Incentives without motive-reading

Module objectives

• Distinguish motives from mechanisms.
• Evaluate productive and extractive actions under explicit conditions.
• Audit rhetorical shortcuts fairly.
• Trace three tax-and-trade examples.
• Compare uplift outcomes without diagnosing opponents’ motives.

1. Separate motives from institutional outputs

   About 100 minutes

   • Explain the source’s productive-versus-predatory distinction.
   • Identify conditions under which private incentives create or extract value.
   • Distinguish the book’s definition of envy from observable policy effects.

2. Audit rhetoric and compare uplift mechanisms

   About 100 minutes

   • Analyze four rhetorical shortcuts without assuming they prove envy.
   • Apply incidence and substitution analysis to luxury taxes, top rates, and tariffs.
   • Evaluate the source’s uplift criteria and their limitations.

Apply and defend

Replace a punishment campaign with an evaluable proposal

A fictional council proposes a luxury-service tax and protective tariffs while promising to punish greed. It also faces costly licenses, housing scarcity, and opaque procurement.

What to produce

• A fair reconstruction of the package’s strongest objectives.
• A causal and incidence comparison with an entry-and-procurement reform package.
• A conditional recommendation that addresses public funding and distribution.

Assessment criteria

Use these criteria for self-assessment or discussion with a tutor. The site does not certify this work or assign an automatic mark to written reasoning. Award full points for convincing evidence, about half for partial support, and zero for absent or contradicted evidence; explain intermediate scores and revise after feedback.

Total available: 20 points

Representation 5 points

Does not infer envy or virtue from policy labels.

Mechanism 5 points

Separates consumer substitution, tax-base response, and protection rents.

Alternatives 5 points

Assesses both market and public institutional design.

Evidence 5 points

States missing data, counterfactuals, and conditions reversing the recommendation.

Source coverage

This map shows where the chapter’s argument, methods and exercises enter the course.

Chapter 6: Envy and Greed, Properly Placed

The complete opening quotation and chapter introduction establish the problem and author’s governing position; the first teaching section reconstructs the argument and separates its assumptions from evidence. Study lesson

Greed: the motive is constant; the output depends on the rules

Labels the source’s broad definition of greed and separates motives from the institutional route to reward. Study lesson

Greed’s two faces: production or predation

Compares creation and extraction pathways without classifying whole people or firms by one action. Study lesson

Productive greed

Tests customer value, meaningful refusal, information, and external effects rather than profit alone. Study lesson

Predatory greed

Examines exclusion, privileges, and capture while recognizing legitimate legal advocacy. Study lesson

Envy: politically useful, economically sterile

Labels the book’s envy definition and rejects inference of private motives from redistribution preferences. Study lesson

Envy’s policy signature: levelling instead of ladders

Tests whether programs widen housing, skill, work, and ownership access; allows mixed designs and beneficial support. Study lesson

Envy’s rhetorical tricks

Translates four rhetorical shortcuts into explicit value premises and empirical claims requiring evidence. Study lesson

The institutional danger: when envy becomes law

Reconstructs the policy-uncertainty and protection-seeking pathway with distinctions between stable rules and arbitrary punishment. Study lesson

Greed, envy, and the two economies: market versus political allocation

Treats market and public allocation as interacting institutions and compares transparent competition with discretion. Study lesson

The moral inversion: condemning wealth while excusing the causes of poverty

Asks whether visible-wealth disputes distract from actual bottlenecks without dismissing distributional goals. Study lesson

The practical distinction: uplift policy versus levelling policy

Uses the author’s three uplift and three levelling criteria as a contestable framework rather than scientific categories. Study lesson

A final clarification: the opposite of envy is not indifference

Preserves the rejection of wealth worship and distinguishes service-based rewards from protected privilege. Study lesson

The Lesson Line

Tests accessible opportunity without making a person’s worth or policy agreement conditional on earnings. Study lesson

Chapter 6 Notes

Flags institutional-determinism and historical luxury-tax claims as source reports requiring verification. Study lesson

The "Hazlitt" Examples (Primary)

Teaches luxury-demand substitution, top-rate response decomposition, and tariff incidence through three six-part case cards. Study lesson