Because certain things are indivisible. Such as services, experiences and knowledge products in general. There are also strong incentive to be competitive rather than cooperative under a winner-takes-all context. One way to think about it is to consider wealth as a vanity good rather than a reward for actual work done. In such situations the "alpha dog" is the one with the most cookies. Cookies become boasting rights primarily, and only thereafter to fill the hungry mouths.

I also wonder whether people would be remembered more for hoarding cookies rather than sharing them. Since fame and vanity is their goal.

Consider the adult economic model applied to cookies and children.  Ten children invited to make cookies on the promise of one each at the end of the day.  The children make a tray of 20 cookies and each gets the one cookie they were promised.  Adults keep remaining ten cookies.

This is rather a simplistic analogy but it serves to show that market economics is not simply an adult version of the cookie sharing principle, it is something altogether different.  Equitable sharing of the wealth is not the problem;   it is a question of who produces and then who takes ownership of the wealth.

Many thanks dear friends

I accept that the cookie metaphor is simple, but that is one of the roles of a metaphor. Please indulge me if I now switch to a cherry pie metaphor.

In the US, GDP - the entire cherry pie - is divided very, very unequally. Indeed data show that the poor (of which there are sadly many) are providing the ultra rich with hugely disproportionate revenue, whilst retaining very little themselves. Much of this is due to 

• Low wages and long hours (one week a year vacation is not uncommon in America)
• Tax breaks and dare I say tax evasion on the capital gains of the rich

The introduction of more progressive taxation on capital gains would have a manifest and socially just effect on how the pie is sliced (cf. Picketty). Yet ironically and tragically, the wages from paid labour, which are typically taxed progressively,.stand in sharp contrast to the flat rate tax on profits. This is not a level playing field, but it could be changed through a revised fiscal policy.

Best, Paul

Best wishes, Paul

Equality principle is optimal and often works at the level close to survival minimum. An expedition in mountains without access to supply will share remaining food equally (but only if morality is high, a crowd in general might fight for it like animals). Division by quotas was used in military communism (but still "some animals were more equal" - Orwell).

Above this level we have market economy with its incentives. If competition is honest, incentive works in a direction to stimulate harder work. In real market we have many imperfections, and not all billionaires have worked 1000 times more than normal people - sometimes it is inheritance, sometimes good luck, but it might be fraud...

Nash was mentioned with his game theory. Sometimes we pursue game approach to life too far, often with socially bad outcome (like prisoner's dilemma) and always with egoistic motives. Economics does not teach us to be a little bit of altruists. But sociologists have finds some altruistic features in us. Not all behave like homo economicus  in games.

Many thanks Yuri for your insightful comments. Yes, Orwell´s infamous pigs did behave badly. Nevertheless, Orwell believed not only that equality - of the noble kind - was just, but also achievable. There are many mountains to climb in pursuit of the goal, but we have managed in som cases to ascend the foothills. Consider, in that context, the Nordic economies. In Norway, for example (where I currently work) universal child care has not only very significantly reduced income inequality among women and men, it has also provided a social pedagogic setting - abundant pre-school provision - that nurtures solidarity and fairness among the next generation of adults. Best wishes, Paul

Some ideas:

While for kids cookies are 'everything', that is not true for adults. We have leisure, we have inter-temporal 'goods', and we have different preferences.

What about if I like more leisure than 'goods' (as a way to call a part of GDP)? I will work less, I will get less 'goods' and more time than a person with the opposite preferences. So the 'cookies' model requires to oblige all the people to work the same number of hours, with the same effort too. Let's skip the ideological/political question of forcing everybody to do the same (which is not a minour issue, of course). That will lead to a situation where everybody has the same 'goods'+leisure time basket but ... we are not equal since we do not have the same preferences. This is, we are not 'equally' well. Then, we do not accept that solution.

Let's look on 'time preferences'. What if I prefer to be studying till being 25 y.o. in order to have a higher income in the future, while other person prefers to have a lower income all his/her life but since he/she is 16 y.o. To enforce a situation like the cookie model will lead to an unequal situation in terms of 'wellbeing' given that personal preferences differ.

