Free Exchange notes a paper that suggest people are too few kids
This is related to a though experiment I am developing called “Citizen X” Citizen X is our ideal positive externality. He gives and gives to society but takes the least possible amount in return.
What does Citizen X look like?
A few things we know. Citizen X lives in the Northeast Corridor where the marginal per person cost of infrastructure is low. I am guessing that he doesn’t own a car given that gas taxes are less than the cost of road maintenance. He might ride the bus but I doubt he ever takes the subway.
He definitely smokes and definitely drinks, a lot. The heavy taxes on those goods pays lots of taxes into the system and the negative health effects shorten Citizen X’s life span, which as we see is crucial. He gambles in high tax Atlantic City and of course plays the lottery everyday.
Citizen X almost certainly didn’t go to college. If he did, he worked his way through private school and somehow forgot to apply for financial aid. Indeed, its possible that Citizen X didn’t even graduate high school. I’d be interested to see the numbers on this.
However, he is extremely clever. He is likely an entrepreneur of some sort. We could hypothesis that he’s a genius programmer who created some web-related break through but I think that’s taking the thought experiment to far. Ideally, I want Citizen X to “replicable.” That is, his extraordinary ratio of giving to taking didn’t occur by chance but because of predicable life patterns.
Citizen X never votes.
I don’t know if he is married or not but it would seem that he has quite a few kids – bringing into existence both new taxpayers and new little Citizen X’s, who are unlikely to take from the public pot.
He works a lot and stays away from public places when they are most likely to be in use.
He started working early in life and works right up until his 65th birthday, when he drops dead from a single large myocardial infarction. Probably all that smoking and drinking along with his generally poor genes.
He never collects a single Social Security check and never signs up for Medicare. He is actuarially perfect.
Does any of this description miss the mark and whatelse might we be able to say about Citizen X?
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Monday ~ January 25th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
jsalvatier
Surely this is wrong. Citizen X eats mostly beans and rice, lives with a roommate, and donates 75% of his income through GiveWell (or perhaps SIAI) so as to achieve the highest possible social good with his effort.
Wednesday ~ January 27th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
TGGP
I think we should be tailoring our immigration policies to recruit more Citizen Xs. Of course, a Citizen X beginning at age Y is different from a Citizen X from birth. If he has benefited from subsidies paid for by another country in the past, all the better for us.
Wednesday ~ January 27th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
The forgotten, perhaps non-existent man « Entitled to an Opinion
[...] should just be reading Modeled Behavior. Karl Smith asks us to imagine the ideal citizen, “Citizen X“, who maximally produces positive externalities without imposing costs on others. We might [...]
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 12:21 am
flenser
“Does any of this description miss the mark and what else might we be able to say about Citizen X?”
For one thing, he does exist.
What is more, he is unlikely to ever exist. In the real world, people who live in the North-East corridor and make a good living doing web programming are reliably left-wing in their politics.
This negates whatever advantages he offers by being a net plus on the treasury in his own economic life.
You don’t mention his politics at all, but that’s the persistent weakness of all efforts to analyze man as a purely economic “externality”.
Like unicorns, externalities do not exist.
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 12:38 am
teageegeepea
The traits chosen are not supposed to be likely correlated with other traits, but effective by themselves. So Citizen X was already declared to be a non-voter. There are lots of non-voters (I’m an example), so that trait doesn’t seem implausible.
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 1:12 am
flenser
I realize that the intent was to create some hypothetical perfect Citizen X who “gives and gives to society but takes the least possible amount in return”.
But I don’t think the Citizen X described is a realistic one, one ever likely to be encountered in the real word in significant numbers.
America used to be populated by a majority of Citizen X types, so it’s not difficult to determine their characteristics. They should live in small towns or rural areas. They should be socially conservative and probably religious. They should have strong attachments to their immediate family and to the people in their local community. They’ll be proud of their independence and distrustful of government intrusions on it. They’ll have a good dose of what were once called “the Protestant work ethic” and “bourgeoise values”. They’ll be embarrassed by the thought of drawing public assistance and will look down on people who do so.
Such people will contribute less on average to the state than the North-East web programmer, but they’ll take far less in the long run.
And of course, citizens fill roles which are vastly more consequential than mere economic donors to the state. In those other roles, my Citizens X beat yours hands down.
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 12:24 am
flenser
“For one thing, he does exist.”
should have been “does NOT exist”.
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 1:21 am
flenser
There’s a word for a person who “gives and gives to society but takes the least possible amount in return” and who is not a voter. But “citizen” is not it. By definition a “citizen” is a person involved in the civic life of his community.
What’s being sought here sounds a lot closer to “employee” or “indentured servant” or even “slave”. But it’s not a citizen.
Thursday ~ January 28th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Adam Ozimek
Shouldn’t we rather want Citizen X to vote, but to vote for the correct policies?