Poverty Who To Blame forthcoming 2021 or so

Poverty: Who To Blame (forthcoming 2021 or so) Prof. Bryan Caplan George Mason University www. bcaplan. com

The Book to Be • Straddles moral philosophy and social science. • Moral philosophy: – Flesh out a plausible moral theory of blame. – Apply this moral theory to poverty – especially absolute poverty. • Why focus on absolute poverty? Think Jean Valjean. • Social science: – Figure out how much of global poverty can be properly blamed on anyone. – The major blameworthy causes of poverty: • Bad economic policy in the Third World. • Bad immigration policy in the First World. • Irresponsible behavior everywhere.

The Blame Game • Suppose A has a problem. Who is to blame? • Rather than get bogged down in moral philosophy*, I’ll just tell you my answers. – In daily life, they’re probably your answers, too, despite tension with grand moral and political theories. • If A’s problem is literally unavoidable, no one is to blame for it. • If there are reasonable steps A could take – or could have taken – to avoid the problem, A is to blame for his own problem. • If A could have avoided his problem by taking reasonable steps, but B refused to leave A alone to take such steps, then B is to blame for A’s problem. • If B had nothing to do with A’s problem but could solve it at a reasonable cost, B’s probably still not to blame for A’s problem. – Supererogation and the Good Samaritan. * If you’re curious and we have time, see “Moral Philosophy in One Slide. ”

The Problem of Poverty • Almost a billion human beings still live in dire poverty, below $1. 25/day. • The absolutely poor don’t just have fewer goodies. They face hunger, homelessness, and early death. • Thanks to hedonic adaptation, they aren’t as miserable as you’d think, but absolute poverty is an awful problem. • Absolute poverty is so far from our daily experience that we need memes to remind us how silly our First World Problems are.

First World Problems

The Blame Game and Poverty • Who if anyone’s to blame for the problem of poverty? • In pre-modern world, right answer was often “no one” because dire poverty is mankind’s natural state. • Today, in contrast, First World seems an existence proof that reasonable steps to avoid absolute poverty exist. • Top steps, according to my provisional research: • Step #1: Third World governments should end bad economic policies, especially against multinational business. • Step #2: First World governments should end bad immigration policies, especially against low-skilled guest workers. • Step #3: The poor themselves should avoid irresponsible behavior.

Bad Economic Policy in the Third World, I • Economic policy is a choice, not a law of nature. Third World governments have long chosen badly. – Old-school socialism, Expropriation, Autarchy • Economic freedom in Third World remains very low, and very low economic freedom strongly predicts poverty and low growth.

Bad Economic Policy in the Third World, II • In two 1995 papers, Sachs and Warner find avoiding a short, clear list of awful economic policies (socialism, expropriation, autarchy) is a sufficient condition for solid long-run economic growth. – “[There is not a single country in our sample (which covers 117 countries and approximately 90 percent of the world's population as of 1985) which pursued appropriate policies during 1970 -89 and yet which had per capita growth of less than 1. 2 percent per year, and not a single qualifying developing country (<$4, 000 per capita) which grew at less than 2 percent per year!” • Later research on managerial quality finds: – – Large benefits of common-sense “best practices. ” Government firms are very poorly managed. The poorer the country, the worse the management. EXCEPT: multi-nationals – the very firms developing countries treat with suspicion, if not outright hostility.

Bloom and Van Reenen, “Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries? ” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2010.

Bad Immigration Policy In the First World • All First World countries heavily restrict low-skilled immigration. • Standard estimates say open borders would DOUBLE world production. – This massive increase in production (“Trillion Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk”) would swamp distributional effects. • Holding skill constant, this drastically reduces Third World workers’ income, often by factor of 10 or more. • The logic: Imagine 1 M farmers stuck in Antarctica. What would happen if they were allowed to relocate? – Antarcticans are better off – and so is everyone who eats! • Fear of sudden swamping misses how free market “regulates” migration. – How does NYC keep 30 M Americans from moving in? • Diaspora dynamics reinforces this; see Puerto Rico.

Irresponsible Behavior Everywhere • Philanthropists traditionally distinguished between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. – N. B. : “Deserving poor” aren’t morally to blame for their poverty; “undeserving poor” are. • • While this rhetoric has fallen out of favor, we still believe it. When someone pleads for your help, you naturally want to know why they need your help. This fits naturally into my framework. If there are reasonable steps A could take – or could have taken – to avoid poverty, A is part of the “undeserving poor. ” Otherwise, the deserving poor. Reasonable steps like: – Work full-time, even if the best job you can get isn’t fun. – Spend your money on food and shelter before cigarettes and cable t. v. – Use contraception if you can’t afford a child. • In rich countries, following these steps lets able-bodied adults reliably avoid absolute poverty. – Average janitor + maid income>>poverty line; 96 th percentile of world income distribution. • In poor countries, responsible behavior at least makes absolute poverty much less likely. – Global poor spend around 5% of income on alcohol and tobacco, and 10% on festivals. (Banerjee and Duflo 2007; see also Collins et. al, Portfolios of the Poor) – Journalistic accounts.

Blame Matters • • On a micro-level, almost everyone thinks blame morally matters. Homer Simpson parody: “We could sit around all day arguing about…” – – • • Who showed up for work. Who cheated on who. Who drank how much. Who crashed whose car. At the macro-level, though, the high-status view is: Blame doesn’t matter, just the effectiveness of solutions. My core premise: blame matters. Blames affects… – What counts as a “social problem. ” – Who’s morally obliged to change their behavior. – Why should be shamed for failing to change their behavior. • • Is blame really “doesn’t matter, ” why is the blame game so acrimonious? Even thinkers who officially oppose blaming people for bad behavior normally continue to blame at least one lifestyle. Krugman: – “Nobody -- not William Julius Wilson, not Larry Mishel, not yours truly -- denies that the bad effects of reduced opportunity would be much less if people always did what was in their best long-term interests. But people often don't, which is why loss of economic opportunity can be socially as well as economically destructive. That's not crude materialism, it's saying that people are human. ” (2012) – “Maybe I actually am right, and maybe the other side actually does contain a remarkable number of knaves and fools. ” (2013)

Moral Philosophy in One Slide • • Moral realism – the view that some moral claims are true – is my starting point. Many smart people officially deny moral realism, but their arguments prove too much. Ex: – “People disagree about morality. ” – “Moral views are influenced by culture. ” – “Moral views aren’t empirically testable. ” • • Many other smart people accept precisely ONE totally implausible moral truth: Utilitarianism, the view that everyone should always do whatever maximizes aggregate happiness. Utilitarianism also proves too much. Ex: – Everyone with more resources than he needs to keep working is morally obliged to give 100% of his surplus income away to needier strangers. – If you can secretly, painlessly murder a homeless person to harvest his organs to save two people, you are morally obliged to murder him. • • Every grand moral theory suffers from similarly compelling counterexamples. The alternative? Build moral theory from simple cases where right and wrong are obvious. (“Micro-ethics. ”)