Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

BillKorner — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:05:16 -0000

Yes, Hirsch is indispensible as I think Friedman agrees.

One reason philosophers have not emphasized the importance of economic growth is that its importance is too uncontroversial.

A better question, I think, is why philosophers have not taken more part in analyzing economic theories of what economic growth is and what's so good about it. This is where the rubber really hits the road in deciding how growth figures into a social welfare function. And I think that philosophers have something to contribute to understanding the nature of such a function and the relation between its role in welfare economics and social policy making.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Joe — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:55:58 -0000

Hi. Interesting discussion. By happenstance I stumbled upon your site. I am a recent graduate in Philosophy and Poli Sci, I studied Egalitarianism extensively for my senior thesis and will soon be applying to go to grad school. I have two books that might or might not add to this debate. One is "The Limits of Social Growth", by Fred Hirsch. His main argument that there is social, not physical limits to economic growth. There is a disjunct between material and positional goods, and Hirsch separates these very adroitly. Its a great read.
Two, Amartya Sen wrote a great work called "Developement as Freedom". I have only browsed through it, so I have nothing really to add other than it touches on some of the themes here.
With economic growth, there is always the murky waters of defining what is "good" for an individual, and how material and positional goods fit into that discussion. Absolute scales don't always work for assigning "value" to goods, so while having more might mean a higher material value, it might not correlate to a higher positional value, or vice versa.
Rousseauian paradoxes abound! I love it. Thanks for the time.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Russ Hicks — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 01:46:56 -0000

I thought of a book I own but haven't read, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by Michael Novak. A quick check of "economic growth" in the index led to a couple of places where he asserts that economic growth is necessary for democracy, but he doesn't really develop an argument on this at least where I checked...

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Francois Tremblay — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:50:36 -0000

Here is the URL to the answer I posted on my blog :
http://radicallibertarians.blogspot.com/2006/02...

My basic point is that the question is too restrictive.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:38:33 -0000

Yeah, I'll put 5 dollars down!

(I figured the nanotech joke referced a book maybe tyler cowen or you made fun of a while back.)

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:47:13 -0000

Tim, The nanotech part was a joke. But I'll put five bucks on it against catastrophic global warming!

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:04:37 -0000

"I am shocked because there does not appear to be a single major work on the morally mandatory character of improving the quantity and quality of holdings and life options, which, on its face, strikes me as a lot more important."

Well, even if this improvment is more important than equality, meeting basic needs (sufficiency) for all seems a lot more urgent than this improvement. If these two conflict, I do not see how pursuing the improvement for some/many people is "morally mandatory".

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 10:29:23 -0000

That should be "eternal middle age" not "external middle age".

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 10:28:03 -0000

I'm willing to bet on his global warming scenario rather than your external middle age thanks to nanotech cell-repair.

Yes, Barry's book came out last year.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:13:48 -0000

Tim, Awesome. Thanks. This book came out last year?

When someone says "the only alternative" the red flags go up. How's this for an alternative: "over the next fifty years resources will be superabundant, population will peak then begin to contract, and global warming will have some undetermined adverse and positive effects." I am willing to bet Brian Barry about this. Then again, he'll be dead in fifty years, and thanks to nanotech cell-repair, I'll be an eternal 45.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:52:43 -0000

Will-
The last chapter of Brian Barry's latest book, Why Social Justice Matters (2005) is called "Justice or Bust".
The chapter begins: "Over the next fifty years, renewable resources will continue to become scarcer, world population will grow and global warming will have more and more adverse effects. The only alternative is a nuclear holocaust, which I would not recommend as a solution."

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:42:08 -0000

I think Marxian types argued in the 1970s that continual economic growth was needed for the legitimacy of capitalist societies in the eyes of its citizens; however (it was claimed) continual economic growth could not last forever, so neither could liberal legitimacy.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Jacob T. Levy — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:25:16 -0000

Hm. Lots of libertarianish folk think that absolute deprivation is morally much more consequential than relative poverty. Growth as a value looks, to a straight distributivist, like caring more about [intergenerationally] relative wealth than like a concern with absolute well-being.

*If* (I assume counterfactually) it were the case that there was a maximum sustainable per capita income, then it's hard to see what the moral advantage would be of getting there more slowly, with steady year-on-year growth, than of getting there right away, with growth ceasing thereafter. Similarly, even without the maximum-sustainable premise, if there's some threshold of material well-being that's morally very important, then it's hard to see what's better about *growth* than about *getting to that level.*

That is, it would be hard from a strictly what-stuff-does-each-person-have perspective.

If Will is right-- and I think he is-- that steady year-on-year growth is good for things like stable liberal democratic government, then that changes things. But it changes things in ways that are intellectually unfamiliar either to most welfarist utilitarians or to early Rawls and his progeny.

(I strongly suspect that Jon Elster and/or Adam Przeworski have written something like what Will's looking for.)

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Kent Guida — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:05:55 -0000

Here's a question for all you economists:
When did "economic growth" as the term is now used become common? Was there a comparable term used before that? Don't recall Adam Smith, for example, saying anything about it.
If it is a term that did not come into use until the second half of the 20th century, that would help explain why it is not a common subject of political philosophy. That, and the fact that virtually no one writing about political philosophy knows diddly about economics -- eg Rawls

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Matt — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:11:20 -0000

Hi Will,

I don't have anything substantial to add to what's above, but in case you've not seen it Joseph Stiglitz has a very interesting review of Friedman's book in the Nov/Dec. 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs. The review touches on some of the issues you mention. I've not read Friedman's book so can't say more on it.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:01:30 -0000

Clearly David Miller is right! Did Brian Barry at the late date of 1998 really think that growth is in conflict with environmental stability?

