What Should Superman Do?

Marginal Revolution has a post up where its argued that the traditional Superman really doesn’t best allocate his powers (hat tip: Volokh Conspiracy):

Let’s say we had an altruistic and incorruptible Superman, how should he allocate his efforts to improve the macroeconomy? He is really strong, he can fly very fast, leap tall buildings at a single bound, has incredible vision, and somehow he is immune from Einstein’s theory of relativity and time dilation at near-light speeds (his most impressive achievement, if you ask me).

Yes he should save the world from evil madmen, but fighting ordinary crime hardly appears worth his trouble. Criminals seek pure transfers, and Superman’s policing doesn’t lower our (inefficient) investments in locks enough to make a difference in the growth rate. It’s about as silly as having Superman sub in for FedEx when the skies get crowded over Memphis.

And should his alter ego, Clark Kent, really be a photographer for a daily newspaper? At least that guy is contributing to a reproducible output; he must have read Sherwin Rosen’s paper.

I think some of the ideas discussed are a little beyond the pale. There’s a reason Superman is never portrayed doing something like fixing Darfur. Those things can’t be fixed by a single man. At the root of most of the world’s Civil Conflicts is deep hatred and rivalry over decades. Not even Superman can be everywhere.

However, several ideas occur to me:

1) Dispose of the World’s nuclear waste

Its one of the most unsolvable problems as that stuff doesn’t break down easily. This is a job for Superman and Nuclear power for all.

2) Be a UN Weapons Inspector

It wouldn’t matter if Iraq or Iran wouldn’t allow Superman in the country with his powers he’d be able to complete inspections and find the weapons and tell the UN, who would…pass a resolution. Scratch this one.

3) Stop the Spread of Terrorism

If Superman were what he was in the 1940s, he’d be taking on Bin-Laden like he did Hitler.

4) Repair and restore vast tracks of land that couldn’t be cultivated.

He could feed the world and end hunger as we know it if he worked at it.

5) 00Superman

One zap of Heat Vision and he could finish off any dictator. Superman could have taken care of Castro for us years ago.

6) Candidate for Public Office

Face it, he’s the only one who can win and the only President you can trust.

7) To Eliminate all Marvel/DC Comics made in the past 10 years.

This may be the greatest service to mankind yet!

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