What I call nanny state is rewarding someone undeservedly. No doubt you'll ask me how much is "deserved" and who decides that.
Precisely.
You can of course relativize anything,
Relativise? That is not a matter of relativising. It is a straightforward political question. Hayek thought that "fair" meant that the state did not interfere in anything at all, except to protect property rights. Roosevelt thought it "fair" to ensure that nobody suffers starvation, at least.
You keep saying "fair" as if "fairness" were a physical property of a system. It is not - it is an ideological construct that you have to justify.
I don't subscribe to any particular system of values,
Ah, but you do. You use the term "fair," which is a statement of value. And you use it with tolerable consistency. So obviously, you do subscribe to a system of values. That you refuse to examine that system consciously is neither here nor there.
and I didn't say your "ideology" is evil. What interests, motivates me is truth, fairness and justice.
And with the exception of certain kinds of truth - mostly, but not exclusively, originating in the natural sciences - all three are subject to political and ideological debate.
As to Scandinavia, many things work in 4 million people countries that don't in Germany or France. These two countries are actually a better study case than most might think.
That would be 25 million people, if you include Finland.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Concerning the word "fair", as well as other key words used by "pundits" to "predict" people's political reactions and interests. This is part of a bigger debate that would well deserve a diary in itself: the issue of the political correctness. If there is something I profoundly dislike, that must be it. When I speak of fair, I resent the word being given ideological value, and me along with it, be that in the direction of Hayek, or in that of Roosevelt. When I speak of "liberal", I mean classical liberalism, and I resent the way that term is understood in both France and the US today (the fact that the two variations are exactly opposite is quite nice proof that I am right on this :) ). When I speak of utilitarian, I don't necessarily mean the political current. In general I tend to be interested and stick to the dictionary "value" of a word, and I assure you that is not all due to being someone for whom all languages around are foreign languages. I find it hard to accept that you did not detect the sense the word "fair" bore in my posts, and if analysing all the possible political ramifications might be confusing, you can see it as "function of the contribution". The best solution for pensions could be made up by a safety (and I mean safety) cushion provided by the state, the same for all, even those who from various reasons didn't work enough - or at all; a bigger part determined by every one's mandatory personal contribution to the pension system; an optional part made up by contribution to strictly regulated (as in non speculative, highly secure) private pension systems. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Well the signification of "deserved" could be determined by negotiation - peaceful negotiation, not necessarily from enemy positions, but like between parties with different interests.
That is all well and fine, but a moment ago you were simply asserting a certain definition of "deserve," when you said that flat-rate pensions are "nanny-statist" because they are giving somebody rewards that he does not "deserve."
You explicitly refused to enter into a discussion - a negotiation, if you will - of what the term "deserve" means in this context, calling such a discussion "relativising."
When I speak of fair, I resent the word being given ideological value,
In other words, your sense of fairness is derived from the Gut. That's one way of doing it, but it's not a very convincing one.
When I speak of "liberal", I mean classical liberalism, and I resent the way that term is understood in both France and the US today
Noted.
I find it hard to accept that you did not detect the sense the word "fair" bore in my posts, and if analysing all the possible political ramifications might be confusing, you can see it as "function of the contribution".
Contribution in what units? Currently, contribution is defined in units of money. But since remuneration is hardly proportional to contribution - by whichever reasonable metric you can apply, be it value added or sweat, blood and tears expended - the monetary "contribution" is meaningless, except as an indicator of who is politically favoured in society.
The best solution for pensions could be made up by a safety (and I mean safety) cushion provided by the state, the same for all, even those who from various reasons didn't work enough - or at all; a bigger part determined by every one's mandatory personal contribution to the pension system; an optional part made up by contribution to strictly regulated (as in non speculative, highly secure) private pension systems.
Why should a worker at a steel mill who spends seven hours a day, five days a week, forty-seven weeks a year, for forty years making steel get less payout in pension than a stock broker who sits in an air-conditioned office and issues call loans to speculators? The latter is paid much more than the former, despite producing a service of rather disputable value, with rather less physical exertion.
How is that fair?
fair, in what regards pensions, is proportional with the contributions, and you didn't make a case for the contrary.
Oh, but I did: The contribution is measured in a most unfair way. It is like saying that the "fair" criterion for who wins the marathon is "who is first across the finish" - when one dude just ran once around the nearest block, and the other dude ran the whole route.
Now, if you want to argue that it would break the French economy, due to some peculiarity in the French system (or culture) that creates conflicts not present in Scandinavian countries, then I'll leave you to hash that out with Jerome and Cyrille, because I don't know enough about France to pass (informed) comment.
But that is not the case you were making.
one might wonder as to the incentive people would have to work and provide for their own subsistence and the society as a whole.
One might, indeed.
Until, that is, one remembers that in order to cash in on a pension, people have to actually survive to retirement age.
There can be people that can deserve a bigger pension than the state level and I don't feel like denying them the right.
If people wish to save more for their retirement, nothing prevents them from buying German sovereign debt (what they should not be entitled to is a fifty percent tax break for doing so, but that's another story...).
If they buy anything more risky than that, however, they should not come crying for a handout when it blows up in their face.
