I just found a really nice Easter Egg! A couple months ago AntiBullshitMan posted a great video about pragmatarianism...
Here's my response...
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Audacious author here! heh. Not sure why it took me so long to discover this video!
I'd actually be THRILLED if we were given the freedom to allocate even as little as 1% of our taxes. I've mentioned this elsewhere... but not in the FAQ. The word "pragmatarianism" was in fact largely inspired by the pragmatic consequentialist Deng Xiaoping. He was all about gradualism. Millions of people were lifted out of poverty as a result of his gradual free-market reforms.
About the magic wand... noooooooo I wouldn't wave it! Watch "Milton Friedman on Libertarianism (Part 4 of 4)". The interviewer starts to ask him a hypothetical..."if you were dictator for a day" question and Friedman quickly interrupts him and says with great emphasis, "If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it!" Friedman's response is priceless!
On the opposite spectrum is Murray Rothbard... "The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed." Although, to be fair... unlike Friedman, Rothbard truly grasped the fundamental problem with government: a lack of consumer choice (individual valuation). Unfortunately, for some reason, he never publicly considered the idea of people choosing where their taxes go. His solution was to simply abolish the state. I decided that it was much safer to test the necessity of the state by allowing taxpayers to fund whichever parts of the state they felt were most necessary. Any parts of the state that were truly unnecessary would be defunded. Millions and millions of people spending their own money (aka a market) in the public sector, rather than one individual (ie Rothbard) or 500 individuals (ie congress), would determine the proper scope of the government.
Waving a wand or pushing a button to implement pragmatarianism would go against the very premise of pragmatarianism. Pragmatarianism is all about persuasion. As in, "if you want me to give more of my taxes to the DoD... then you're going to have to persuade me to do so." Solely relying on persuasion forces us to share our information... and this logically results in more information being processed. So maybe "persuasionism" would have been a better word? I suck at words.
Even though I'd be thrilled with 1% tax choice... I'm not quite sure how you'd determine whether the results were superior to the status quo. For example... even though we Americans have had the option to allocate $3 of our tax dollars to the presidential campaign fund... very few people choose to do so. How do we interpret these results?
Congress allocates $Y tax dollars to the presidential campaign fund
Consumers allocate $X tax dollars to the presidential campaign fund
Which answer is superior? Whose answer is more valuable?
In economics... the "optimal" answer is pretty straightforward. The optimal supply will perfectly match the demand. The conclusion (supply) follows from the premise (demand). Serving veggies to a vegetarian is optimal because the supply matches the demand. Serving meat to a vegetarian isn't optimal because there's a significant disparity between supply and demand.
So if we borrow from basic economics... then it would be pretty easy to determine whether the results are superior. By definition they would be superior! Except... if we already accept this definition... then gradualism isn't needed as a way to evaluate the results. We already know that the results would be superior. Of course... gradualism could be justified for plenty of other reasons!
Just like I didn't mention my support for even 1% tax choice in the FAQ... I also didn't mention my support for a global market for public goods. As in, taxpayers could shop in any country's public sector. As an American taxpayer... I would be free to shop in Canada's public sector. Would I even want to? Well... if the argument is that nobody would want to... then there's no reason to oppose it. If the argument is that every American is going to want to spend all their taxes in Canada's public sector... then I'd sure like to hear the reasoning! Maybe your Canadian public education is so good that it even made us Americans 500% smarter? Maybe your military is so powerful and wise that all the terrorists became florists? Maybe your healthcare is so good that it cured cancer and everything else? Maybe your environmental protection is so good that it cured global warming and brought back the Dodo bird from extinction? Maybe your space exploration is so good that we were able to visit other inhabited planets? Maybe your robotics research is so good that my best friend is a robot? I'm pretty sure that larger markets are better than smaller markets.
If we didn't have a global market for private goods... then you and I wouldn't be here trading with each other! Except... your video is actually a public good. So we do already sort of have a global market for public goods.... it's just not a very good one because taxpayers aren't free to spend their tax dollars on any of the public goods. We can't use our tax dollars to help bring valuable public goods to the attention of other taxpayers.
Thanks for the video! I really enjoyed it! I'd spend some tax dollars on it if I could! I'm going to share your video on my blog along with this response.
Showing posts with label Milton Friedman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milton Friedman. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
1 Question For Anybody Who Opposes Privatizing Marriage
Which arguments are worse... the arguments against unbundling cable or the arguments against unbundling marriage? Which weighs more... a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?
