Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Concentrated benefits and diffuse costs

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Tragedy of the commons. Appropriate to redirect as per discussion (✉→BWilkins←✎) 22:34, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concentrated benefits and diffuse costs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

PROD reason was: rarely used term, and the article only consists of a (disputed) definition and a series of (probably excessive) quotes; and was removed by article creator. In addition, the rare uses seem to be, with the exception of some libertarian think-tanks, primarily referring to corporate lobbying, rather than the more general concept implied here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:37, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Alternatively, redirect to tragedy of the commons until you can find comments about the phrase as a term, rather than merely using the phase. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Why would comments have to be found about the phrase as a term? Wikipedia is not a dictionary...

Each article in an encyclopedia is about a person, a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc., whereas a dictionary entry is primarily about a word, an idiom, or a term and its meanings, usage and history.

The phrase refers to a notable concept...

Call it concentrated benefit and diffuse costs. Such is typically the case when special interests want bigger government in the form of taxes, regulations, subsidies, and mandates. 1

With many policies, especially those related to taxation and spending, the benefits might be highly concentrated, with the costs of that policy widely distributed. 2

In subsidy programs, the state government redistributes wealth to special interest groups in the form of concentrated benefits, and it diffuses the costs of these benefits to all those who remain unsubsidized in the marketplace. In short, tax credits are a form of wealth redistribution — we all bear the cost, but only special interests and favored industries benefit. 3

One explanation for government failure in such situations is that special interest groups can have powerful effects on legislation that harms or benefits a small group of people a great deal but affects everyone else only a little. 4

The taxes would be paid by the people over the whole country, but the benefits would go to the few people in those particular locations. This type of spending is a rather gross waste of resources that worsened over the years as the government has been allowed to do more particularized things. - James M. Buchanan

--Xerographica (talk) 07:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 04:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 04:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect or delete per Arthur above. Lots of use of the phrase but the meaning doesn't appear to be universal, and use of the phrase isn't the same as significant coverage of the concept itself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 16:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to where? Given that you believe that the meaning doesn't appear to be universal...then please explain the disparities in the meanings. In nearly all of the cases the phrase refers to the same exact concept: in terms of specific government programs/regulations... the cost to society is quite possibly greater than the benefit to society...but it's hard to tell because the cost is spread among millions of people. When is the phrase used differently? --Xerographica (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For example...here's Roger Koppl, a professor of economics and finance, using the phrase in a discussion with the political scientist Jeffrey Friedman...

None of this touches your point that the world is complex so that serious people can disagree on policy. I don’t think I denied that either. I just said that it is better to signal goodness than do good. For voters, that follows from the low stakes. They are rationally ignorant and thus prefer policies that signal goodness. For politicians, it follows from the *high* stakes. Only those will survive who are effective at signaling goodness while in fact concentrating benefits and dispersing costs.

When Roger Koppl used the phrase "concentrating benefits and dispersing costs"...do you think Friedman had any trouble understanding exactly which meaning Koppl was trying to convey? Have you even read anything by Koppl or Friedman? Do you think Arthur Rubin even knows who they are? A concept isn't notable because people outside of the field haven't heard of it? This is a farce and a disservice to the readers or Wikipedia. There's a plethora of high quality, scholarly material on the concept and it's going to be deleted because, ironically, editors who don't understand the concept of decentralized knowledge believe that a concept can't be notable if they haven't heard of it. --Xerographica (talk) 19:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've read Milton Friedman and David Friedman; I would be more impressed if one of them had commented on the concept, rather than Jeffrey Friedman, who seems to have had his resume posted as a Wikipedia article. [Note: I'm not claiming that he posted his resume, only that somebody did.] — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They did comment, fairly extensively, on the concept...

