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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (25706)	8/1/2006 11:58:03 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541902

Becker-Posner on collective punishment "...Without taking sides, but assuming for the sake of argument that Israel is engaged, in part anyway, in the deliberate infliction of collective punishment, I want to discuss the economics of collective punishment..." becker-posner-blog.com becker-posner-blog.com That 2nd link contains an example that reminds me of a discussion awhile back (I think on this thread but it may have been elsewhere) about negative inheritence and/or inherited liability. During that discussion I never used the term "collective punishment" but it is a reasonable way to look at imposing costs on decendents for the actions of their ancestors. "At one time, children were responsible after the death of parents for any debts their parents left. Children were also punished for other anti-social behavior of their parents. This type of collective punishment has been eliminated by developed nations, presumably because children do not have the power typically to deter their parents from contracting debts or committing crimes. The only justification for such collective punishment of children in these cases would be that parents care about the children, and that caring parents would be less likely to enter into debts they cannot pay, or engage in anti-social acts, if children were held responsible for parental behavior. But such collective punishment to children would have little effect on selfish parents, and it would increase the suffering of their children who already are harmed by having selfish parents."