A more interesting argument about future generations turns on Parfit's insight that the big deal about what we do now policy-wise is not how it will affect future people, as if there are a bunch of people with determinate identities, who already exist at a future time in the way that other people co-exist with us at a different place, but how it will determine whether or which people will exist in the future.

Growth correlates with lower rates of reproduction. Are the possible beings not made actual because of high growth harmed by it?!

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:51:11 -0000

Tim, Thanks! Great stuff. Thanks especially for reminding me of the passage in Justice as Fairness. That's a clearer statement of what he's basically saying in the just savings part of ToJ.

About growth as an element of justice. Well, really, I think justice is the wrong word. I mean an element of the kind of society we have most reason to affirm, endorse, want, etc. I agree with both your points. I'm talking fast and loose. Sen is no better, unless he thinks that there is no limit on the development of human capabilities, which is what I think, and why I don't think there is a point of absolute development at which it is permissible to allow growth to stall.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim W — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:12:49 -0000

This probably isn't too helpful, but on page 174-175 of International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, eds. Mapel and Nardin (Princeton UP, 1998), David Miller comes out in favor of economic growth. He's doing so in response in to Brian Barry who, in an article in the same volume, argues that equality means being concerned for future people not simply present people, which means not causing environmental disaster for future persons, which means not valuing growth.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim W — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:38:57 -0000

Will says "But growth, per se, is not an element of justice."

I am not sure how a theory could value growth for itself, or what that would mean.

1) My confusion primarily stems from how you can say that something other than individuals can have value for the purposes of justice, in a non-instrumental fashion (value in itself or 'per se'). What do you mean by this?

2) Why is Sen any closer than Rawls is to what you're looking for? Basing this comment solely on the discussion above, Sen wants growth (maybe) for basic capabilities and Rawls wants it for a just basic structure. What is the reason why they are not they about equally bad (or good)?

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Tim W — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:24:49 -0000

Will- not only that, Rawls does not think your preferred conception of justice as valuing growth is even reasonable. Rawls states in his book Justice as Fairness: "A further feature of the difference principles is that it does not require continual economic growth over generations to maximize upward indefinitely the expectations of the least advantaged (assessed in terms of income and wealth). That would not be a reasonable conception of justice. We should not rule out Mill's idea of a society in a just stationary state where (real) capital accumulation may cease." (pp.63-6; see also pg. 159)

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:48:34 -0000

Matt, Yes and no. Rawls:

Eventually, once just institutions are firmly established and all the basic liberties effectively realized, the net accumulation [of savings] asked for falls to zero. At this point a society meets its duty of justice by maintaining just institutions and preserving their material base. The just savings principles applies to what a society is to save as a matter of justice. If its members wish to save for other purposes, that is another matter.

[ToJ, 2nd Ed., p 255]

It sounds to me that Rawls is saying that a fully just society requires NO GROWTH. Justice, at certain historical-economic stages, requires growth instrumentally. If we are still at a level of relatve deprivation, justice demands we leave the next generation a little better off than we were. But growth, per se, is not an element of justice.

Actually, Rawls never thinks systematically about growth as far as I can tell. Growth is implicit in a lot of what he says. For example, the idea that the tax rate is limited by the incentive to productivity. But he takes a barely dynamic perspective. If taxes are too high in period one, there will be less to distribute in period to. The end. He's not really thinking about the overall size of the economy. Similarly, when talking about just savings, he seems to be more concerned with the idea that we don't consume all the resources and leave future generations with less rather than the idea that what future generations will have is compounded by the rate of growth.

Also, this gets me thinking about the argument for the difference principle. Rawls labors hard to make the argument more than instrumental. But his only really good arguments are instrumental. If the poor are getting a raw deal, they'll destabilize everything, and that's no good for anyone. B. Friedman's argument about growth is just like that. If growth is too slow, we'll get nasty and illiberal.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Matthew Yglesias — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:23:15 -0000

This is a non-obscure book, but doesn't the discussion of intergenerational justice in A Theory of Justice argue for just the conclusion you're looking for?

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Brent Buckner — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:33:53 -0000

Thank you for the clarification. If Tyler Cowen's forthcoming book addresses that, I'll buy a copy!

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:53:42 -0000

Brent, Let me reclarify. The Friedman book is good. But it is very simple in the way it posits the values that are served by growth. Friedman just stipulates that some things are good, and then tries to show that growth helps us get them, such that if you care about those things, you should care about growth. That's a fine way to argue. But he doesn't explain why the values he highlights are values. He doesn't address the normative conditions for a just or morally legitimate government. And, again, that's fine. I don't expect economists to double as moral philosophers. What I'm looking for is more sophisticated, integrated, normative work on growth. There are hundreds of normative works in political philosophy on the morally mandatory character of some kind of equality of material holdings and life options. I am shocked because there does not appear to be a single major work on the morally mandatory character of improving the quantity and quality of holdings and life options, which, on its face, strikes me as a lot more important.

Re: Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

Brent Buckner — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:32:20 -0000

If that's what you want, to my mind you were misleading in asking for something that argues "that maintaining a relatively high rate of economic growth is morally mandatory for a good government (or is a necessary condition for justice, or legitimacy, or anything like that)", and for complaining about the lack of materials on "growth as a cardinal social and political value".

In your clarified request are you claiming that you're having difficulty finding writings that link economic growth with individual people having "more money, more freedom, more life-options, better health, longer lives, etc."?