Probably the single biggest argument against unbundling cable is that doing so would increase the costs of the individual components. And this is a bad thing because higher prices are always bad for consumers. Right? Wrong, really wrong. Prices are never bad for consumers when they accurately communicate demand. If, for example, consumers are willing to pay higher prices for animal shows... then this would reveal that there's a scarcity of animal shows. Higher prices for animal shows would incentivize producers to create more animal shows. Voila! Shortage solved! Scarcity eliminated! Consumers would have an abundance of animal shows! As a result of this abundance, prices would decrease... and so too would the incentive for producers to create more animal shows.
It's super sad that the gist of this economic explanation really isn't anything new...
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome each time. Am I being insane by sharing an explanation that was shared a gazillion years ago? Why am I expecting a different outcome? Maybe I'm guessing that most people still haven't gotten the memo? Or perhaps I'm guessing that my own explanation is different enough? Maybe all Smith's explanation lacked was an embedded example? I wish. Sigh.
In my explanation... I used "Voila!" to describe the change in supply. To be fair, perhaps "Voila!" isn't always the most accurate way describe the supply response. But in all cases where "Voila!" isn't so applicable... most, if not all, of the delay in supply response is a consequence of government intervention. For example, minimum wages guarantee that "Voila!" isn't the best way to describe how a huge chunk of labor responds to changes in demand. This is because a minimum wage effectively hides all the disparities in demand that occur beneath the minimum wage. Hiding demand disparities effectively eliminates the incentive for supply to respond to them. It really doesn't become profitable for labor to respond to changes in demand. Garbage in, garbage out.
Bundling effectively hides demand disparities and, as such, eliminates the incentive for suppliers to respond to them. Bundling does an excellent job of protecting producers from consumers. Except, why in the world would we ever want to protect producers from consumers?
Perhaps some lateral thinking would help...
Can you imagine if we protected flowers (producers) from hummingbirds (consumers)? What would happen to the supply of flowers if we reduced hummingbirds' choice in the matter? From the perspective of hummingbirds... would the supply improve? Would flowers fiercely fight for the attention of hummingbirds? Would flowers have the maximum incentive to produce an abundance of nectar? Would there be a greater variety of flowers for hummingbirds to choose from? Would hummingbirds have more freedom? Would hummingbirds truly be happier?
How often do we hear biologists cry to reduce hummingbird choice? How often do we hear economists cry to reduce human choice? Biologists cry when we do interfere with the environment. Krugman cries when we do not interfere with economy. Well... Krugman doesn't literally cry. Who wants to see Krugman literally crying? Well... hmmmm... big, fat, juicy tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping from his elfish face. I wonder how his tears would taste? Like heaven. Now I have a craving for Krugman's tears!
In a recent blog entry... The free-rider problem is an argument against democracy... I shared this passage by Hayek...
Hah...ok, yes, I took a couple liberties with this passage. You caught me. But the basic economic/evolutionary concept is just as applicable to marriage as it is to welfare. Hayek also wrote... "The introduction of such a system therefore puts a strait jacket on evolution and places on society a steadily growing burden..." Yes!!!
Government marriage has definitely put a straight jacket on the evolution of marriage. It's obviously true that this straight jacket doesn't prevent all change... given that marriage now includes gays. But as usual, the challenge isn't to see the seen... the challenge is to see the unseen. What would marriage look like now if it had been privatized 50 years ago? If marriage had been exposed to the full, direct, and extremely powerful force of consumer choice... would it be closer to, or further from, the preferences of consumers? Would the market have found/made more, less, or the same number of improvements? Would society have allocated more, less, or the same amount of its limited resources to debating marriage? Obviously I wouldn't be spending my time writing this blog entry.
Here's Milton Friedman, nearly 50 years ago, theorizing what would happen to television if it was more fully subjected to consumer choice...
The specifics might not be applicable to marriage... but the general concept certainly is. If we fully subjected marriage to consumer choice, then the supply of marriage would more accurately reflect the diversity of the demand for marriage.
Over at the Federalist... Stella Morabito posted this article... 5 Questions For Libertarians Who Support Privatizing Marriage. Here's my one question for anybody who opposes privatizing marriage...
1. What impact does a reduction of consumer choice have on supply?
A. Supply improves at a faster rate
B. Supply improves at the same rate
C. Supply improves at a slower rate
Unfortunately, this is a really difficult question for way too many people. Alex Tabarrok is my favorite living economist... but he opposes unbundling cable. Jason Kuznicki might not be my favorite libertarian... but he's definitely way up there. I only have 8 followers on twitter... and he's one of them! Just in case you're wondering, my favorite libertarian is David Boaz... in no small part because of his endorsement of tax choice.... We should get to decide how the government spends our taxes. Even though Kuznicki is one of my favorite libertarians... he opposes privatizing marriage. Does he also oppose unbundling cable? Does Tabarrok also oppose privatizing marriage?
