The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. … equitable dissemination of medical knowledge and its benefits; and government-provided social measures to ensure adequate health. …
Over 1100 characters to make the case for bigger, centralized government controls... why do so many people defer to the judgement of (distant) others?
In point of fact, your statement "Besides, your hand waving that any issues with the marketized fantasy system can be solved by just giving those who fare badly more money to buy goods on the market isn't implementable without a detailed policy plan on how some agents in the system will successfully monitor the needs of those who fare badly" is really the whole sticking point for authoritarian, centrally managed government controls, and for redistributionism policies generally.
It seems to me that the overwhelming complexity of the rulesets used to cobble together a resultant "code" of (behavior, equality, opportunity, etc.) is a barrier to compliance at best, and at least a guarantee of ignorance as to what's actually in the "code"
I think the take away here should be that central government controls (of any kind) are exceedingly difficult to enforce evenly... but politicians like getting re-elected.
Today, we are hearing reports of six (6) individuals losing their life, ostensibly as a result of "vaping." Never mind the fact that they all consumed black market THC cartridges and / or used dabs before getting sick... and never mind the half million (500,000) people who die every year in the USA because of cigarette smoking, "let's ban all flavored vape products to keep young people safe."
But these weren't kids succumbing to deceitful advertising by law abiding companies that sell a heavily FDA regulated product with a kid-friendly flavor... Seems like someone has been biding their time, waiting for any opportunity to earn their Big Tobacco lobbyist money... and although the government controls were in place to prevent such a tragedy, the laws apparently only apply to people who choose to obey them, shocker! There will always be a black market
Seems extreme to call this "everything is monetized". We already have required auto accident liability insurance. Do you see a legalese arms race there? Does that reduce to a direct payment system now? Is it a problem today that drivers now want to appear not likely to cause an accident?
One major problem with this is the information asymmetries. Suppose I feel like I'm coming down wit some disease, its in my interest to switch to the best insurance. This puts up the price of insurance. In the worst case, insurance is something your sold in the ambulance, and is basically a direct payment system, with a middleman. It works the other way too. The best way for an insurance company to make lots of money is to offer a contract that sounds good, but isn't. This produces a legalese arms race, with companies competing to fit the most gotchas into the fine print.
These problems are even worse for criminal law. You probably know if your planning many crimes, or your the sort of person likely to commit them, even more than you know if your likely to get ill.
It gets people caught up in a constant game of appearing on paper like the sort of person who is unlikely to commit crimes. And what happens when someone has no insurance? Presumably, they are punished - otherwise whats the point? But this puts poor people, or people judged to be likely criminals at a very bad bargaining position. Draconian terms are likely in practice.Of course, any system has flaws, and this systems success would depend on the level of inequality.
In a system in which everything is monetized, the fairness of everything depends on fairness of money. Screw up financial fairness badly enough and this system ends with the very rich killing anyone they dislike.
The current food market is still markedly regulated in multiple ways though, e.g. food safety regulation. But more importantly there is epidemic ill health due to overconsumption of foods with an unhealthy nutritional profile. So taking the current food system as a reason for indulging marketization fantasies for other sectors is a complete non-starter.
"This post is about how rights look under different systems, not about the overall value of the different systems."
You failed at that task by interspersing value judgments about the different systems you're talking about.
Besides, your hand waving that any issues with the marketized fantasy system can be solved by just giving those who fare badly more money to buy goods on the market isn't implementable without a detailed policy plan on how some agents in the system will successfully monitor the needs of those who fare badly, hopefully before they're dead rather than after. What is your evidence for thinking that getting that setup right would involve less regulatory and agency work than aiming directly at universal provision of goods?
1. Yes, a disadvantage of bounty hunters is reducing hypocrisy. If you don’t want every case of speeding punished, why not raise the speed limit, or only make repeated blatant speeding illegal? Judges based discretion would remain, why isn’t that enough? 2. Our current system sets fine and jail time parameters, which can also be wildly wrong. 3. Yes, inducing optimal monitoring is an advantage of this.
This is why I read this blog. You have a knack for coming up with truly outside-the-box ideas. Fascinating.
1 - As you've mentioned elsewhere, this would defeat our strong desire for hypocrisy in the law, and so necessitate large changes to what is criminal under law.
