Comment by lolcraft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lolcraft | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I can guess from where this sort of, seeing the market as a moralistic play, comes from. Macroeconomics can, via some stretching of the perfect-markets hypothesis, be transformed into this almost-Calvinist cosmology, where the virtuous labourers will be blessed with an eventual retirement, and the sinful free-loaders will be punished with the sin of contentment. I guess you worked hard all your life, too. It's the classic "I think I made it without help so fuck everyone else", plus some missionary fervour, Saint Theresa style: "don't give them free stuff! They must earn it or else they won't see the light!".

First, nobody can pull ten million jobs from their ass. Like, what the fuck do you propose they work on? Should we hire ten or twenty Indians to make us sandwiches that we won't eat? To farm more food that nobody will eat? There's simply not enough demand for labour today. If those people that were starving today were instead fairly rich, and could buy something, yeah, sure, there would be more demand for that labour that could create that something.

Second, we are talking about, like, giving them food. It's not like the developed world sat and decided to give each beggar a Mercedes. Apparently you think barely feeding them for a while will turn them into lazy asses without no ambitions such as, I don't know, an apartment, a car, a 40" TV screen and two or three kids. Maybe so. I don't see how it follows.

Regardless of whether you want to make the market as free as possible, or whether you want as many people to be as well-fed as possible, the long-run solution is the same for both [1]. The more the market is allowed to work, the better off people will be, and the more food they will be able to buy. Welfare systems offer a temporary solution at the expense of long-term growth, and so are overall negatives to making sure as many people can be as well-fed as possible. Importantly, efforts to artificially solve the high unemployment rates will similarly just increase poverty.

This reasoning is separate from the effects of welfare dependence. While they are also important considerations, they are hardly the only ones. The core consideration is as above: there exists a fundamental problem in the market, and throwing money at those most affected by it doesn't solve it, but instead just prolongs it and distributes the issue to those whose money is being thrown. In the long run, things get worse. India's growth is not helped by its programs, but hindered by them; its growth and its poverty levels would be better, not worse, without the programs.

So basically, there's no part of any of the calculus that involves ethics or anything. It's purely that we find, scientifically, that if you want the most people to be the most well-fed, market policies and low/no subsidies are the way to go. See: the Washington Consensus point 2 [2].

[1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4449397

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus#Original_s...

While that's all true, sometimes you have to accept some drag on growth to get from here to there. Market solutions take some time to settle out, and people who are hungry today aren't going to wait. Revolutions are a problem when you're trying to construct efficient markets, so as long as the growth arrow is going in the right direction it's probably wise to leave these kinds of programs in place. Presumably as the Indian economy modernizes they can be phased out.

This is a good point, but a contrasting point is that people who are hungry today aren't going to wait until tomorrow to get a job. It is incredibly valuable to be able to cut the benefits, so any cuts that can be made should be taken. Revolutions would happen if a dramatic change came about, such as the welfare programs disappearing overnight; but by market logic, the poor would not riot for welfare if the welfare had never existed, giving them no expectation of it, and giving them a lower likelihood of being poor in the first place. Chances are very high that these programs will never be phased out, and likely never cut in size over time--in the long term, welfare expands to fill the gap of how much the rest of society can afford to comfortably pay. But if they could be phased out, say over a 10, 15, or 20 year period, my judgement is that it could be sociologically workable. That is to say, if there is a level at which people switch from not rioting to rioting when their benefits are cut, you just cut near that level continually until you're close enough to find creative ways to stop sending checks altogether without them noticing.

India was a socialist country from independence, so that expectation has been there already for generations. I agree the best thing to do is phase out the benefits when you can. The trick is actually doing it.

I think there's plenty of evidence that free food does more harm than good in the long run, outside of emergency situations that couldn't reasonably be planned for. In the long run millions of beggars wouldn't have been born in the first place if free food hadn't been available. (That's not to say that beggars are always caused by free food.) Humans aren't much different than ducks in this regard.

> In the long run millions of beggars wouldn't have been born in the first place if free food hadn't been available.

You're right, of course, because their parents would have starved to death.

A civilised society does not allow its citizens to die of starvation. In the long run of course it would be preferable to not have to give out free food, but until there's a viable alternative, that's what a civilised country does.

Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed. The parents wouldn't have starved because, without too many kids, they weren't overly dividing the available food.

I think a civilized society should hold parents responsible for their own kids, outside of true emergencies.

Sounds great! Except all too many parents are incapable of being responsible for their own kids, either out of apathy or economic inability.

So when you do that, a perfectly well-meaning but stretched family might decide to, say, live in a house with heavy lead contamination. Which, aside from the heavily detrimental effect on the kids, has very large externalities, as children who have been exposed to lead in high concentrations are much more likely to become criminals.