Perhaps I should point out that I'm not a libertarian... I'm a pragmatarian. For libertarians, the only way to subject marriage to market forces would be to move marriage from the public sector to the private sector. However, as a pragmatarian, I believe that there's a second way. Rather than marriage going to the market... the market can go to marriage. This second way could easily be accomplished by allowing people to choose where their taxes go.
So actually, given that David Boaz endorses tax choice, he isn't a libertarian... he's a pragmatarian. This is an important distinction. It differentiates those people who merely give lip service to market forces (libertarians) from those who actually appreciate and understand the benefits of market forces (pragmatarians). Anybody who doesn't publicly endorse allowing people to choose where their taxes go... doesn't truly understand the value of consumer choice. What about Friedman, Hayek and Smith? Well... unfortunately, they didn't have the opportunity to consider pragmatarianism... so "conversion" wasn't an option.
What about anarcho-capitalists? Unlike pragmatarians, they fail to recognize that the free-rider problem is a real problem. But is the free-rider problem applicable to marriage? Heh. No. Eh...? No. So I don't see a problem with marriage going to the market. It wouldn't be my first choice... but it's infinitely better than allowing marriage to remain largely protected from consumer choice.
Even though I'm not a libertarian... I'll throw some answers at Morabito's 5 Questions For Libertarians Who Support Privatizing Marriage...
Uh what? It might help to have it straight from the horse's mouth...
LOL... just in case anybody was wondering why marriage is referred to as the last legalized form of slavery. Wives are property of their husbands? Or is it the other way around?
Not too long ago I registered a domain name. I didn't even have to leave the house. And it was super cheap... and quick. Does my domain name ownership have any legal validity? Will it stand up in court? If not, then I'd want a full refund. If I didn't get a full refund, then I'd organize a boycott! Next question...
And I thought that marriage was the last legalized form of slavery?! If the for-profit or non-profit organization that certified your marriage didn't also offer a really good deal on certifying your custody... then you should get a refund. Same thing if the custody didn't hold up in court.
Hah. "Honey, aren't you so happy that we're officially business partners!??" LOL. How romantic? I'm pretty sure that there's a pretty significant difference between business partners and life partners. And I'm also pretty confident that the market will cater to this difference. So as long as life partners are certified as such... then the rationale for immunity is exactly the same.
Hehe. Oh, I'm chuckling too much. This is by far the most solid argument against privatizing marriage. Sunstein's super shady. He's so shady that I wouldn't be surprised if he was somehow tricking me into writing this blog entry. Am I being choice architectured? It might help to do a bit of homework...
I dunno, maybe Henderson also got choice architectured? It's entirely possible! That Sunstein is real sneaky!
The reason that the state is Leviathan is because people don't recognize the value of consumer choice. Tax choice only has 81 likes on facebook! Given that people don't respect each other's choices... why should we expect anything different from the government? Even in a representative democracy, the government can't be better than the people. If people disrespect each other, then their government will disrespect them.
If we can convince enough people that marriage would be improved by consumer choice... then this would be a huge step in the right direction.
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Bueller's Basement
Last year I started a thread in a cactus forum... Plant On Plant Action. It was about growing plants epiphytically. Here was one of the replies that I received...
WAHLA!? Eh? I scratched my head for a while before I figured out that she meant VOILA! For some reason I found it terribly endearing and WAHLA! Now we're married! Hah, not... really. Those few exchanges in the thread were pretty much the extent of our interaction.
Why did I find her WAHLA! to be so endearing? I don't know. I don't think I'm more easily endeared than the next guy. Or maybe I am? My favorite movie is Chungking Express. It has an abundance of quirky/endearing details. That's why I've been able to watch it far more times than any other movie.
Why is there a scarcity of movies that have an abundance of quirky/endearing details? Part of the answer surely depends on the fact that I haven't been given the opportunity to accurately communicate my demand for Chungking Express. Am I supposed to buy the same movie 10 times? Not really. The supply can't be optimal when demand is largely unknown. Producers aren't omniscient.
Netflix allowing people to choose where their fees go would certainly help clarify demand. What about taxes though? Movies fall in the category of goods that we treat like private goods... but doing so goes against their true nature. So I'm inclined to believe in the Dept of Movies...
If we could choose where our taxes go... would we have to worry about people spending too much of their tax dollars on the Dept of Movies? Not according to Smith...
