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Examines the factors that facilitate the transformation from ordered anarchy to state. Discussion begins with a defense of the author's (1985) concept of the state as a unitary actor centered on its drive to maximize its discretionary power. Attention is given to social contract theory & the state's emergence via contractual means; the idea of the "rule-making rule" that seems a self-imposed constraint on the state, the paradoxes that this generates, & the need to be skeptical of the logic of a rule of rule making; the shrinkage of freedoms, eg, via taxation; & the surrender of a state's discretionary power resulting from the competition between political rivals. In this light, it is concluded that individuals surrender freedom inadvertently & bow to collective choice, while the state, despite the logic of trying to maximize discretionary power, will also inadvertently surrender this power, achieving only its own survival to no one's satisfaction. References. D. Edelman

AbstractThe Human Development Index (HDI) is widely used as a measure of well‐being. We examine the allocations implied by the maximization of this index using a standard growth model. Maximization leads to consumption (excluding education and health expenditures) being pushed to minimal levels. It also leads to the overaccumulation of education and/or health capital and possibly physical capital, relative to the standard golden rule. We propose an alternative specification for the HDI, where consumption replaces income as a proxy for decent standard of living. Maximization of this alternative implies a 'human development golden rule' which balances consumption, education and health expenditure. We advocate the method of optimization subject to constraints for revealing the policy implications of taking an achievement measure and its underlying philosophy seriously.

In this paper we compare the orthodox optimal tariff formula with the appropriate welfare–maximizing tariff when there are a few producing or importing firms. The welfare–maximizing tariff can be very low, voire negative in some cases, while in others it can even exceed the maximum–revenue tariff. The relationship between the welfare–maximizing tariff and the number of firms need not be monotonically increasing, because the tariff is not strictly used to internalize terms of trade externality. It is also used to manipulate cost asymmetries between producing and importing firms. Welfare–maximizing specific tariffs are never worse than their ad valorem counterparts. JEL Classification F13, L13 Tarif qui maximise le bien être et tarif qui maximise le revenu quand on est en présence de peu de firmes. Nous comparons le tarif optimal orthodoxe au tarif maximisant le bien être lorsqu'il y a peu de firmes productrices ou importatrices. Le tarif qui maximise le bien être est parfois très bas, même négatif, mais il peut excéder le tarif qui maximise le revenu dans d'autres cas. La relation entre le tarif et le nombre de firmes n'est pas nécessairement monotone parce que le tarif n'est pas strictement utilisé pour améliorer les termes d'échange. Il est aussi utilisé pour manipuler les asymétries dans les coûts des firmes productrices et importatrices. Le tarif spécifique n'est jamais dominé par le tarif ad valorem.

AbstractIn this paper, football clubs are modeled as value‐maximizing enterprises. With a long‐term perspective in this framework, players are not only factors of production, but also assets of the club. It is shown that talent investment is higher with value‐maximization than with profit maximization for homogeneous football clubs. Club heterogeneity is then modeled by different time‐horizons regarding future profits, which leads to asymmetric levels of talent investment. Teams with longer time‐horizons demand more talent and tilt the competition to their favor. Increases in transfer prices for players worsen the competitive balance, while higher player wages improve it.

Joe Carlsmith asks: is it possible you should maximize helium?  Robust realism per se places no constraints on what the normative truths might end up being.  So, in particular, there's no guarantee that what we objectively ought to do would hold any appeal whatsoever to us, even on ideal reflection -- the objective requirements could be anything!  (Or so you might assume.)But I think that's not quite right.  Metaphysically, of course, the fundamental normative truths are non-contingent, so they could not really be anything other than what they in fact are. Epistemically, the fundamental normative truths are a priori (if knowable at all), so it's not clear that erroneous views are "possible" in any deep sense.  A somewhat wider range of views may be "possible" in the superficial sense that we don't currently know them to be false, but unless you're a normative skeptic, we can currently know that pain is bad and that maximizing helium is not the ultimate good.It's an interesting question how we can have any normative knowledge at all. (I offer my answer here.) But given that we can, it's important not to lose sight of this fact when thinking about the implications of non-naturalism.  For while the "non-natural" status of normative properties does not constrain their application, it doesn't follow that they really could apply to just anything (either metaphysically or epistemically).Compare two very different bases for the confident rejection of helium-maximization:(1) Normative internalism rules out the possibility of a mismatch between normative truth and the attitudes we'd hold on procedurally ideal reflection.  So on purely formal grounds, we can be confident that what we objectively ought to do cannot be something (like maximizing helium) that would never appeal to us.(2) Normative externalists must instead appeal to substantive normative claims, such as the datum that well-being matters (non-instrumentally) and helium does not.I think the substantive explanation is the better one. After all, it seems an open possibility that some fool might actually want nothing more than to maximize helium (even on ideal reflection), so to maintain that they would be mistaken we need to leave room for possible mismatches between subjective appeal and objective normativity.  Furthermore, in addressing the question why helium-maximizing would be so misguided, I think the answer, "because people are what really matter!" is better than "because there's no way I would ever care about helium so much!" The real problem with helium-maximizing is substantive, not merely formal, so it's entirely appropriate that our response to it should lie on this (first-order rather than metaethical) level.So, while (externalist) non-naturalists view deep alienation as a live possibility in general, they need not regard it as a possibility that's compatible with their current attitudes, if they're able to know that their current attitudes are actually (at least roughly) right.  We may thus be confident that normative reality will not completely baffle us (while allowing that it might baffle others).But, importantly, it may still surprise us in a weaker sense.  Consider: I may give some credence to a view (e.g. prioritarianism) that strikes me as somewhat reasonable, even while I am near-certain that I would not myself believe the view even upon ideal reflection. If prioritarianism turned out to be the objectively correct view, this would be surprising (even to my idealized self), but it's the kind of surprise I think we should be open to.  It seems a problem for internalist views that they cannot leave room for normative reality to slightly surprise our idealized selves in such a way.In sum, when reflecting on these issues, I think we should ideally want our metaethical theories to accommodate the following three desiderata:Allow us to rule out helium-maximization (and other "baffling" views that are at odds with views that we are rightly confident of).Allow that wrong-headed agents can be wrong, and so suffer an "alienating" mismatch between their (procedurally idealized) attitudes and normative reality.Allow that, even given our broadly reasonable starting points, our idealized selves may be surprised by some aspects of normative reality, as we may be robustly disposed towards a subtly-mistaken view (that is close to the correct view without being exactly right).Externalist non-naturalism can accommodate all three (whereas internalist views secure only the first, and that arguably for the wrong reason).  So, far from posing a problem for the view, I think that reflection on alienation and related issues should bolster our confidence in normative externalism.

Deontic constraints prohibit an agent performing acts of a certain type even when doing so will prevent more instances of that act being performed by others. In this article I show how deontic constraints can be interpreted as either maximizing or non-maximizing rules. I then argue that they should be interpreted as maximizing rules because interpreting them as non-maximizing rules results in a problem with moral advice. Given this conclusion, a strong case can be made that consequentialism provides the best account of deontic constraints.

The study uses a projection method to identify maximizing and satisficing individuals in a sample of college students from the Philippines. The study defines a maximizing individual as one who sketches a full glass that is filled up to the brim and a satisficing individual as one who sketches a full glass that is filled below the brim. The study also uses data on school domain satisfaction of the college students. The analysis finds that individuals who maximize also experience lower school domain satisfaction. JEL Classifications: I31, C91