This assumes there are no consequences for such parents. Add strong enough consequences (e.g. loss of freedom) to deter others. A "well-meaning but stretched family" is more likely a set of parents who didn't responsibly plan their family. If that's the case the parents should be punished. (In the US, even the poorest parents can be punished for exposing their kids to lead.)

If we make parenting a birthright (as many people support, esp. for the poorest for some reason), mass starvation is the inevitable result.

[edited] OK - I've gone through your comment history, and can see that you would rather people starved to death than give them food, so I'm not sure there's any point in wasting each other's time in continuing this.

It's an excellent question to bring up, though. You note that a civilized society gives people food if they absolutely need it. Do we then want to be a civilized society?

The core assumption is that it is morally correct to distribute value from the taxpayer base into the hands of those whose lives depend on it. In essence, the many are forced to save the few. This force is measured in terms of the amount of money redistributed; if it costs €10 a month to provide basic food to those who need it, and there are 10 taxpayers for every 1 person who qualifies for welfare, the institution manifests as all people in the country being required to pay €1 per month to contribute 10% of saving a person.

So the core question is, then, what is the moral justification for this force? In what way are people obligated to help their neighbors, such that society has moral grounds to force them to help their neighbors if they don't want to?

The real story is, I'd rather less people starve to death than more people starve to death. Mass starvation is the inevitable result of giving the masses free food.

If you feed ducks you get more ducks, until eventually you can't feed them all.

> Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed.

While this would be nice in an ideal world, your analysis severely underestimates just how strong the desire to have sex is, and vastly overestimates the ability of someone without education, money, or healthcare to access reliable means of birth control.

Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution?

In the long run, the enablers and the dysfunctional are equally guilty for destroying the overall society.

At some point, you have to expect members of a society to meet some minimum behavioral requirements in order to be allowed the benefits of that membership.

> Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution?

It seems for most people the answer is a firm yes. They can't think beyond the short run positive (e.g. free food keeps child alive) to see the overwhelming long run negative (e.g. millions die when free food can't be sustained). When you point out the long run negative you usually get a blank stare or a downvote.

I think you might be overlooking the fact that aid does have a long term goal. It's not simply about feeding someone in the short term -- it's to help the impoverished fulfill their most basic needs so that they can go to school, get educated, get a job, and earn a living. If you haven't eaten in three days, you're not going to be in school, you're going to be on the street begging.

As part of a super holistic solution, aid could work, especially when a big chunk is birth control and gov't corruption / dictators are addressed. But today's solutions lead to even greater problems.

Search for: Former World Bank economist, Dambisa Moyo argues that the current approach isn't working. In her book, "Dead Aid", she says it has proved to be an "unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster".

Yeah, aid to Africa has proven to be just that. Sub-Saharan Africa has been booming in the last decade at least in part because NGOs have lost interest.

>Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution?

It's funny that some people are fervent believers in Darwinian evolution and at the same time they think an organisms desire to propagate its genetic information is somehow dysfunctional. It's like they disavow the divine yet they can't let go of the idea of divine teleology. I'm not saying creationists are right, I'm just saying that they are ideologically more consistent than most Darwinian evolutionists.

At some point you have to acknowledge that a substantial portion of your population is in the bottom 10% of the IQ distribution. Holding them to behavioral requirements isn't going to really change their behavior.

> At some point you have to acknowledge that a substantial portion of your population is in the bottom 10% of the IQ distribution.

Say what? How can 10% of the distribution be a "substantial portion"? Ten percent is ... ten percent. For a normal statistical distribution, 10% of the IQ distribution is normally 10% of the population as a whole. To see why, ask yourself what percentage of the population is at or below the 50% IQ level. Then, having pictured that, ask yourself how 10% of the population could represent "a substantial portion" without contradicting what's just been demonstrated.

Your remark reminds me of the special conditions in fictional Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

I don't buy that argument. I think the consequences of having kids one can't feed can be strong enough even in poor countries, to prevent the conception of those kids. Basic forms of birth control should be free (that's way better than providing free food). The least educated, poorest people can understand their usage.

I'm not saying poverty, hunger, and overpopulation aren't problems that can't be solved, but I do think they're more complicated than you propose.

In India, healthcare workers have had trouble convincing villagers to accept free vaccines for diseases like polio because of rumors (with some loose history behind them) that the government is actually trying to sterilize the poor.

Culturally, discussing sex is a very big taboo.

Even in a "first world country" such as the United States, politicians regularly block the availability of contraception on shaky religious grounds.

In the city Mumbai alone, it's estimated that the number of people living in slums could be as high as several million.

People in slums may see having children as a way to increase their potential income (kids can work too), or intake from begging, or as a way to ensure that someone will take care of them in their old age.

Given these issues, how would you roll out a program to provide condoms to the slum dwellers in Mumbai alone, and how do you convince them that they should not have children?

Great points! Yes the problems are complicated.

