will very frequently and understandably feel in the abyss and so are apt to do all they can to prevent a loved one from committing suicide. I know I would.

Which leads to the following conclusion: If one's going to kill oneself, then yes, the least one should do is to follow the Seinfeldian wisdom and leave a note. Doing so and doing it well avoids very many painful and unanswered questions for those left wondering. But one could, if one is really intent on killing oneself, do one better by killing oneself, in a manner of speaking, by proxy - let circumstances do the work, but look up some of the socially most acceptable circumstances and get immersed in them.

By this, I mean that one should engage in some incredibly risky activity which has some nobility attached to it. Rock climbing, for instance, or volunteer work in risky areas. Call it a major life change. Those happen. The more daring the activity the better, for two reasons: (1) it increases the social benefits in case of survival, and (2) it increases the likelihood of death, which by definition is good for the individual who has rationally reached the conclusion that he should kill himself. Military activity can be socially acceptable, but society is wrong here - perhaps predictably so.

One might ask why not more suicides occur this way. Perhaps those suicides are committed by selfish people, or perhaps they are committed in fits of depression, possibly for irrational reasons. It is conceivable that many deaths from dangerous activities are actually suicides. Maybe the aforementioned military activity is one such venue, though I wish they would find something better in that case. The people close to those who pass away in this fashion may suspect that suicidal factors were part of the diseased individual's choice of activity. But at least in these cases there will remain the added sense of respect for the service the perished person rendered.