A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by John Batchelor of CBS Radio on Romney’s child allowance proposal. It’s here.
It runs about 10 minutes.
May 7 2021
It was my singular good fortune to serve as the editor for the April 2021 Liberty Matters forum, “Meanings of Liberty: Aron, Constant, Berlin.” What is liberty, and what does it mean (to each of these thinkers)? This, in essence, is the question that April lead essayist Daniel B. Klein and two respondents, Daniel J...
May 6 2021
I posted on May 3 about G. A. Cohen's use of a camping analogy to make the case for socialism. Here's another quote from Cohen's Why Not Socialism? A nonmarket cooperator relishes cooperation itself: what I want, as a non-marketeer, is that we serve each other; and when I serve, instead of trying to get whatever I ...
May 6 2021
A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by John Batchelor of CBS Radio on Romney's child allowance proposal. It's here. It runs about 10 minutes.
READER COMMENTS
Lawrence
May 7 2021 at 10:52am
One over-spending shocker after another. What could possibly go wrong, eh?
Evan Sherman
May 7 2021 at 3:50pm
I noticed that the question of externalities did not come up in the interview. David, what would you say to that question? (I assume that this cannot be the first time a respondant has raised this question in response to your argument.)
E.g. Families A and B each contain 2 adult workers doing the same jobs (same productivity, same compensation, etc.). However, Family A has two kids and Family B has zero kids. Family A accrues considerable expense (sweat, tears, and treasure) in raising the two kids into productive workers and citizens – and, to be fair, does receive some specific rewards in return (e.g. an extra private family safety net for retirement.) Family B, conversely, is exposed to none of that child-raising cost. Both Family A and Family B enjoy the general benefits of a society with more productive workers and citizens (e.g. Family A will produce goods/services and thus tax revenue that will support the retirements of both Family A and Family B).
Is there not an externality at play? Is it not the case that Family B has a better cost-benefit ratio than Family A? Would that imbalanced cost-benefit ratio not incentivize people to have less kids – further reducing the general benefits of more productive workers and citizens in the future? etc.
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