In general, if people are able to get more done in a day, would this give an advantage to the makers or the takers? I don’t have a general principle which gives an obvious answer.
By advantage, do you mean subtracting their benefits from each other, to see who benefits more? Or do you think it might be a case where one group is actually made worse off, and another group made better off?
I don’t think the benefits are measured in the same denomination, and so it’s somewhat difficult to subtract them (which agrees with you not having a general principle to give a clear answer). Would more politics get done with more hours in the day? Perhaps. More trading? Certainly. With the whole world more productive, there will certainly be more to skim off the top- but what percentage do the takers take? In aggregate terms, it looks like the makers win more, but in per capita terms, it looks like the takers win more. But that’s just looking at income distribution- who gets more of the positive externalities? Here, the per capita seems only slightly better for the takers, and the aggregate far better for the makers.
In general, if people are able to get more done in a day, would this give an advantage to the makers or the takers? I don’t have a general principle which gives an obvious answer.
By advantage, do you mean subtracting their benefits from each other, to see who benefits more? Or do you think it might be a case where one group is actually made worse off, and another group made better off?
I was thinking about subtracting their benefits from each other.
More hours in a day and more focused attention might have been able to give the financial industry even more ability to cause havoc.
I don’t think the benefits are measured in the same denomination, and so it’s somewhat difficult to subtract them (which agrees with you not having a general principle to give a clear answer). Would more politics get done with more hours in the day? Perhaps. More trading? Certainly. With the whole world more productive, there will certainly be more to skim off the top- but what percentage do the takers take? In aggregate terms, it looks like the makers win more, but in per capita terms, it looks like the takers win more. But that’s just looking at income distribution- who gets more of the positive externalities? Here, the per capita seems only slightly better for the takers, and the aggregate far better for the makers.