Editing Utilitarianism (section)

=== Wealth maximization ===
Another 20th-century offshoot of utilitarian-style thinking, often labeled [[wealth maximization]], has its economic roots in the "potential Pareto improvements" advanced by [[Nicholas Kaldor]], [[John Hicks]], and [[Tibor Scitovsky]].<ref>Kaldor, Nicholas (1939). “Welfare Propositions in Economics and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility.” ''The Economic Journal'' 49(195): 549–552; Hicks, John (1939). “The Foundations of Welfare Economics.” ''The Economic Journal'' 49(196): 696–712; Scitovsky, Tibor (1941). “A Note on Welfare Propositions in Economics.” ''Review of Economic Studies'' 9(1): 77–88.</ref> While traditional Pareto criteria require that no one be made worse off, wealth maximization—closely tied to the [[Kaldor–Hicks]] framework—permits changes that increase overall economic surplus even if some parties lose, so long as the winners could in principle compensate the losers.

In legal scholarship, the concept was popularized by [[Richard Posner]] in ''Economic Analysis of Law'' (1973).<ref>Posner, Richard A. (1973). ''Economic Analysis of Law''. Boston: Little, Brown.</ref> Under this approach, a policy or rule is deemed socially desirable if it produces a net increase in aggregate "wealth", typically measured by willingness-to-pay for outcomes. Advocates argue that, because willingness-to-pay translates diverse preferences into comparable monetary values, wealth maximization can reconcile the problem of interpersonally adding "utilities". Critics counter that wealthier parties can effectively "outbid" poorer ones and thus skew outcomes. Supporters respond that distributional worries can be handled by taxes and transfers, leaving wealth maximization to guide efficient resource allocation in law.<ref>Kaplow, Louis, and Steven Shavell (1994). “Why the Legal System Is Less Efficient than the Income Tax in Redistributing Income.” ''Journal of Legal Studies'' 23(2): 667–681; Kaplow, Louis, and Steven Shavell (2002). ''Fairness versus Welfare''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref><ref>For a modern defense and historical overview of wealth maximization, see Pi, D., & Parisi, F. (2023) "Wealth Maximization Redux: A Defense of Posner’s Economic Approach to Law." ''History of Economic Ideas'' 31: 101-136, available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=4412431.</ref>