Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Viciously Darwinian Totalitarian Fascism in One Lesson

Re: Viciously Darwinian Totalitarian Fascism in One Lesson

Sigivald — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:23:06 -0000

Does Jeff simply not know what "totalitarian" means? Or "fascist[ic]"?

That's the only reason I can imagine (well, apart from deliberate deceit) for using it in that way and in that context.

The last thing Fascist economics does is say "hey, it's okay if our citizens lose jobs, because some guy across the world's better off". Fascist economics is all about not having to trade for anything by acquiring all necessary resources by conquest, or by other means such as replacement technologies. Self-sufficiency is the core, not trade or mutual advantage, as the Fascist worldview is of the war of all against all, at the level of the Volk. (Cf. "Lebensraum", the Nazi drive for the Ploesti oilfields, etc.)

Re: Viciously Darwinian Totalitarian Fascism in One Lesson

Will Wilkinson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:57:45 -0000

MDM,

If you're using redistribution to solve a collective action problem, then it could be positive sum. If it's just an income transfer from one class to another, then that's pretty much the definition of zero sum, and its almost certainly negative sum in reality.

You can make an argument about transfers being positive sum in utility terms, due to considerations of declining marginal utility, but usually this ignores the distinction between the value over time of wealth invested and wealth consumed.

A dollar increase in the average surely doesn't go wholly or even mostly to the bottom quintile. The bottom quintile may get the least of it. But if trade leaves the bottom quintile no less well off in real terms, which it does (free trade pushes prices down), then the trade game is broadly positive sum. There are always short-term distributional winners and losers in a dynamic system, but as long as the system leaves most everyone a winner in the long-term, relative to the relevant alternative systems, there is no reasonable ground for discontent.

I can imagine an scenario in which a BIG would have long-term positive externalities FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE TRANSFER SYSTEM (maybe we see this in Scandinavia? Again, I don't see this as broadly generalizable.) But then one creates a problem in policing membership in the system. You create a clear in-group and a clear out-group in the way trade does not.

Re: Viciously Darwinian Totalitarian Fascism in One Lesson

MDM — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:58:03 -0000

Will,
Must redistribution be negative-sum? Couldn't the benefit to the recipients and the positive externalities of an income floor/safety net outweigh the costs? (Imagine a pro-growth, free market economy with a small basic income grant, or something.)
Also, any sense of how a dollar increase in average wealth translates into an increase in the average wealth for, say, the bottom quintile. I doubt it's one for one. Any thoughts?