The problem of concentrated benefits and diffused costs is a real problem. - Milton Friedman

At the moment, we in the United States have available to us, if we will take it, something that is about as close to a free lunch as you can have. After the fall of communism, everybody in the world agreed that socialism was a failure. Everybody in the world, more or less, agreed that capitalism was a success. The funny thing is that every capitalist country in the world apparently concluded that therefore what the West needed was more socialism. That's obviously absurd, so let's look at the opportunity we now have to get a nearly free lunch. President Clinton has said that what we need is widespread sacrifice and concentrated benefits. What we need is exactly the opposite. What we need and what we can have - what is the nearest thing to a free lunch - is widespread benefits and concentrated sacrifice. It's not a wholly free lunch, but it's close. - Milton Friedman, The Real Free Lunch: Markets and Private Property]

What predictions can we make on the basis of this simple model of individuals and interest groups bidding for legislation? One is that legislation will tend to benefit concentrated interest groups at the expense of dispersed interest groups--where "concentrated" and "dispersed" describe the bundle of characteristics that determine how large a fraction of the benefit that the members of the interest group would receive from legislation can be raised by the group to buy the legislation. - David Friedman, The Political Market Place

--Xerographica (talk) 21:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point. However, this concept, even if you can find a definition, still fits in tragedy of the commons. [OR] In fact, in a sense, this concept is exactly the tragedy of the commons. (Analysis not presented here, as it's my analysis.)[/OR] In any case, there is no sense in which this topic is not an example of tragedy of the commons. it should be merged there, and any separation done on a different basis than separating out this topic. Perhaps splitting out political aspects of that article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would you say that rational ignorance, the free-rider problem, political corruption, rent seeking and regulatory capture are all examples of the tragedy of the commons? --Xerographica (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Political corruption is irrelevant to both articles.. The free-rider problem is at least analogous to the tragedy of the commons, if not an example of it. Rent seeking is much closer to "tragedy" than to this article. Regulatory capture is the only one of those related here which is not closely related to "tragedy".

How is it not political corruption for the benefit of the many to be sacrificed for the benefit of the few? How is regulatory capture not relevant to "tragedy" while concentrated benefits and diffuse costs is? Either government failure is...or it isn't...a "tragedy". I've shared numerous passages that clearly prove that "concentrated benefits and diffuse costs" is a notable concept. Can you share any passages which clearly prove that "concentrated benefits and diffuse costs" is directly related to "tragedy of the commons"? I agree that the two concepts are peripherally relevant...which is why you're welcome to add "tragedy of the commons" to the see also section of the "concentrated benefits and diffuse costs" entry. --Xerographica (talk) 18:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How is it political corruption if those with the most interest in a mapper (concentrated interest) have the most interest in communicating their views to decision-makers (politicians, or not)? I don't see the relevance of "regulatory capture" to commons, unless you treat the space of ideas as a commons, which doesn't make much sense? I'm not going to "remove" the link to political corruption from the article while this discussion is in progress, but it is, to quote you, "peripherally relevant", at best. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And to quote Wikipedia See Also policy...links can be "tangentially related". Political corruption, regulatory capture and concentrated benefits and diffuse costs are all examples of government failure. You either agree that government failure is a tragedy of the commons...or you do not. You're arguing that CB/DC should be a section in "tragedy" yet it's already discussed in public choice theory. Which is CB/DC more relevant to...public choice or "tragedy"? --Xerographica (talk) 20:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. The concept is just the tragedy of the commons, although framed a little differently; we already have an article about that (although it might benefit from some expansion into new fields). bobrayner (talk) 22:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you offer any reliable sources to support your position? Because there are plenty of reliable sources that place it within public choice theory. --Xerographica (talk) 22:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep This article is about one of that factors that can create tragedy of the commons and a host of other discussed situations. So they are certainly not synonymous, not even in the same category, as one is a cause and one is an effect. Next, 99% of Wikipedia article are about the subject behind the title, not about the title itself. It looks like this is a common concept with a lot of coverage. The article needs work, maybe eventually even the title could get tweaked, but this is a new article. North8000 (talk) 21:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.