Is there a term for this specific kind of non-solution?

Factual Questions
1

Imagine that we had a systemic problem, like “30% of working people in the US can’t afford to see a doctor” - yes, I’m aware of medicaid blah blah I’m just giving an easy to understand example.

One person asserts that this is a problem and says that we should solve it by using single payer health care. The other person denies it’s a problem, because each individual has access to a solution to the problem - they could get a better job that had medical insurance as a benefit.

Now the latter is a propose solution that could potentially solve the problem for that individual - if they can manage to improve their value as an employee, maybe they could shift themselves out of the 30% who can’t see a doctor into the 70% who can. But it doesn’t and cannot solve that systemic problem for society. Someone will take their place in the 30% group that can’t see a doctor. It’s not possible for 30% of the workforce to “get a better job”, someone needs to be doing the job these people perform. Even if it were hypothetically possible for all of these low level workers to become doctors and lawyers and plumbers overnight, society would collapse because it can’t function without these low paying jobs. Someone has to perform them, and therefore it is a problem that they cannot sustain basic life needs.

So the main question I’m asking is: is there a term, probably in philosophy, for a situation in which you can propose a solution that works for an individual but couldn’t not work on the system as a whole, and therefore is not actually a solution to the systemic problem? In other words, they’re shifting the blame for a systemic problem onto the individual as a way of blaming the individual and absolving the system from needing to change.

Furthermore, and this is a separate but related question, this answer is often offered in bad-faith. Let’s say that the person proposing that people get a better job is talking about fast food workers, but they personally eat fast food every day. Or they rely on a maid service. Or whatever example you prefer. If everyone who worked those jobs actually did “get a better job”, and there were no more fast food workers or maids, this person would be livid because their life would be inconvenienced. They don’t actually want all of the people who work these jobs to get a better job, so when they propose that as a solution for the suffering of these people, it’s in bad faith. It’s a way of shifting the blame to the individuals.

Is there a term for this? When someone proposes a solution that they wouldn’t actually want to have happen as a way of justifying a continuing societal problem?

I’m not looking to debate the examples I picked - they’re just used to reflect common arguments we have and explain what I’m looking for. I’m interested in whether there are terms / philosophical concepts for these types of arguments.

2

Let them eat cake.

3

Fallacy of composition?

4

Isn’t this a sort-of example of a “Zero Sum Game” where when someone gets ahead, some else loses by the same amount?

5

Possibly a bit specific to the example chosen but the bootstrap fallacy, maybe? Sort of doubly so as (somewhat obviously) its not actually possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that the original meaning of the term is to do something impossible.

6

In economics there is an idea called the fallacy of composition that is close to what you are describing. It says that an action that one person takes that makes them better off doesn’t necessarily mean that that same action taken by everyone would make everyone better off.

A simple but funny example from (i think) the Simpsons;

“You know that little red ball you put on your car antenna so that you can find it in a parking lot ? Well, every car should have one!!”

7

Antenna? I remember those too…

8

It’s definitely not a zero sum game, because there’s no fixed amount of resources available to fix societal problem (and other countries have solved this problem). I can see where you’re getting that because I said that if someone else improves their job another person will basically take their place, but that’s just a general statement on how low-pay jobs have to be filled to get society to run.

Fallacy of composition is related and may be the closest thing I have, but I’m surprised there’s no general term for “you’re offering a solution to the individual to avoid a societal problem without addressing the societal problem” because it seems to me like it would come up a lot in philosophy.

9

But if it’s a problem that each individual could so avoid with no complications, it could be so trivial as to be too uninteresting to come up a lot. But it’s comparatively interesting to mull a fallacy-of-composition scenario like, say, a seated guy in the audience suddenly getting a better view by standing up — in a situation where, no, you can’t generalize his example into advice for the rest: if everyone else in the audience stands up, they don’t all get a better view (and even he maybe ends up with just as lousy a view as before).

10

If the solution is - take a job that has that benefit - then it is a zero-sum game, unless the number of such jobs is changed (which is not part of the solution mentioned). Increasing the number of benefit-providing jobs is the opposite of the OP’s example, it is solving the problem for many without detriment to others. (The percentage with coverage goes up).

Perhaps in the spirit of Ayn Rand, we could call it a Randy (or a Randish) solution.

11

Sounds a bit like “Clever Tom and the Leprechaun”:

12

Isn’t this a variation of the Tragedy of the Commons?

13

It would be a good one to coin a term for if no one can find one. I think it has to do with society accepting a number as acceptable. If they were more outraged, it would change. Too bad it was just an example as it is a worth topic.

14

Wikipedia’s entry for the Fallacy of composition helpfully lists “tragedy of the commons” as one of the examples, because of course it does.

15

Technically… (By which I mean, to give a pedantic but not necessarily useful answer.) Technically, if everyone worked diligently, to their most, utilizing all reason and creativity, and used their wages with equal thrift and wisdom, then the market would be full of equals and the market would adapt. Insurance products would be structured for an audience that was equal in all ways and so it would cover them equally.

With such participants, there would be no customers for the insurance products unless they were sufficient for each individual’s needs. Anything else would be illogical. But insurance itself is logical and there’s no math to say that you can’t provide 100% coverage to an honest and logical group of humans, and not make a profit. Proper insurance products should exist for this market. And with all individuals amomg the customer base being equal, that would mean that the insurance products would need to be profitable or break even while covering the entire population.

While that idealized version of humanity doesn’t exist, we would expect that the more the variance between us decreases - particular in the realm of financial rationality - the more people properly covered by reasonable insurance would approach 100%.

16

Is climate change another example of this phenomenon?

Substantially reducing CO2 emissions requires legislation, and subsidies and penalties to help steer industry and energy production.

Frankly, this is a lot more important than personal choice IMO e.g. buying an electric car is not going to do much if your local energy production is via burning coal. And where personal choice would make a big difference: modern home insulation, solar panels on the roof, etc it’s not an affordable option for many people, or just not an option at all (e.g. for people in rented accommodation or social housing, or somewhere too cold for solar panels to be cost-effective).

But the people advocating for doing essentially nothing on climate change like to use rhetoric like “Instead of trying to lobby government on CO2, so-and-so should not drive / heat her home / read by candlelight”.

17

I would call it a Micro solution to a Macro problem. Though, fallacy of composition seems to be the official term for what’s described.

18

Looking at it from a less sociological and more scientific point of view, it could be considered a stochastic problem. If you instead describe the problem as “There is a poisonous gas that has just been released in a room, how do we stop it from spreading all over the room” and the proposed solution as “We don’t need to do anything, there is no reason all the molucles of the gas won’t restrict themselves to a cubic foot in the top corner of the room and not hurt anyone”. That is analogous to the proposed solution in the OP, yes statistically there is no physical reason all the atoms of the gas won’t bounce around in the top corner of the room and not dissipate around the rest of the room, but the system is set up in a way to make that vanishingly unlikely, and so that is a not a solution to the problem.

19

Perhaps that’s closer to Tragedy of the Commons. One person foregoing something (energy consumption) will not work unless all do the same. Personal reductions just leave more for others.

20

In some environments the intent can be expressed by saying the word “solution” with a sarcastic tone because such solutions are (mis)implemented so often.