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The New Anti-Capitalist Party? More utilitarian, you die!

Sometimes I look at Canal Plus in my spare time, more out of nostalgia for the blessed period 80 years where there were interesting things about this chain. Besides, we were not so many to look at the time, and in those 80's I still thought that I would later become the master Tanguy and did not think the economy other than the yawning chronic tedious jean-marc Sylvester, watch this channel was the mark of those "trendy" ...

[ What I do not hear you think, reader, that the modest author of this blog is more than Laverdure Tanguy. Anyway, I always prefer to Buck Danny Tanguy and Laverdure. Anyway, hard to the time for a small Burgundian to identify with a driver at Uncle Sam, while the squadron is based in Dijon storks. ]

.. Digression aside, then, at the Grand Journal de Canal Plus I happen to follow, I discovered the horse factor in French politics (we will see that this bold metaphor is not totally free), Olivier Besancenot, to who are asked to give its opinion on the recent cases of pay for various political figures on missions whose interest is not obvious a priori.

[ Do not count me say, reader, it is the mission paid handsomely Christine Boutin on the challenges of globalization ]

Here, this brave Oliver throws all go to the front of the camera one of NPA's main proposals: the remuneration of elected officers must be fixed according to the average income of the French population., currently 1800 euros.

[ I heard him say it live, but have not managed to find this proposal on the website of the NPA, particularly leafy must say. But I found there . If, reader, you find a more direct source and more explicit let me know! This will allow me at least to illustrate my lectures on the theory of social choice ... ]

I found this amusing proposal personally, if we adopt again the spectacle of the economist, and frankly in the end quite inconsistent with the political end that seems to be that of NPA to for which I have any kind of animosity I might add. However, as Audiard said, "must not take the children of god for wild ducks."
Indeed, what can match this proposal from a economic standpoint? Beyond the basic idea that politicians are like everyone else and should be paid like everyone else, make such a proposal certainly implies, among other things, we think that politicians have somehow an obligation of result. Indeed, if they do not improve the material situation of the population, their situation will not improve. You tell me that I read the proposal of the NPA in a manner that does not happen to be, and can be is this the case, but I have to be pragmatic and push the mind of a such as these to evaluate their ultimate consequences consequences.

Base changes in the level of elected officials on the welfare of the average population is a very specific vision of what economists call the social welfare function. In fact, without going further in larger theoretical debates or ethical be based on the average income is rather curious point of view of a party with a principle I think is equal situations or equal Opportunities at the very least, any person who has minimal bases of statistics can understand it without any problem. In fact, I guess I have two individuals and one has an income of 0 € and the other from 4000 €, while average income is 2,000 euros, assuming that the two individuals have the same weight in the social welfare point of view of the election. He then personally earns 2000 euros. If a tax of some kind (such as "niche"), it increased the income of the richest to 5000 euros a month, while his own salary increases to 500 euros, since the average income is 2500 euros. Basically, he has no particular incentive to increase the income of the poorest people in society.

Keynes said in the general theory that "The are men of action who think themselves perfectly freed from doctrinal influences are usually the slaves of some past economist, "and the current position of the NPA is a brilliant demonstration. The scheme proposes that remuneration of elected amounts de facto to give elected officials, the policy maker generally , a social welfare function that has a very specific form. This concept of social welfare function, given there are over 70 years by Bergson in 1938 and elaborated by Samuelson in 1947, must obey certain principles basic, in fact quite intuitifs.La social welfare function tells how a decision maker concerned public interest General takes into account the personal position of all individuals in society, that is to say how he relies on the individual utilities to determine the level of social welfare. (See this wikipedia article pretty much done) Many different designs of this function are possible (see this very good post here ), and this post only scratches a theoretical debate that is still being fed.

In particular, the social welfare function is called utilitarian or utilitarian or Benthamite (named Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher of the second half of the 18th century who founded the utilitarian doctrine that an individual "Always act so that it results in the greatest amount of happiness") if it takes the specific form given by the same Bentham, namely:

"The interest Then Of The community is - what? The Sum of The Interest Of The Who SEVERAL members composed it. " (Cited by Mueller (2003), Public Choice.

