Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Social welfare: Social welfare in economics refers to the overall well-being and quality of life of a society, often measured by factors like income, health, education, and equality. It evaluates how resources and policies affect societal outcomes and aims to maximize the collective benefit, often guiding public policy and redistribution efforts. See also Welfare economics._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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James M. Buchanan on Social Welfare - Dictionary of Arguments
Boudreaux I 35 Social welfare/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: If costs are subjective and borne only by individuals, it is not possible to aggregate costs and benefits across individuals in order to come up with some measure of social welfare, or to objectively identify “the” public interest. >Cost/Buchanan. Experts cannot truly “scientifically” discover welfare-maximizing policies. Buchanan was interested in identifying ways of aggregating individual preferences to make collective choices that enhance the individual welfare of those who make the choices. Public policies, in his view, should be the result of collective choices made by individuals affected by those policies, rather than by policy experts. >Individuals/Buchanan, >Decision-making process/Buchanan. Boudreaux I 54 Social welfare/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: (…) Buchanan’s individualistic approach emphasizes that there is no such thing as the welfare of a group beyond the welfare of the individuals who compose the group. >Individuals/Buchanan, >Economic Ethics/Buchanan, >Welfare economics. To say that something improves the welfare of a group can mean nothing more than that it improves the welfare of at least some members of that group without reducing the welfare of any other members of that group. >Group behavior/Buchanan. Social welfare is a faulty collectivist concept. Welfare applies to individuals, not to groups. Value and utility are subjective concepts, (...) so there is no way to compare the well-being of some individuals against the well-being of others. It would be illegitimate to say that if some public policy benefits person A more than it harms person B, the policy is in the public interest. The utility of A cannot be compared to the utility of B, so policies that harm some for the benefit of others cannot be said to be in the public interest. This idea motivates Buchanan’s ideas on politics and constitutional rules,(…) >Constitution/Buchanan, >Utility/Buchanan._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
EconBuchan I James M. Buchanan Politics as Public Choice Carmel, IN 2000 Boudreaux I Donald J. Boudreaux Randall G. Holcombe The Essential James Buchanan Vancouver: The Fraser Institute 2021 Boudreaux II Donald J. Boudreaux The Essential Hayek Vancouver: Fraser Institute 2014 |
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