I'm against giving aid that isn't part of a super holistic temporary (even if decades) solution that could conceivably work. Today's solutions have mostly failed; they've made the problems worse.

The Indian villagers may be justified in being wary of the vaccine, because the Indian gov't is highly corrupt. So the holistic solution should deal with the corruption too. If that's too hard to do it may be better to do nothing. The same is true with the larger cultural issues.

I do believe the problems are intractable in many countries. We don't have enough resources to solve them. (Esp. since the US is perhaps the poorest country when our national debt and unfunded liabilities is considered.) So, rather than make the problems worse with nonviable attempts, I think it's best to do nothing and let Nature sort it out.

It is part of a holistic effort. So worry not.

-------

The point of humanity is to control our destiny and not be left to the vagaries of nature.

Do note : it was assumed that people were on the same page about certain things and they need not be discussed.

For example: so far this discussion has never considered the reasons which lead to the poverty in the first place.

Since you are in disagreement, with the soundness of humanitarian goals, the scope of the discussion changes, quite dramatically.

Does india get redressal for the food and raw materials stolen during British rule?

Do we get repatriation for people sold into slavery?

Can we launch counter attacks on countries which benefited from this? Do we have a claim on GDP output from the UK/France and Portugal?

Your theory of least misery is under the utilitarian school of jurisprudence. It's limits are the same. It fails for situations where actions are unjust but create beneficial outcomes for the majority.

-----------

What you are inherently arguing for is using your comparative advantages and somehow letting a portion of people die of starvation, Intentionally.

That is heinous. It is not intellectually sound or risqué, it is "let them eat cake", just couched in other terms.

------

You haven't consider the complexities on the ground and have in general hand waved them away. That's being rhetorically empty. Your last comment was that the problems are intractable.

No the problems are hard. Extremely extremely hard.

But thats what entrepreneurship is about - finding the solution to hard problems.

This really isn't true. My dad has spent a big %-age of his life working on family planning in the third world. It's a tremendous challenge getting people to use birth control, even in places without effective food aid.

Everything I've read says it's indeed a tremendous challenge, mainly for religious/cultural reasons. (They don't want to use birth control, and/or they want lots of kids even if they can't support them.) That's why the solution must include consequences for the parents who have children they can't support, like loss of freedom. If the consequences can't be enacted (e.g. it would take war to enact them) it may be best to do nothing and let Nature sort it out. I haven't read of family planning efforts in the third world (as aid from the first world) including such consequences.

Again, that's theory.

We had a population explosion while we were racked by famines and deaths through starvation.

What you are mixing up is first world and third world economics.

In the third world, children are seen as units of labor, and not as units where time, training and money has to be sunk.

There are other reasons for the pop boom, but im hitting only the relevant one.

When the first world gives the third world free food, it enables them to see their children as units of labor, which leads to even greater numbers of deaths to famine when (inevitably) not enough free food can be given.

Nope, incorrect.

You are muddling up causation correlation and misinformation here.

Firstly in 3 world economies,skilled labor is a minor section of total available work. Most of the work is manual labor, or artisan ship.

There is simple rational actor logic that makes the correct conclusion that more children means more security.

Add in strong family bonds, a focus on ensuring a male child to carry on your legacy and you have the basis for a pop boom.

All developing economies see children as units of labor. The argument that giving aid is somehow an enabling action is, well,,somewhat funny.

Here is the logic : high infant mortality, low comtraception availability, no family planning, lack of access to loans, children as force multipliers, the need for a male son, male children's obligation to take care of their parents in their old age make the calculus pretty simple.

It's been a while since I read the research on it, but it's there on the web. Search for population dynamics and developing/third world economies I guess.

What I've read says that almost everywhere in the poor areas of the third world, basic birth control is easily available and free, and even the poorest most uneducated know how it works. They just won't use it, for the religious/cultural reasons you noted. If you give them food for free without conditions it just enables them to do what they're already doing, making the problems worse.

I'm drinking coffee right now. If someone gives me a dollar without conditions it does enable me to drink coffee, and anything else I choose to do.

You forget that in a poor country, children are not a luxury, but a retirement policy. There certainly isn't going to be any social security for a poor Indian woman, so what does she do? Have four or five children, and hope that one of them survives and does well enough to provide for her when she's older. A food shortage means more babies, not fewer.

If that poor Indian woman sits in prison as a consequence for having kids just to make herself a living, she may not end up with as many children and others may be deterred from following her example. A food shortage needn't mean more babies then. That may seem harsh but the alternative is worse: when you extend your example to its inevitable conclusion there will be millions of Indians dying young, when the amount of free food can no longer grow along with the exponentially growing population.

In the long run, having so called "Jokers" i.e. people that cause havoc in a given system is a net positive (think murders, con artist, psychopaths). Law still tries to stop them.

OTOH in the very long run, people from India are likely to emigrate and provide cheap labor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com