Helping the Poor

[ojc02]

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No. We should just tear down all the barriers to them improving their own situation. No more subsidies, no more import limits and quotas, no more dumping of surpluses, and the biggie; no more immigration controls! Essentially no more western mercantilist crap would go a long way to helping.

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I'm surprised that you are so sure of yourself here. While I agree in general with your sentiment (that restrictions can often be expected to do more "bad" than "good") I think that there is a potential for wealth redistribution to create a "net" gain. If you don't think socialists have the required social calculus tools to work out the optimal solution, you also can't conclude that the optimal solution is yours.

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He doesn't think his solution is the best, he thinks the free market's solution is. FWIW (which isn't much) I agree.

[mosdef]

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No. We should just tear down all the barriers to them improving their own situation. No more subsidies, no more import limits and quotas, no more dumping of surpluses, and the biggie; no more immigration controls! Essentially no more western mercantilist crap would go a long way to helping.

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I'm surprised that you are so sure of yourself here. While I agree in general with your sentiment (that restrictions can often be expected to do more "bad" than "good") I think that there is a potential for wealth redistribution to create a "net" gain. If you don't think socialists have the required social calculus tools to work out the optimal solution, you also can't conclude that the optimal solution is yours.

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He doesn't think his solution is the best, he thinks the free market's solution is. FWIW (which isn't much) I agree.

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His solution is a free market, which I have no problem with. But I have doubts when people claim that a free market will result in a "better" society because this argument is subject to the same pitfall as every other system, namely that you can't determine "better" rigorously. Bear in mind that we're talking about whether or not giving money to the poor will create a net gain (the benefit of their new opportunity vs. the cost of someone else's lost opportunity). I find the argument "no one knows so let's not force anything on anyone" easier to swallow than the argument "the disincentives created by welfare will cost too much".

[ElliotR]

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From a poster in another thread:

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[$600 billion could have] fed and educated the worlds poor for 7 years... that's fkn heartbreaking

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There are some good minds on this forum so I'd like to pose an open ended question: Is it +EV in the long run to feed and give substantial aid to the world's poor?

I'll give my thoughts later.

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The "V" in EV is for value. Inasmuch as "value" in this context is a vague and very subjective concept, I will say absolutely yes. But that of course is based on my own personal set of values.

[tolbiny]

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His solution is a free market, which I have no problem with. But I have doubts when people claim that a free market will result in a "better" society because this argument is subject to the same pitfall as every other system, namely that you can't determine "better" rigorously.

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The free market is the only option that lets the poor choose the definition of better for themselves.

[tomdemaine]

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His solution is a free market, which I have no problem with. But I have doubts when people claim that a free market will result in a "better" society because this argument is subject to the same pitfall as every other system, namely that you can't determine "better" rigorously.

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The free market is the only option that lets the poor choose the definition of better for themselves.

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QFT! I'm not arrogant enough to think that I know what would make the lives of the poor of the world better. I give to charity mostly because it makes me feel better about myself and somewhat in the hope that it makes others feel better according to their own personal standards.

[XXXNoahXXX]

What about sites like this




Discussed more here in OOT

[tomdemaine]

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What about sites like this




Discussed more here in OOT

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I personally think these are much better than pure charity because they instill a capitalist ethic and encourage a savings and investment mentality which is (I'm pretty sure empirically) the true answer to poverty.

[mosdef]

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His solution is a free market, which I have no problem with. But I have doubts when people claim that a free market will result in a "better" society because this argument is subject to the same pitfall as every other system, namely that you can't determine "better" rigorously.

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The free market is the only option that lets the poor choose the definition of better for themselves.

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Okay, that's great. But it doesn't allow one to (without a leap of faith) conclude that there isn't some sort of "net gain" to redistribution of wealth.

To remind you what I was responding to:

"We should just tear down all the barriers to them improving their own situation. No more subsidies, no more import limits and quotas, no more dumping of surpluses, and the biggie; no more immigration controls! Essentially no more western mercantilist crap would go a long way to helping."

Sure, removing these artificial incentives and disincentives could result in a "net gain". But it is not necessarily so, and I don't believe anyone has the ability to forecast outcomes well enough to make such rigid conclusions, whether they be free market capitalists or socialists. The inability to calculate social value cuts both ways. You can't accuse socialists of being unable to derive the optimal social solution and then turn around and say "by the way, free markets will provide a better solution".

None of this is to suggest that we shouldn't conclude that free markets make more sense. But neither can we appeal to the notion that there exists an optimal solution and free markets will "sort" the wealth towards this optimal solution.

[tomdemaine]

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His solution is a free market, which I have no problem with. But I have doubts when people claim that a free market will result in a "better" society because this argument is subject to the same pitfall as every other system, namely that you can't determine "better" rigorously.

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The free market is the only option that lets the poor choose the definition of better for themselves.

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Okay, that's great. But it doesn't allow one to (without a leap of faith) conclude that there isn't some sort of "net gain" to redistribution of wealth.

To remind you what I was responding to:

"We should just tear down all the barriers to them improving their own situation. No more subsidies, no more import limits and quotas, no more dumping of surpluses, and the biggie; no more immigration controls! Essentially no more western mercantilist crap would go a long way to helping."

Sure, removing these artificial incentives and disincentives could result in a "net gain". But it is not necessarily so, and I don't believe anyone has the ability to forecast outcomes well enough to make such rigid conclusions, whether they be free market capitalists or socialists. The inability to calculate social value cuts both ways. You can't accuse socialists of being unable to derive the optimal social solution and then turn around and say "by the way, free markets will provide a better solution".

None of this is to suggest that we shouldn't conclude that free markets make more sense. But neither can we appeal to the notion that there exists an optimal solution and free markets will "sort" the wealth towards this optimal solution.

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Agreed. If I'd realised my statement would be under such scrutiny I'd have caveatted it a great deal more.

1. It can be logically shown that free trade increases the utility of both parties. It can be empirically shown that the freer the trade the wealthier the general (non-elite) populace. Wealth is a reasonable but not great proxy for utility. Therefore we can reasonably conclude that "the poor" are more likely to do better under a free market system than one of mercantilism by their own standards of better.

2. It can logically be shown that subsidising behavior increases it's likelihood. Handouts to poor people is subsidising poverty. So we can assume logically that handouts will increase poverty. Empirically giving money to a person clearly increases their personal wealth in the short term but there is evidence that a welfare trap exists and that such handouts are strongly correlated with increasing levels of poverty (though proving a causal link is more difficult). Therefore we can conclude (though with less strength to our conclusion) that ceteris paribus handouts to poor people will not result in them doing better even by their own standards of better.

[mosdef]

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Agreed. If I'd realised my statement would be under such scrutiny I'd have caveatted it a great deal more.

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Fair enough. I mean, I don't even disagree with you. I just think that if a socialist made an equivalently sloppy statement on this board he would get swarmed, so what goes around comes around.