An Economy Based on Wife Swapping

Yes indeed...a Wife Swapping Economy.  Is it me or does Daniel Davies really want to endorse such a system...

… certainly have some attractive qualities, but although Graeber wins the battle against the “Myth of Barter” here I think he loses the war – really, although the discussion of socially embedded exchange is incredibly interesting and illuminating, I think anyone who reads the passage above is going to end up sympathising with the people in the economics department who say that you really can’t organise a modern industrial society on the basis of organising a wife-swapping party every time you want to buy a blanket. - Daniel Davies, Too Big To Fail: The First 5000 Years 

The Crooked Timber Liberals have recently posted so many blog entries on David Graeber's book on Debt that it kind of feels like I've already read the entire book.  Daniel Davies posted the latest one...and I was almost tempted to skip it...but then I decided to just skim it.  Boy, am I glad that I decided to skim it!!!  I literally LOL'd when I read the above passage.

I'm also a huge fan of National Geographic so it was also worth it to read his blog entry.  The passage he shared from Graeber's book offers a fascinating insight into the socioeconomic behavior of a very different culture.  Right there I considered using the word "primitive" but then decided against it...given that Stranger in a Strange Land is one of my favorite books.  Also, as I argued in this post...the devil's advocate for public goods...we're never "civilized"...we're always in the process of becoming civilized.

In terms of pragmatarianism...the whole debt debate, like most of our political/economic debates, becomes a moot point.  Taxpayers would give as much of their taxes as they wanted to say...the Dept of Education.  If taxpayers weren't happy with how the DoE was spending their money then they would just give their taxes to other government organizations.  If students felt that the DoE should give/lend them more money then the students themselves would have to convince taxpayers to allocate more of their taxes to the DoE.  If taxpayers did decide to give more of their taxes to the DoE then this would of course mean that other organizations would receive less revenue.  So students would receive more money...but perhaps poor/old people would receive less public healthcare.

We all stand to benefit as a society when each and every taxpayer is allowed to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions.  In other words...we all stand to benefit when limited resources are efficiently allocated.  In other words...we all stand to benefit when each and every taxpayer is given the opportunity to maximize the utility that they derive from their tax allocation decisions.  In other words...why would anybody argue for the misallocation of their own, hard-earned taxes?

The question is...why aren't more people putting this in their own words?  I get that the general public has no idea how the invisible hand works...but what about economists?  

So the more specific question then becomes...who will be the first economist to openly and fully endorse pragmatarianism?  Let's see...

Definitely not Noah Smith...

Xerographica - I guess it's just that I have trouble understanding what you write...

Definitely not Steve Horwitz...

Bastiat may not have made any real contributions to economic theory...

Probably not David Friedman...

I don't think that letting taxpayers allocate their taxes among options provided by the government solves the fundamental problems of government.

Maybe...Arnold Kling...

I think that allowing taxpayers to allocate their taxes would be an improvement, but why stop with government organizations? Why not allow them also to choose from competing charitable organizations? That is what I propose in Unchecked and Unbalanced. 

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and vote for Peter Boettke.   The name of his blog is "Coordination Problem" and he writes about fallibilism...and he has yet to say anything about pragmatarianism.

Does anybody know of any other economists that might openly and fully endorse pragmatarianism?  If so, just ask them about pragmatarianism and then link me to their response.  Even if their response is negative please share it with me so that I can add it to the list.