Dying Young is Patriotic

From the ongoing series utilitarianism leads to strange conclusions:

A 2004 study by Frank Sloan and Jan Ostermann at Duke University found that heavy drinkers contribute slightly more to Social Security, through their higher average lifetime earnings, than nondrinkers do. What’s more, since alcohol abusers tend to die sooner than moderate or nondrinkers, they draw less money, over time, from the Social Security trust fund.

Their conclusion: the elimination of heavy drinking (three or more drinks a day) from each successive group of American 25-year-olds would cost the Social Security trust fund $3 billion over the cohort’s lifetime.

(in freakonomics blog via free exchange)

Should we have heavy drinking campaigns? Binge drinking is patriotic (maybe binge drinking better than paying taxes).

It’s not uncommon for health improvements to have bad impacts on social security. Smoking also seems to be good for the health of the state. Dying young is patriotic.