Maximising collective happiness

Muted sunrise backdropping Terrigal Haven this morning

After a morning 6km plod in light drizzle, during which my lower back gave me a lot of grief, I journeyed down to north Sydney for my weekly visit to see my son.  He is nearing the end of six months of chemotherapy, which is likely to be extended, but it is heartening to see his optimism and his condition seemingly stabilise.

Crackneck through this morning's drizzle

As usual, we started out with a walk in his neighbourhood, covering 6.5km as we discussed all manner of things.  One subject covered, which intrigues me as an economist, is what cost-benefit analyses are being done by governments as they impose restrictions during the pandemic.  I studied these issues many years ago, and have forgotten more than I remember, but I do know it is underpinned by seeking to maximise our collective happiness/utility.  There are trade-offs.  For example, how many jobs must be sacrificed to justify the saving of one life. Or, how many suicides or domestic violence incidents related to social-distancing must be tolerated to justify saving one life.  It's not hard to come up with plenty of such conundrums.

Pleasant trail through Willoughby during this morning's walk

In the current pandemic, the government is under enormous pressure to save lives.  The television imagery of overflowing hospitals and morgues rightly causes great consternation and empathy amongst the population.  However, the costs to the collective happiness of suicides, domestic violence, loss of education, etc., are less visible and evocative.

My guess is that the balance is weighted towards saving the lives and the hard-nosed calculations about trade-offs are not being made (though Trump has alluded to them).  But that's completely understandable and I'm not being critical.  It's very hard to argue that we should watch people die.  There'll be plenty of data for future PhD's in all of this.