Proposes another yardstick for hazards
Miller, S.M.
Moral hazard" is a term deployed by many economists and politicians to criticize and dismantle public programs. Missing from their vocabularies is the parallel term "immoral hazard." New...
...Harming people through governmental or corporate neglect or bad policy is an immoral hazard...
...The moral hazard concept developed in the insurance field...
...More broadly, inadequate housing, nutrition, and schooling are immoral hazards inflicted on children who run no risk of indulging in a moral hazard if they are helped...
...Neglecting to be prepared to deal with a Level 4 hurricane was another...
...New Orleans' hurricane and aftermath reveal that immoral hazards have been ignored...
...An immoral hazard occurs by not providing needed help when no or little danger exists of inducing a moral hazard...
...As the New Orleans disaster demonstrates, immoral hazards of negligence and budget cuts can be anticipated...
...S. M. MILLER directs the Poverty and Inequality Project at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge and is professor emeritus of sociology at Boston University...
...Jurisdictional and other disputes among city, state, and federal agencies should have been anticipated and adjudicated before a major storm occurred...
...THE PRINCIPLE of ruling out, preventing the undesirable from possibly occurring, is fundamental to moral hazard concerns...
...A New Yorker cartoon by B. Smaller captures the spirit of the moral hazard concept: a small boy explains to his mother that he is not giving any of his cookies to his friend because he might create "a cycle of dependency" The New Orleans situation demands a companion concept—immoral hazard...
...90 n DISSENT / Winter 2007...
...Letting children suffer (an undesirable outcome that can be anticipated) in order to prevent their parents from possibly participating in a moral hazard constitutes an immoral hazard...
...A good way to start is to recognize and act on dangers that lurk in ongoing life...
...Providing substantial financial aid might discourage the unemployed from pursuing jobs and accepting employment at wages below their previous experience or current need, the appropriate moral behavior by the standards of many economists...
...Many devastating "surprises" are immoral hazards...
...Easing environmental regulations can lead to pollution and health dangers...
...A key example is limited or no prenatal and later health care for poor and low-income women and children...
...With relish, economists applied the moral hazard way of thinking to many fields, particularly public assistance, unemployment insurance, and other efforts to alleviate unemployment, low income, and poverty...
...The New Orleans catastrophe demands new thinking about place, organization, coordination, race, and poverty...
...He is a founder of United for a Fair Economy and co-author of Respect and Rights: Class, Race, and Gender Today...
...Drug and other corporations that do not reveal risks in the use of their products produce immoral hazards...
...It damages children who are not responsible for how some parents might respond to a public program...
...Enter, therefore, "deductibles," so that the insured could not count on full reimbursement from the insurance company and would have an incentive to pay attention to fire and driving hazards...
...Reducing spending on improving the levees that protected the city produced an immoral hazard that endangered the lives and livelihoods of residents...
...In situations of potential but great threat, inattention, inadequate preparation, and inaction are immoral hazards...
...If an insurance company reimbursed home owners or auto drivers for all the costs of a fire or auto accident, they might be encouraged to be inattentive to fire threats or dangerous driving...
...It requires a companion doctrine of ruling in—what needs to be done if the nation is to engage in moral behavior...
...Full coverage of home or auto losses would therefore produce a hazard, a moral hazard in that it induced antisocial behavior...
...Less regulation, as in lax building codes in New Orleans, is often a costly immoral hazard...
...Is the race or poverty of those DISSENT / Winter 2007 n 89 NOTEBOOK who would be adversely affected a major impetus to overlook or downgrade such immoral hazards...
Vol. 54 • January 2007 • No. 1