Clearly, social welfare is the sum of well-being of individuals in society. Obviously, with constant population, sum and average are indeed different concepts but the same results. The average income is the sum of earnings divided by a value n that it will be assumed constant, which represents the size of the population, that we increase the income of 1000 euros to the richest in my example above above means that we increase the total income of 1000 euros and it is good for society. From the standpoint of fairness, this way of thinking is rather special, since it implies a state of wealth distribution in which Robinson has everything and has nothing Friday is equivalent for the policy maker to a state of wealth distribution in which they are distributed equally to Friday and Robinson. In the chart below shows an indifference curve (that is to say a constant level of social utility for all possible levels of the usefulness of the two individuals in the society) for the decision maker public as part of this conception of social welfare:

It is quite surprising as a way of seeing things from the NPA. I rather naively expected that, even being revolutionaries, they suggest that elected officials are paid based on the minimum income of individuals in French society, a function given by the philosopher John Rawls Theory of Justice in 1974:

In this conception of social welfare, the level of well being is defined by the minimum utilities of all individuals in society, as Rawls justifies the famous "veil ignorance ", and not by any vision extremely charitable distribution income. Or aware of the difficulty of such a program, the NPA activists could offer a vision of social welfare at the Bernoulli-Nash social utility is e product of individual utilities:

The potential value of such a design is that, if Friday is not (its value is zero), then social welfare is zero, even if Robinson is infinitely rich. In addition, over the utilities of individuals are, the more the product is high.

I confess that I burst out laughing at the idea that Olivier Besancenot, probably without ie, invokes Jeremy Bentham as a companion to a hypothetical grand march toward a society in which capitalism would be a distant memory. From my perspective, it's like if Schwarzenegger justified his choice of career in film evoking the work of Eric Rohmer ...

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"Yes Man" or the temptation of commitment

It seems that in blogging, it is fashionable to talk, at least a little. So, yes, reader, I confess, I am a hopeless fan of Jim Carrey ... Sorry, reader, if I disappoint you, but I want an authentic comic genius, without hesitation to the height of Jerry Lewis.

Being a fan of his performance in Saturday Night Live, or his imitation of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park to the Oscar ceremony in the presence of Steven Spielberg - memorable scene well-known, but almost all his films (yes, even "Dumb and Dumber" and "Ace Ventura" ...) ...

[ At that point, outraged readers think this is too much - No! Still, not Ace Ventura! - and zap on the blog much classier Olivier Bouba-Olga and friends of Mafeco ]

... I was saying before being interrupted by the thread of my own thoughts, that, being a fan of most of its films, I discovered with delight one of his latest opus, which in my humble opinion One of the best long, "Yes Man."
The pitch in two sentences. Jim is in this film, a sorry fellow who has no taste for life. Whenever any proposal is made for him out of his chronic boredom, he responds negatively, inventing excuses any more deceptive than each other .. So, abandoning his friends and he slowly sinks into chronic depression. He meets then a guru who preaches the gospel, the key to happiness is for him to say "yes" to life, that is to say to agree with all the opportunities that fate offers. To witness by the guru, embodied mischievously by the great Terence Stamp, Jim then agrees to become a "yes man" before the entire community of visionaries who follow this rule of life. Of course, while the spring comedy film comes from the consequences of the multiple proposals that Jim receives and to which he responds eternally "yes".
In fact, it's an interesting movie to illustrate the issue of free will and personal commitment. What got me interested in another time is that, from the standpoint of economic rationality standard (outside of any social preference), once again, the remarks do not hold a second. It is indeed absurd to renounce the possibility to select and optimize for each choice situation. Is it as ridiculous as that?

