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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Kaldor-Hicks efficiency extends Pareto logic to permit welfare comparisons where gainers could hypothetically compensate losers, enabling policy judgments without interpersonal utility comparisons.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Hypothetical compensation that never occurs is morally hollow; actual losers suffer real harm regardless of theoretical ability to compensate.
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    • 2.Kaldor-Hicks disguises value judgments as technical efficiency claims, smuggling in controversial distributional choices under neutral language.
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    • 3.If total gains exceed total losses in principle, the criterion permits massive concentrated harms to minorities for diffuse majority benefits.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Pareto efficiency paralyzes policy by requiring unanimity; Kaldor-Hicks enables welfare-improving decisions affecting real societies.
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    • 2.Hypothetical compensation avoids the impossible task of measuring utility across different people's subjective experiences.
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    • 3.Cost-benefit analysis using Kaldor-Hicks allows democratic deliberation about tradeoffs rather than treating all redistribution as illegitimate.
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