Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Isolation: Isolation of individuals is the lack of social connections. See also Community, Society, Individuals. Person, Behavior, Socialization._____________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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Amartya Sen on Isolation - Dictionary of Arguments
Rawls I 267 Isolation/Economy/Public Sector/Public Goods/A. K. Sen/Rawls: Second feature of public goods: Externality. The production of these goods is also at the expense of those who never profit from them. Not all wishes are taken into account. For example, someone who gets vaccinated helps others as well as himself/herself, even if he will never be exposed to this infection. For example, also environmental damage is not normally regulated by the market.In this way, raw materials may be produced at a much lower cost than their marginal social costs. Here, there is a difference between private and social accounting that the market does not register. >Public goods, >Externalities, >Markets, >Environmental damage. In this case, the indivisibility of public goods (e. g. infrastructure, freedoms, etc.) requires the state to take over the regulation in this case. >Infrastructure, >Freedom. Problem: even in a society of fair people, the isolation of individual decisions does not lead to the fulfilment of the general interest. >Interests. I 269 Rawls: the distinction between the problems of isolation and those of insurances is made by Amartya K. Sen. (See A. K. Sen,"Isolation, Assurance and the Social Rate of Discount", Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 81,1967). Isolation: Problems arise here when the result of many individual isolated decisions is worse for everyone, even if each individual decision was completely rational. For example, the prisoner's dilemma: the classic example of this is Hobbes' natural state. (See R. D. Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions, New York, 1957, ch. V, esp pp. 94-102; D. P. Gauthier,"Morality and Advantage", Philosophical Review, vol 76,1967). >Prisoner's Dilemma. I 270 Insurance Problem/A. K. Sen/Rawls: here the goal is to achieve with what unanimity has been achieved. Each contribution of an individual depends on the contributions of others. To this end, we need to introduce a superordinate scheme for the application of penalties and restrictions, which creates a situation that is better for everyone than if this scheme is lacking._____________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. |
EconSen I Amartya Sen Collective Choice and Social Welfare: Expanded Edition London 2017 Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |