Post #2469573

A nice example of the failure of utilitarianism as a practical tool is the Kalder-Hicks welfare criterion. It holds that a policy change is a social improvement if those who gain could, in principle, fully compensate those who lose and still be better off. What’s missing is that those who gain almost never do that. It’s sort of telling that policy makers made policy assuming they would. (I believe this was known in the Clintonite/Blairite ‘90s as “grow, gain, give.”) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaldor%E2%80%93Hicks_efficiency