(no subject)
If you give hockey players a choice, most of them won’t wear a helmet. A helmet interferes with their play a little bit, and they will choose to do what they can to maximize their chances of winning the game.
If, however, you give hockey players a vote, most of them will vote to make helmets mandatory. They know that if everyone wears helmets then no one has a no-helmet advantage over anyone else, and everyone has a bit smaller chance of getting paralyzed or dying.
I just finished reading a really interesting book called Darwin’s Economy, by the economist Robert Frank. As just about everyone knows, Adam Smith talked about the ways that competition can make the world better for everyone. As fewer people know, Adam Smith also acknowledged that competition does not always make the world better for everyone. Drawing on Darwin’s insights about competition for rank and status, Frank explores the second type of competition.
No matter how good we all get, not everyone can win the hockey game - or send their kids to the best schools. Indeed, whenever we are competing for rank or status, not for something everyone can theoretically achieve, there are systematic dangers that our individual choices will lead us to a situation that we don’t actually want, but we can’t change the system individually. So we spend more and more on housing, because expensive houses get our kids into the best schools, while under-investing in the mundane things that keep our economy ticking and prevent fatal accidents - such as bridge repairs.
Frank’s primary intended audience is rational libertarians - people who agree with John Stuart Mill’s dictum that individual freedom should not be limited unless the lack of limitation causes undue harm to others. His goal is to take seriously libertarian ideas and develop a theory of government regulation and taxation that fits libertarian principles. His bigger goal is to help solve our country’s seemingly intractable economic, environmental, and political challenges. I recommend this book!
If, however, you give hockey players a vote, most of them will vote to make helmets mandatory. They know that if everyone wears helmets then no one has a no-helmet advantage over anyone else, and everyone has a bit smaller chance of getting paralyzed or dying.
I just finished reading a really interesting book called Darwin’s Economy, by the economist Robert Frank. As just about everyone knows, Adam Smith talked about the ways that competition can make the world better for everyone. As fewer people know, Adam Smith also acknowledged that competition does not always make the world better for everyone. Drawing on Darwin’s insights about competition for rank and status, Frank explores the second type of competition.
No matter how good we all get, not everyone can win the hockey game - or send their kids to the best schools. Indeed, whenever we are competing for rank or status, not for something everyone can theoretically achieve, there are systematic dangers that our individual choices will lead us to a situation that we don’t actually want, but we can’t change the system individually. So we spend more and more on housing, because expensive houses get our kids into the best schools, while under-investing in the mundane things that keep our economy ticking and prevent fatal accidents - such as bridge repairs.
Frank’s primary intended audience is rational libertarians - people who agree with John Stuart Mill’s dictum that individual freedom should not be limited unless the lack of limitation causes undue harm to others. His goal is to take seriously libertarian ideas and develop a theory of government regulation and taxation that fits libertarian principles. His bigger goal is to help solve our country’s seemingly intractable economic, environmental, and political challenges. I recommend this book!