Ouch, My Most of Me!!

When I was growing up I faithfully read the comic strip section in the Los Angeles Times.  I remember my grandfather once asked me if they were funny.  I responded that they were...and he asked, "so how come you're not laughing?"

For some time now I've been faithfully reading the Crooked Timber Liberal blog.  So far there have been only two instances where something that I've read has made me actually laugh out loud.  Well...perhaps more like chuckle out loud.  Nothing too maniacal.

Both instances revolved around David Graeber's book on Debt.  The first instance occurred when I read Daniel Davies making a point regarding a wife swapping economy and the second instance occurred today when I read David Graeber's response to all the Crooked Timber Liberals that reviewed his book.  Seminar on Debt: The First 5000 Years – Reply.  Here's the punchline from his response to Henry Farrell's critique (see my post on Economic Fairytales)...

Again—I’m sorry to be rude, but I didn’t start this thing—one really wonders what this has to say about Prof. Farrell’s professional qualifications. After all, he is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations. Prof. Hudson’s work falls under his supposed area of expertise, not mine. Yet I, a lowly anthropologist, managed to figure out pretty easily what Hudson is saying, and Farrell, the man who receives a salary based on his presumed understanding of such matters, comes up with interpretations of Hudson that make the man himself laugh in disbelief.

Did Henry Farrell say "Ouch, my most of me!!" when he read this?  It's probably what I would have said...in reference to Episode 8 of Teen Girl Squad.  "Ouch, my most of me!!" is what you say when your bass guitar turns into a shark and then chomps off more than half of your body...or when somebody lobs a decent insult at you.

Over on the Ron Paul Forums I have my own critics to deal or not deal with.  Probably my most enthusiastic and creative critic is noneedtoaggress.  Here's what he posted in the thread with a decent amount of consequentialist discussion...

"Ouch, my most of me?"...yeah, not so much.  To drive the point home he created a new account on the Ron Paul Forums ("Pragmatarian") and then pretends to be my first follower..."We're All Pragmatarians Now": My Journey to Pragmatarianism.  Interestingly enough...David Graeber's lengthy response had this somewhat relevant tidbit...

This I guess is why I’m a radical, and not a liberal. Don’t get me wrong. Liberals have made magnificent contributions to the world. I might be an anarchist, but I have no desire to see anyone privatize the NHS—nor, interestingly, do any other anarchists I am aware of (though granted, I don’t know many anarcho-capitalists. I suspect it’s because they largely don’t exist, except on the Internet, which is crawling with them.)

This point is a bit confusing isn't it?  David Graeber says he might be an anarchist...but then he goes on to say that he doesn't want to privatize the NHS...unlike the anarcho-capitalists...who only exist on the internet.  Here's the rest of the paragraph...

But this is because as an anarchist, I see states as bureaucracies of violence, and make a distinction between state institutions, and public or better, common institutions, that happen to be run by the state because states rarely allow anyone but themselves to manage collective resources (unless it be for private profit.) There are collective institutions that cannot be run without recourse to violence—where you need to be able to call up the guys with sticks and guns or it all wouldn’t work. There are collective institutions—and I suspect large communal health arrangements are one—that could. I tend to see a collective health system as falling into the latter category so it never occurs to me it should be eliminated, even if currently run by the state.

What does David Graeber think the large majority of anarcho-capitalists crawling around the internet are actually saying?  Perhaps he should read my post on anarcho-capitalism and pragmatarianism.  Here's his conclusion...

What’s important to me is how to do it with as broad an alliance as possible—as anarchists such as myself who have been involved with OWS have consistently tried to do. How to find a common ground to push things further towards a free society, without any sort of consensus of just how far we can ultimately go?

After he reads my post on anarcho-capitalism then he should definitely read this post...Tax Choice - A Strategy for the Occupy Movement.

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.