Whether you destroy the art or keep it depends on the payoff from the two different action. While you get to buy some goods if you sell it, you may gain some satisfaction from destroying it if you feel the artwork signifies something you detest.

I don’t expect that demand for the good will go to zero, I am sure there are people out there who become more fascinated with pieces of art work when they discover something deviant about the creator. Ultimately it depends on peoples values, which relies on some type of value judgement.

Guilt by association is one way that someone may attach value to a product, definitely. While such guilt may seem irrational at first glance, it may be perfectly rational if placed in the frame of bounded rationality, and norm building.

In this case the argument may be: It is not optimal for people not to buy products off pedophiles, as it helps fund their lifestyle. In order to prevent people doing this, some social code is formed that reduces peoples value from products created by pedophiles. However, this social code holds no matter whether the person we are trying to punish is affected by the decision or not.

The article was interesting in that it looked at whether some innocent-looking music lesson books can now be used for teaching now that we know they were written by a paedophile. He wrote them to have a pretext to be around children. I wouldn’t be buying them or using them for that purpose, I’d be buying them because my (theoretical) daughter wants to learn the recorder. Somehow my gut tells me not to to demonstrate support for him by buying his books, even if he or his estate don’t financially benefit any more. The proceeds probably go to the publishing house. Nevertheless, my demand for that particular product is adjusted.

So would the invisible hand render demand for these products (art, teaching books) down to zero, where no-one would want them at any price if they had full information? I guess, just before reaching that point, they’d start to gain curiosity value, so they might actually become prized again.

Hi satsumasalad. Whether we should accept art that was originally made by a pedophile requires some sort of value judgement. We know that without knowledge that the creator was a pedophile we valued his art positively, so with no additional information its consumption is fine.

Now there is no negative externality from consuming his art once he is in jail or dead (as he is unable to use the funds to facilitate further pedophilia), however this knowledge may change the individuals value of the art, making it unpalatable for them to consume. This is just a shift in the demand curve.

However, if you discover the artist is a pedophile and continue to consume the goods they produce, and the consumption of those goods makes it easier for them to prey on children, then your consumption decision has a negative externality and should be appropriately taxed.

Now if you already own some of the guys art, only the first effect matters, as the money you spent buying it is already sunk. As a result, if the knowledge that the man was a pedophile does not influence your value of some of the persons artwork that you already own, then you can continue celebrating it. However, the result relies on the how this knowledge influences the value you place on the. After all, art involves emotion, and new information on the artist influences the satisfaction you gain from a piece of art.

I just entered a whole load of stuff responding to Kimble’s scenario, then didn’t submit it as Matt requested we don’t go on and on and on with that particular issue, and I can’t think of another. But how’s this for a twist on the theme?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6979731.stm

about whether the art of known paedophiles can be celebrated, knowing its origins.

Can someone put that into economic terms please (Econ 101/201 over here, remember)

The problem that you will face when trying to have this sort of discussion is that it WILL steer towards the ‘shocking’. That is part of what makes it interesting.

I’ve seen the way some other threads have deteriorated when people come in with their eyes shut and their hearts full of hate.

Even in this hypothetical case, I don’t think that child abuse should be legalised.

Firstly, the gene might skip generations and so might take a lot longer to die out.

Secondly, if we make this sort of action sufficiently costly, we can hopefully remove (or at least minimise) cases of child abuse. I would rather have limited abuse in the future, than excessive abuse now. After all, demand for this sort of activity might be highly price elastic (where cost from being punished provides a shadow price)

Ultimately, your example depends on the distribution of genes throughout the population. If the population died out quickly, and demand was not too elastic in cost, then your argument makes sense. We agree that pedophilia is wrong, that the externality from this consumption decision is always greater than the value associated with consumption, and as a result the activity should be minimised. However, given some different beliefs on the structure of the game being played we disagree about the method of minimising the amount of this sort of activity that occurs.

Finally, I do want to have a free and frank discussion about economics applied to social issues, but can we please use a different issue than child abuse and rape. I know that you didn’t bring it up originally Kimble, I would just rather steer away from issues that are too emotionally loaded on my posts.

Imagine if pedophilia (sp.??) was found to be genetic. No environmental causes, it could only be passed on to the next generation via procreation, and the gene is undetectable. Further assume that given a choice all pedophiles would choose to have sex with children rather than adults.

Would it be better to decriminalise this behaviour and suffer a couple of generations of child abuse to rid the world of these genes once and for all? If they only have sex with children they will not procreate so their genetic line dies.

Think about the negative experience of a few generations versus the avoidance of negative experiences for the next thousand generations.

This question was just posed to get people thinking about something they had never even considered before. But you can imagine the reactions I got.