A year ago I posted on Robert Frank’s status-externality policy arguments (here, here, here). I accepted the basic idea, but feared selective application: Will folks like Frank consistently apply these results to recommend taxes or subsidies to reduce wasteful positional effort, wherever such waste may lie, or will they selectively cite only results favoring pre-existing political positions?
"every country on the planet has decided"Is that really the case? I thought the Gulf oil states were full of rich people who don't work supported by masses of guest-workers (basically indentured servants on a mass scale) with no rights. Perhaps he meant "every democracy has decided".
Is it the welfare state that keeps society stable, or is it the standard of living that pays for the welfare state that is more important?
Either way, the interesting thing about welfare, including health and education spending, is that most of it involves churning - robbing Peter to pay Peter, not Paul. The idea of large scale transfers from rich to poor is part of our romantic mythology, but not so much of economic reality.
In any society, money, like power, goes to those with the greatest political pull, not the most needy. The poor are not strong politically, therefore most government spending goes to the middle and upper classes, contrary to the idealizations of people like Frank.
"every country on the planet has decided"Is that really the case? I thought the Gulf oil states were full of rich people who don't work supported by masses of guest-workers (basically indentured servants on a mass scale) with no rights. Perhaps he meant "every democracy has decided".
Is it the welfare state that keeps society stable, or is it the standard of living that pays for the welfare state that is more important?
Either way, the interesting thing about welfare, including health and education spending, is that most of it involves churning - robbing Peter to pay Peter, not Paul. The idea of large scale transfers from rich to poor is part of our romantic mythology, but not so much of economic reality.
In any society, money, like power, goes to those with the greatest political pull, not the most needy. The poor are not strong politically, therefore most government spending goes to the middle and upper classes, contrary to the idealizations of people like Frank.