Then, if you tax income (and not leisure) you are taxing just a part of the sources of well-being for a person. If you tax on a yearly basis (and not on a whole-life basis) you are taxing more to a person that opts for working hard till being 50 y.o. and enjoy the rest of his/her life than to a person that decides to split his/her working/leisure time more evenly. Would that be 'fair'? I do not know, but the doubt seems enough to challenge some of the points of the desirability of the 'cookie' model.

Best,

Fernando

The question of poor people (in a wide sense, nor the 1% poorest) and rich people is more complex, I think.

Some of them could be explained because they opted for not increasing their human capital (=studying) may be because they preferred  not to do it, may be because they were myopic and only thought on a short-term perspective, may be because the world has changed and the actual situation is not what they (or anybody) could foresee, or may be because they had no the same opportunities. In my opinion, the situation is quite different.

Other ones are 'poor' because their jobs are under competition from people of other countries and their wages cannot increase as the ones of other people that are not under such presure.

Other ones are 'poor' because the lack of opportunities to find a job, since the economy has not jobs enough due to struggles in any other aspect (labour market, regulations, government policies, resources of the country, etc).

Again, so different situations cannot be considered in the same way.

The same can be said about being 'rich' (again wide sense). Some people chose to study more time, chose the 'right' studies (may be they were uninformed and won the 'lottery' of having the adequate training in the right moment) or the right investment of their time or money.

Best,

Fernando

Hei Fernando. Many thanks for your insightful and intelligent remarks. The cookie principle is, of course, a very simple metaphor. Thus I agree with you that it can hardly apply to the multilayered complexity of the many factors you refer to. On the other hand, the cookie hints at a pristine ideal: namely, that people intuitively believe that some circumstances merit sharing. Take a camping trip, for example. If I am the only guy with a frying pan, I am not going to insist that my 4 buddies can´t use the utensil. Similarly, if they have a tool that I do not have, I reckon that they will share too. 

Some countries - including, Norway - are moving slowly but surely towards a so-called citizenship income for everyone in the country. In the Nordic countries, all kinds of energy technology, including that owned by the state and local public councils, is making the working week shorter and shorter and leisure time much more expansive. In addition, the huge profits that accrue from the generation of hydro and wind powered energy is an asset that helps to sustain equal access to near-free universal healthcare, completely free university education, cheap or free but luxurious care homes for rich and poor senior citizens alike. And the list continues ...In this admittedly limited context, the one human being, one slice of the cake model is becoming a reality. Best wishes Paul

Hi Paul,

I find the case of Norway extreme. It is a country so wealthy!  And I say it on the basis of what you remarked: with the available  technology and the natural resources Norway has, a huge income can be generated. Then,,  there are posibilities to get a "part of the pie" to be shared by everybody (providing health services,  houses for the elder, even a certain income, etc) without losing  so much by the rest. Even If we were talking about sharing everything in equal parts the living standard will be high. But, what about not so rich countries?  Or what about poor countries where even the 50% richer lack so many things... One of the common features we observe (as everything, with exceptions) is that as we scale up to wealthier countries, the mínimum income, goods, services, .. granted  to the whole population is larger. My doubt is:  because people is more solidary (concerning   a mínimum wellbeing of others)  or because it implies  to renunce to less to grant that mínimum?

The question of the pan you put is inspiring too.  A pan is "capital", this is, it serves to produce something and using it does not disappear (at least till it is used many times). So, I can share the use of that capital, but it is different of sharing the sausages. If I share my sausages or the gas with other one, I will not eat those sausages. Should, (must) I share the sausages or the gas I have been carrying on with those ones that chose not carry so much weight? I will do if they are going to starve, but it it only to skip a meal, the answer is probably different. We can extend this question to a global framework in the economy.

A final idea. One person can freely decide to share his/her part of the pie with other ones. But, what about obliguing to do it? Let's remember that taxes are not voluntary contributions.

