Experts Make the Urgent Case: ‘Child Care is a Public Good’
Childcare is rivalrous and excludable. Therefore it’s not a public good. QED.
Yes, this is important. Because something being a public good is a perfectly acceptable – not necessarily correct, but an acceptable starting point – starting point for a demand that it be tax financed. And if something isn’t a public good then that argument fails, doesn’t it?
It might even be a public service that you wish to see tax financed – it’s still not a public good.
It’s understandable that people would wish the government to provide them with servants to care for their children. No doubt the servants own children would be cared for as well??
Why stop at child care, have you seen the price plumbers charge? It would be good if you lot paid more tax so I can get a cheaper plumber.
“Experts” = Those advocating for a payout.
“I want it.
I don’t want to pay for it.
I don’t care who does have to pay for it, just so long as it isn’t me!”
That was a party political broadcast on behalf of every one of them.
It has a different marginal social benefit than private benefit which might, might, justify investment in childcare but it is not certain.
Eg If we can get a CEO out of doing nappies this might result in an increase in general economic activity. Slightly less so with the shop assistant.
The best argument for childcare is that it encourages larger families which might result in stopping demographic collapse (see Peter Zeihan) which is why Sweden is better placed than Germany in lots of ways.
Sweden 1.66, Germany 1.53. Not much in it. And a very decent portion of Sweden’s is because the foreign born pop is higher. Which isn;t, quite and wholly, the thing being talked about.
Genuine question – the economics blurb talks of quasi-public goods, which are sort of a halfway house. Might childcare apply? There’s a definite advantage to having folks economically active, consuming and being taxed, instead of staying at home with babby.
Yes – there are opportunity costs of the care labour consumed – but also there are utility gains for each individual involved which is the very point of it all…
I don’t know – genuine question.
Quasi-public goods is politics wearing its clown mask. Who decides the advantage?
Unfortunately, “public good” is a term in economics with a specific technical meaning. Many people are confused by this and take it to mean what it means outside that narrow field, which is something which is good for the public. This is why it is so much better for technical terms to be invented words or otherwise distinguished from potential confusing alternative meanings.
If the person getting out of nappy changing by hiring a minder is a CEO, she/xer/xit can afford the minder themselves.
People outside of a specialty tend to grab hold of specialty terms of art based on what the words sound like they mean, without realizing that the term of art has a (frequently) non-intuitive meaning. It’s more of a label than an encompassing set of words.
All you can do is shake your head and try to explain.
English has a problem with words
A good is not necessarily good
A right is not necessarily right
A fast is not always fast.
Nouns are not necessarily adjectives
Most abused of course is carer & caring. As in the “caring professions” who largely don’t give a monkey’s
“This is why it is so much better for technical terms to be invented words or otherwise distinguished from potential confusing alternative meanings.”
Yep, came into the comments to post the same thing but Charles nailed it.
Can’t economists think of a better term for non-rivalrous non-excludable goods? Sometimes jargon really is better than” plain English”.
Of course, the classic example disclosing a layman’s incomprehension of an economist is the frequently encounted claim that: some of these countries don’t have a comparative advantage in anything.
Sorry Alan but,
the classic example disclosing a layman’s incomprehension of an economist is….
Richard Murphy (who frequently misunderstands public goods)
its an example of government overreach. One of many examples! The justifications becoming more and more bizarre. And the continuing erosion of democracy, sold out to “experts”.