[ A reader like me already pointed out that most comedies would like to situations or choices that are aberrant, and therefore it is a priori easy to tap into the cinema, to speak of irrationality in conduct, I challenge you: Is there a comedy that relies entirely on the consequences of rational behavior obsequiously in the sense economists? Personally, I do not see, but there may be something to dig for writers in search of inspiration. ]

One interpretation that I'm the film is that, faced with the temptation that Jim has always said no to all proposals, which is the easiest solution for him in the short term, he forced by the moral contract to help do anything but to accept. Again, we are in a problem of procrastination I have frequently mentioned in this blog. We are all aware of the strategies we use to avoid procrastination. One thing to be aware, it is one thing to observe in the laboratory. And then, the empirical evidences are scarce. To my knowledge, apart from the study of Ariely & Wertenbroch in 2001 and that of Trope & Fisbach, there was not much. Furthermore, their studies were not laboratory experiments, which does not diminish their interest, but leads to questions about the degree of control variables involved in the quasi-experimental situations they implement. Regarding the quasi-experiment by Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch they indeed explain to students that require a duty to succeed in their review they have the opportunity to enter a date of record, knowing that 'They should have made anyway duty before a certain deadline (which corresponds to the end of the academic year). The principle is that if the student chooses a date rendering itself, it is contractual, that is to say that if he does not need to date it has committed, no consideration. On purely rational person should commit to a date prior to rendering the final official date, and all students should reach their effort as late as possible to make their duty simply to record the date of the later.

To their surprise, a large proportion of students committed on dates earlier than the date maximum possible, which, again, is absurd if one assumes that the individual is a rational agent. Trope & Fischbach observe basically the same thing. Subjects which have to perform a medical examination involving unpleasant but abstinence in terms absorption of glucose, is a concession with respect to a prior commitment can take a number of days resulting in a monetary cost of their choosing. A significant proportion of subjects required when significant monetary penalties.

Number of theoretical constructs have been proposed to explain and "rationalize" these phenomena, O'Donogue and Rabin in 1993, Benabou & Tirole 2000, or Gul & Pesendorefer in 2001 and more recently Fudenberg & ; Levine in 2006. In the latter case, the personality of the agent is dual (hence the name dual self model), the agent who somehow two rationales, one short-term that drives him to yield to the temptation, the other long-term enjoins respect a certain intertemporal optimization level. Most of these models, apart from that of Gul & Pesendorfer, imply time inconsistency of choice, which is unfortunate from the standpoint of rationality assumed in economics, which usually raises more comprehensive welfare (mentioned briefly in this previous post).

From the perspective of experience laboratory, this type of observation is rather difficult to achieve. Experience typically lasting at most a couple of hours, how to put participants in situations where any temptation prevents them from maximizing their choice and to accumulate the greatest possible gain? It is this difficulty that I managed to circumvent by Houser, Schunk, Xiaoli & Winter, 2010 " temptation and Commitment in the Lab " in a very recent study . Subjects must perform tasks rather tiresome, these tasks allowing them to accumulate earnings and are being offered the ability to stop to go surfing as they wish on the Internet. The fact of giving in to temptation and go surfing, however, is irrevocable, the participant is not able to return earn points (and therefore dollars) in a repeat of tasks. The subjects can then embark on a number of tasks to be performed, this possibility being no imposed. Failure to carry out their commitment is costly in the experiment, the failure to comply with the resulting negative points that reduces the gain resulting from the accumulation of tasks. A

of the most surprising is that approximately 20% of the subjects committed while the cost of the undertaking is positive. In a recent study that Bonein Aurélie and I have just begun, we get more or less the same conclusion, very surprising from my point of view. 20 to 30% of participants committed to achieve a given number of tasks, some being ready to sacrifice all of their earnings in the event of non compliance with their commitment, and by adopting this contract far from easy to achieve. The main justification for returning most often in the writings of subjects is that they wanted to win and get motivated the most money. I admit that the arms are literally fell me when we found it!

[ player, one thing is to think and speculate that something is possible in terms of behavior, this thing is not rational, but quite another to observe live in a lab, I can tell you that this record quite a adrenaline rush! ]

Therefore, the apparently ludicrous behavior of the "yes man" played by Jim Carrey, this behavior is based on the premise of the film as highly unlikely a priori, very expensive, is far to be a marginal behavior. We are all more or less ready to commit ourselves to control our visceral influences that make us deviate from the path we traced ourselves.