That might be a good thing, but would surely be profoundly unpopular. Does the deep hypocrisy in our current system have advantages? Has it evolved for good but poorly-understood reasons? (I have no idea.)
For example, I don't think we really want every case of of speeding or rolling thru a stop sign to be caught and punished. As Harvey Silverglate wrote in https://www.amazon.com/Thre..., under current law most people commit felonies every day. We don't want those things really enforced.
Much of criminal law seems to be there to give prosecutors a large degree of discretion re who to go after - only "bad people", who can always be convicted of something or other.
This system takes away all that discretion.
2 - I haven't given it much thought but "our best estimate of the social harm produced by one more crime event of that type (divided by the chance that it will be caught, plus enforcement costs)" concerns me.
Such estimates are likely to be wildly wrong, both re social harm and re chance of getting caught. (Perhaps not only wrong, but wrong in ways that produce perverse incentives.)
Chance of getting caught might be adjusted later based on experience, but social harm is hard to measure.
Such bad estimates are today tempered by prosecutorial and judicial discretion, which this proposal would remove.
3 - Monitoring can be expensive. There would be some equilibrium between cost of monitoring and cost of the insurance premium.
Today, poor people (who pay little taxes) are subsidized by rich people (who pay a lot of taxes) re the cost of law enforcement. This system would shift enforcement costs to individuals, removing that subsidy, increasing the cost to poor people.
The food market scenario isn't fantasy, it is our status quo here in US and in most rich nations. This post is about how rights look under different systems, not about the overall value of the different systems.
But I did make such claims, in reply to your initial marketization fantasies with regard to food and medicine.
Your "If you are with me so far ..." signals that you think the first sections (food/medicine) can give readers some reason for taking seriously your further marketization fantasies in the following sections. But it doesn't, since universal provision of the goods of food and health (not only money to buy such goods) is preferable.
The elephant in the brain here is that your particular brain is an extreme outlier in its degree of preference for market processes. In reality, where most brains aren't wired like yours, empirical evidence show that markets work better in some cases but not others and always with heavy regulation.
I chuckled
Over 1100 characters to make the case for bigger, centralized government controls... why do so many people defer to the judgement of (distant) others?
In point of fact, your statement "Besides, your hand waving that any issues with the marketized fantasy system can be solved by just giving those who fare badly more money to buy goods on the market isn't implementable without a detailed policy plan on how some agents in the system will successfully monitor the needs of those who fare badly" is really the whole sticking point for authoritarian, centrally managed government controls, and for redistributionism policies generally.
It seems to me that the overwhelming complexity of the rulesets used to cobble together a resultant "code" of (behavior, equality, opportunity, etc.) is a barrier to compliance at best, and at least a guarantee of ignorance as to what's actually in the "code"
I think the take away here should be that central government controls (of any kind) are exceedingly difficult to enforce evenly... but politicians like getting re-elected.
Today, we are hearing reports of six (6) individuals losing their life, ostensibly as a result of "vaping." Never mind the fact that they all consumed black market THC cartridges and / or used dabs before getting sick... and never mind the half million (500,000) people who die every year in the USA because of cigarette smoking, "let's ban all flavored vape products to keep young people safe."
But these weren't kids succumbing to deceitful advertising by law abiding companies that sell a heavily FDA regulated product with a kid-friendly flavor... Seems like someone has been biding their time, waiting for any opportunity to earn their Big Tobacco lobbyist money... and although the government controls were in place to prevent such a tragedy, the laws apparently only apply to people who choose to obey them, shocker! There will always be a black market
I dig your thought process, very interesting!
But considering the highly regulated nature of automobile insurance, is it such a good example to use?
Or am I creeping up on your actual goal (with which I agree) of de-centralization in general?
I just added to this post.
Well said. I like your vision.
Seems extreme to call this "everything is monetized". We already have required auto accident liability insurance. Do you see a legalese arms race there? Does that reduce to a direct payment system now? Is it a problem today that drivers now want to appear not likely to cause an accident?
One major problem with this is the information asymmetries. Suppose I feel like I'm coming down wit some disease, its in my interest to switch to the best insurance. This puts up the price of insurance. In the worst case, insurance is something your sold in the ambulance, and is basically a direct payment system, with a middleman. It works the other way too. The best way for an insurance company to make lots of money is to offer a contract that sounds good, but isn't. This produces a legalese arms race, with companies competing to fit the most gotchas into the fine print.
