Imagine I offer you a coupon for “CHOCOLATE – 25% off!” and you respond…
You fail to consider that chocolate is fattening! Also, it can kill dogs. And it’s linked to acne. Furthermore, many people are diabetic. And lots of people are too poor to buy chocolate even if it’s 50% off. I also have to tell you that chocolate melts. Sometimes it makes your hands sticky. And when you’re hands are covered with melted chocolate, you might get ugly stains on your clothes. And dry cleaning costs money.
I trust you’ll agree that this is a bizarre reaction to a chocolate coupon. Reasonable people will save their breath and do one of the following:
a. Take the coupon, buy as much chocolate as they originally planned, and enjoy the extra consumer surplus.
b. Take the coupon, buy more chocolate than they originally planned, and enjoy the extra consumer surplus.
c. Discard the coupon.
But after my Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids argued that parents could safely curtail many of the unpleasant features of child-rearing, critics often responded…
You fail to consider that kids cost money! Also, pregnancy is sometimes dangerous. And moms have to do most of the work. Lots of people just don’t find parenting appealing. Many people can’t afford to have any more kids. And it’s hard to travel if you have kids. Also, kids nowadays aren’t much help with the chores, like they were back when we were farmers. And once you’re kids start going to school, they’ll probably bring home some contagious diseases.
While the critics naturally think they’re making telling points against my thesis, they’re not. All I’m offering is a coupon for kids – a way to get the same kids with less pain and expense. So even if all the critics’ “objections” are true, reasonable people will save their breath and do one of the following:
a. Take the coupon, have as many kids as they originally planned, and enjoy the extra consumer surplus.
b. Take the coupon, have more kids than they originally planned, and enjoy the extra consumer surplus.
c. Discard the coupon.
The story changes, admittedly, if the complaints were not just true, but weighty and surprising. If I offered you a chocolate coupon, and you accurately responded, “Haven’t you heard that chocolate is the sole cause of cancer?!,” then I should definitely reconsider my marketing campaign. Analogously, if I offered you a kids coupon, and you accurately responded, “Haven’t you heard that kids are the sole cause of cancer?!,” then I should definitely reconsider my natalist cheerleading.
Otherwise, however, save your breath. You can’t credibly counter a coupon with a long list of familiar drawbacks of the discounted product.
READER COMMENTS
Phil H
Oct 16 2019 at 12:04pm
The disanalogy is: People offer chocolate coupons when they are in fact selling chocolate. You are not selling children. What you are doing is making a public policy (not government policy, just the policy of the public) recommendation. In that context it is quite reasonable to respond with public policy counter arguments.
That said, I broadly agree with the thrust of the book.
greenlander
Oct 16 2019 at 5:23pm
I’m don’t often comment here, but I’m often impressed with the commentary. This is an excellent comment and one I would have never thought of on my own.
Mark Z
Oct 16 2019 at 11:37pm
But the issues raised aren’t made any more significant in absolute terms by the veracity of Bryan’s argument. The argument he’s hypothesizing against his thesis seems to imply a belief that people are either 1) currently underweighting the significance of these other factors, and that he’s doing the equivalent of informing alcoholics of the health benefits of antioxidants in wine; or 2) how many kids people have is (reasonably) based almost entirely on other factors, so his arguments shouldn’t/won’t really increase how many kids they have; but in this case I think his point stands, people should still take the coupon, only if true it may mean he should retitle his book “selfish reasons to have the same number of kids and invest less effort in parenting.”
Phil H
Oct 18 2019 at 10:45am
Greenlander – I agree, this is one of the very few places on the internet where it’s worth reading below the line. It takes hard work for them to (a) attract the right people, and (b) moderate lightly but effectively, so it’s another reason to be impressed by the quality of this site.
Mark – Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to argue with Caplan’s point that most criticism of his book is utterly pointless. But I’m a guy commenting on a website, so I don’t feel like I’m in a position to point fingers at other people’s pointless spouting off!
Chip Smith
Oct 16 2019 at 4:08pm
This is fine insofar as the coupon applies to kids who are already alive (i.e., to adopting kids). The weighty (but actually not so surprising) objection to the same coupon when applied to the biological creation of new children is that the children on offer have no way of consenting to their creation (and therefore do not consent) and, once alive, are doomed to die, which is horrible.
Thomas Sewell
Oct 16 2019 at 9:51pm
So to extend your comment, you personally would prefer to have never been born?
Chip Smith
Oct 17 2019 at 1:47pm
That’s correct, but I don’t think my personal attitude is relevant to the underlying problem. Creating a human being is profoundly presumptuous and imposes serious and inevitable harms on the person created (including the harm of death). Bryan thinks this is a ridiculous view, and most people agree with him. I’m mentioning it in response to his coupon analogy because it constitutes a weighty objection that some people may have not considered.
Fierro
Oct 19 2019 at 5:07am
Bryan has responded (kind of) to these criticisms, see “A Cursory Rejection of Anti-Natalism.” (https://stageeconlib.wpengine.com/archives/2011/12/a_cursory_rejec.html)
nobody.really
Oct 16 2019 at 6:09pm
d. Take the coupon because they’ve run out of rolling paper. But then, after they get the munchies, they’ll start looking everywhere, checking their pockets, ‘cuz they’re SURE they had a chocolate coupon at one time, and it’s got to be SOMEPLACE….
Hadn’t heard that one. But I had heard that mental illness is heritable–parents get it from their kids.
Quite Likely
Oct 18 2019 at 11:28am
I think people are just engaging on the level of “you should have more kids vs. you should have fewer kids.” They see your argument for having more and bust out their arguments for having fewer.
Comments are closed.