Democratic government exists partly to override citizens’ own consumer impatience

Evidence

The rateoftime preference is thought to be an appropriate policy device because it can be found, as a descriptive matter, in the behavior of individuals. That is, currently living individuals seem to prefer present consumption to future consumption at some empirically identifi able rate, and thus analysts assume that a similar degree of impatience should be applied to the intertemporal allocation of consumption between generations. In this context, however, the lens of methodological individualism leads to confusion, most obviously through the uncritical assumption that the observed impatience of individual members of the present generation should govern the consumption opportunities left available to future generations. If we truly aim to maximize individuals’ actual preferences, then some moredeliberate attempt to predict and understand the rate of time preference of other generations is required. Moreover, by taking revealed preference as the exclusive standard for welfare analysis, the analyst fails to acknowledge that a traditional, and often quite pop u lar, role of demo cratic government has been precisely to counteract the infl uence of consumer impatience. Our citizen selves frequently support policies that tie the hands of our consumer selves, such as through forced retirement savings or prohibitions on the advertisement of harmful goods. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 408

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘citizen selves vs. consumer selves’ split is a promising framing for an essay on how supposedly value-neutral welfare analysis ignores government’s legitimate hand-tying role.
• XREF: Weighs into the Legal Systems course thread on law as a restraint on present impulse in service of collective values; echoes obligation-to-future-generations ideas in Rawls/Ackerman. — connects to: Liberalism presumes abundant resources that make hard intergenerational choices avoidable — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 394; Violations of consumer expectations can spark democratic revolution — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1595; Consumer society bred depoliticization even as welfare states strengthened democracy — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 27 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Consumer society bred depoliticization even as welfare states strengthened democracy #responds-to (0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 27
• Independent central banks originated as a way to dodge democratic pressure. #exemplifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 374
• Violations of consumer expectations can spark democratic revolution #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1595
• Austerity treats citizens’ consumption as the cause of inflation to justify repressing demand #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 349
• Allegiance to democratic institutions rests on practices forming citizens, not rational justification #expands (0.72) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 432
• The Trilateral Commission blamed inflation on democracy’s own dynamics #corroborates (0.72) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 136
• Public choice theory frames democracy’s vote-seeking as inherently inflationary and chaotic #complicates (0.70) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 418