These problems are even worse for criminal law. You probably know if your planning many crimes, or your the sort of person likely to commit them, even more than you know if your likely to get ill.
It gets people caught up in a constant game of appearing on paper like the sort of person who is unlikely to commit crimes. And what happens when someone has no insurance? Presumably, they are punished - otherwise whats the point? But this puts poor people, or people judged to be likely criminals at a very bad bargaining position. Draconian terms are likely in practice.Of course, any system has flaws, and this systems success would depend on the level of inequality.
In a system in which everything is monetized, the fairness of everything depends on fairness of money. Screw up financial fairness badly enough and this system ends with the very rich killing anyone they dislike.
E for effort.
The current food market is still markedly regulated in multiple ways though, e.g. food safety regulation. But more importantly there is epidemic ill health due to overconsumption of foods with an unhealthy nutritional profile. So taking the current food system as a reason for indulging marketization fantasies for other sectors is a complete non-starter.
"This post is about how rights look under different systems, not about the overall value of the different systems."
You failed at that task by interspersing value judgments about the different systems you're talking about.
Besides, your hand waving that any issues with the marketized fantasy system can be solved by just giving those who fare badly more money to buy goods on the market isn't implementable without a detailed policy plan on how some agents in the system will successfully monitor the needs of those who fare badly, hopefully before they're dead rather than after. What is your evidence for thinking that getting that setup right would involve less regulatory and agency work than aiming directly at universal provision of goods?
Any differential impact on the poor can be compensated for by a change in overall redistribution.
Fortified hardtack for all?
What about Dave's final paragraph regarding impact on the poor (relative to current system)?
1. Yes, a disadvantage of bounty hunters is reducing hypocrisy. If you don’t want every case of speeding punished, why not raise the speed limit, or only make repeated blatant speeding illegal? Judges based discretion would remain, why isn’t that enough? 2. Our current system sets fine and jail time parameters, which can also be wildly wrong. 3. Yes, inducing optimal monitoring is an advantage of this.
This is why I read this blog. You have a knack for coming up with truly outside-the-box ideas. Fascinating.
1 - As you've mentioned elsewhere, this would defeat our strong desire for hypocrisy in the law, and so necessitate large changes to what is criminal under law.
That might be a good thing, but would surely be profoundly unpopular. Does the deep hypocrisy in our current system have advantages? Has it evolved for good but poorly-understood reasons? (I have no idea.)
For example, I don't think we really want every case of of speeding or rolling thru a stop sign to be caught and punished. As Harvey Silverglate wrote in https://www.amazon.com/Thre..., under current law most people commit felonies every day. We don't want those things really enforced.
Much of criminal law seems to be there to give prosecutors a large degree of discretion re who to go after - only "bad people", who can always be convicted of something or other.
This system takes away all that discretion.
2 - I haven't given it much thought but "our best estimate of the social harm produced by one more crime event of that type (divided by the chance that it will be caught, plus enforcement costs)" concerns me.
Such estimates are likely to be wildly wrong, both re social harm and re chance of getting caught. (Perhaps not only wrong, but wrong in ways that produce perverse incentives.)
Chance of getting caught might be adjusted later based on experience, but social harm is hard to measure.
Such bad estimates are today tempered by prosecutorial and judicial discretion, which this proposal would remove.
3 - Monitoring can be expensive. There would be some equilibrium between cost of monitoring and cost of the insurance premium.
Today, poor people (who pay little taxes) are subsidized by rich people (who pay a lot of taxes) re the cost of law enforcement. This system would shift enforcement costs to individuals, removing that subsidy, increasing the cost to poor people.
The food market scenario isn't fantasy, it is our status quo here in US and in most rich nations. This post is about how rights look under different systems, not about the overall value of the different systems.
But I did make such claims, in reply to your initial marketization fantasies with regard to food and medicine.
Your "If you are with me so far ..." signals that you think the first sections (food/medicine) can give readers some reason for taking seriously your further marketization fantasies in the following sections. But it doesn't, since universal provision of the goods of food and health (not only money to buy such goods) is preferable.
The elephant in the brain here is that your particular brain is an extreme outlier in its degree of preference for market processes. In reality, where most brains aren't wired like yours, empirical evidence show that markets work better in some cases but not others and always with heavy regulation.