Tyler's Superman Question

by Don Boudreaux on June 7, 2006

Tyler Cowen reminds us that the new Superman movie will soon be released. I’m very eager to see it — as is my son, Thomas (who, by the way, celebrates his ninth birthday today).

Tyler asks:

Let’s say we had an altruistic and incorruptible Superman, how should he allocate his efforts to improve the macroeconomy? …. Yes he should save the world from evil madmen, but fighting ordinary crime hardly appears worth his trouble.

A good question and a good point. It reminds me of my favorite scene in Superman I (starring Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando) — a scene that was not released until it showed up in the DVD version of the movie, released in 2000. I blogged on that scene here.

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amosgitai

The only beatuful one was the first. Now productors think only to the money!
Robby

What if Superman made a one-time only, completely unexpected wealth redistribution that left everyone with exactly the same amount of wealth(physical resources, not human capital etc)? If Superman could convince everyone that he would not be doing this again, incentives to work and produce shouldn't change going forward, but the need for government programs would drop drastically.
save_the_rustbelt

I will never go to a movie with an economist.

Even accountants aren't this silly.
Swimmy

Roy Stogner: I imagine a Randian would argue the two are largely the same.
Roy Stogner

A true libertarian would argue that Superman as a free and autonomous individual should spend his time maximising his own welfare.

That sounds like a confused libertarian; perhaps he read too much Ayn Rand. Libertarianism includes the the belief that everyone should *have the right* to act selfishly (within the obvious force/fraud limits); only Randites seem to think that everyone should always use that right.

I am part of society; if I were to argue that Superman should act to maximize his own welfare instead of society's welfare, I would not be acting to maximize *my* own welfare. How persuasive can such a "do as I say, not as I do" argument be?
Swimmy

As for Macroeconomic Superman, the greatest thing he can do to promote the prosperity of the greatest number of the world's citizens is promote globalization in every country.

I guess by beating up its opponents? I don't know.
bbartlog

spend his time maximising his own welfare

An altruistic Superman is presupposed.

I kind of second Kevin's idea, but it's not clear that even Superman can be in enough places at once to maintain a stable anarchy. He might be better off intimidating and/or removing the more oppressive leaders of the world (Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, and so on) in an attempt to improve behavior of repressive governments everywhere. But now I guess I'm thinking of Human Rights Superman and not Macroeconomic Superman.
Kevin

Isn't it obvious what he should do? He should overthrow all the world's governments and create a worldwide ancapistan.
Swimmy

I highly recommend reading the DC Elseworld "Superman: Red Son" which explores a universe in which Superman landed in the Soviet Union rather than the United States. The author intended some of the plot points to criticize the Bush administration but he actually addresses many of the Austrian critiques of socialism.
John

Another reminder of why Cafe Hayek is on my RSS feed.

The previous post you linked to reminded me of something I learned in Econ 101, When you make something free, it becomes more expensive...
Dan Hill

Well a socialist would spend a lot of time worrying about how Superman should spend his time to maximise welfare for "society". A true libertarian would argue that Superman as a free and autonomous individual should spend his time maximising his own welfare. If he gets his kicks out of helping others then fine, but he shouldn't feel an obligation do so.