Many thanks for enlightening responses Fernando. Personally, I would be happy to share my sausages as well as the frying pan! Best wishes Paul

I would add my agreement with the above comments on scarcity and the friction involved in distribution, but I would also want to challenge the "intuitiveness" of the "one child - one cookie" model. This is only one form of justice.

To stick with the simple child analogy - the one-year old child may not be able to gum a whole cookie, and has the same basic needs met (other than caloric) as the fourteen-year old who is dying of a broken heart and is racing to hockey practice.

One child - one cookie is an example only of equal distribution: it does not match need, and therefore fails the test of justice.

The best comparison I know is the simple illustration (linked below) of providing "equal" assistance to children to see over the fence. Only one advantaged child benefits - the others do not.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c2/63/22/c2632228bcbeb14311b6deded9b28841.jpg

Dear Neal

I found the illustration illuminating. Thank you. For all that, I regard the one child, one cookie example as a metaphor, not something to be taken literally in all circumstances. You are certainly right to intimate that there are moral grounds for unequal distribution, such as short children being given a leg up to watch a football match.

I should have added ceteris paribus (in this case, all other things being constant), which I think adds credibility to my claim that the Rawlsian argument (namely, one child, cookie) does indeed pass the test of distributive justice, and does so convincingly. His Original Position, whilst also a metaphor, makes a crucial point and it is this. Ceteris paribus, if all the spectators are the same height, the fence should be a constant height. If on the other hand, height is unequally spread, a leg up guarantees and protects distributive justice. Best wishes, Paul

Paul:

True, and yet Rawls is particularly concerned with the issue of justice, not mere equality, which is the reason for his original position behind the veil of ignorance. This presumes that all people do NOT start at the same starting point, and that this is the initial presupposition which must be considered, not the presumptive bias of determining justice from one's own point of view.

While one response (but not the only one) may be that all children (people) should receive one cookie, this is neither intuitive nor specifically Rawlsian. Rather, justice may require that each person receive sufficient food to remain healthy on a daily basis, that cookie rewards be based on effort expended, or that cookies be used to compensate for deficiencies in other areas of life -- all of these are possible just responses under Rawls.

"All things being equal", yes ... but this is precisely the point. Economics and justice do not start from a position of relative equality.

Thank you for keeping the discussion going and for your important insights, Neil. You have got my attention and you have got me thinking. Although Rawls refers to justice, not specifically to social justice, it is very clear from his text that social justice is the primary concern, not legal justice. This is captured, for example, in the concept of distributive justice. Best Paul

I have another great story here.... 

Then there were the cookies. One time, inside a local bakery, Knot was surprised to find that three 33-cent cookies were being sold for a dollar. While it didn’t prevent him from buying the cookies, he said, “even if it’s one cent, it seems off.”

"three 33-cent cookies were being sold for a dollar" is more correct than 99 cents. And here's my argument:

For a kid, who really wanted to eat 3 cookies and whose mother saw the price per unit gave him 1 dollar. A smart kid can eat cookie at a time and pay 1 more after he finished one and save one cent by the end of day. An impatient kid WILL pay 1 dollar for 3 cookies to show off his cookies to other envious neighborhood kid.

THAT IS a more ideal pricing, for each according to their need and their want. Also, if I have 3 cookies in a jar, if you get all three from me, that jar's value for holding cookie is depleted when no new cookies are made for the jar.

Be it cookies in a jar or jobless/homeless people look for work and housing. Division of labor, Division of tools one must have to bring fruit for one's labor, Division of grace from a higher order, how economic professors figure all THAT out without living thru it for good and bad time themselves?

http://advogato.org/article/1091.html

I get some of the mathematics, Susan, but I am not clear about your main point with regard to equal shares. I think it is permissible, allow me to add, that one does not need to over-focus on each and every little detail. But you may think otherwise.

Best wishes Paul

Equal share is really equal opportunities to make the best of what's available. For birthday party, My 5 years old would say " I don't want this and that get invited to my party..."  Kids have a lot of ideas on their own, more than we could handle sometimes... Any Community Commonwealth is NOT so easily sharable for non-members. I think that is the challenge there.