If marriage was privatized, would we have to worry about producers allocating too much capital to supplying marriage certificates? No... because after a certain point... there would be a surplus. And we would know that there was a surplus because the profitability of supplying marriage certificates would decrease. Other endeavors would be relatively more profitable... and capital would shift accordingly.
If the market went to marriage though... would we then have to worry about government producers allocating too much capital to supplying marriage licenses? After all, there wouldn't be any profits to guide the producers. Profit, however, is merely a reflection of consumers' perception of relative scarcity. As long as consumers can allocate their money to communicate their perception of relative scarcity... then the distribution would still be optimal. Because as more and more resources were allocated to the Dept of Books... there would be less and less resources available for defense. This would increase people's perception of the relative scarcity of defense... which would increase the benefit of allocating taxes to the DoD. But of course we don't all have the same perception of relative scarcity. Which is a big part of the reason why consumer choice is so important.
It's really not easy to describe a mass of individuals each allocating their money according to their different perceptions of relative scarcity.
Probably the single biggest argument against unbundling cable is that doing so would increase the costs of the individual components. And this is a bad thing because higher prices are always bad for consumers. Right? Wrong, really wrong. Prices are never bad for consumers when they accurately communicate demand. If, for example, consumers are willing to pay higher prices for animal shows... then this would reveal that there's a scarcity of animal shows. Higher prices for animal shows would incentivize producers to create more animal shows. Voila! Shortage solved! Scarcity eliminated! Consumers would have an abundance of animal shows! As a result of this abundance, prices would decrease... and so too would the incentive for producers to create more animal shows.
It's super sad that the gist of this economic explanation really isn't anything new...
It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome each time. Am I being insane by sharing an explanation that was shared a gazillion years ago? Why am I expecting a different outcome? Maybe I'm guessing that most people still haven't gotten the memo? Or perhaps I'm guessing that my own explanation is different enough? Maybe all Smith's explanation lacked was an embedded example? I wish. Sigh.
In my explanation... I used "Voila!" to describe the change in supply. To be fair, perhaps "Voila!" isn't always the most accurate way describe the supply response. But in all cases where "Voila!" isn't so applicable... most, if not all, of the delay in supply response is a consequence of government intervention. For example, minimum wages guarantee that "Voila!" isn't the best way to describe how a huge chunk of labor responds to changes in demand. This is because a minimum wage effectively hides all the disparities in demand that occur beneath the minimum wage. Hiding demand disparities effectively eliminates the incentive for supply to respond to them. It really doesn't become profitable for labor to respond to changes in demand. Garbage in, garbage out.
Bundling effectively hides demand disparities and, as such, eliminates the incentive for suppliers to respond to them. Bundling does an excellent job of protecting producers from consumers. Except, why in the world would we ever want to protect producers from consumers?
Perhaps some lateral thinking would help...
Can you imagine if we protected flowers (producers) from hummingbirds (consumers)? What would happen to the supply of flowers if we reduced hummingbirds' choice in the matter? From the perspective of hummingbirds... would the supply improve? Would flowers fiercely fight for the attention of hummingbirds? Would flowers have the maximum incentive to produce an abundance of nectar? Would there be a greater variety of flowers for hummingbirds to choose from? Would hummingbirds have more freedom? Would hummingbirds truly be happier?
How often do we hear biologists cry to reduce hummingbird choice? How often do we hear economists cry to reduce human choice? Biologists cry when we do interfere with the environment. Krugman cries when we do not interfere with economy. Well... Krugman doesn't literally cry. Who wants to see Krugman literally crying? Well... hmmmm... big, fat, juicy tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping from his elfish face. I wonder how his tears would taste? Like heaven. Now I have a craving for Krugman's tears!
In a recent blog entry... The free-rider problem is an argument against democracy... I shared this passage by Hayek...
True, if we want at any time to make sure that we achieve as quickly as we can all that is definitely known to be possible, the deliberate organization of all the resources to be devoted to that end is the best way. In the area of marriage, to rely on the gradual evolution of suitable institutions would undoubtedly mean that some individual needs which a centralized organization would at once care for might for some time get inadequate attention. To the impatient reformer, who will be satisfied with nothing short of the immediate abolition of all avoidable evils, the creation of a single apparatus with full powers to do what can be done now appears therefore as the only appropriate method. In the long run, however, the price we have to pay for this, even in terms of the achievement in a particular field, may be very high. If we commit ourselves to a single comprehensive organization because its immediate coverage is greater, we may well prevent the evolution of other organizations whose eventual contribution to marriage might have been greater. - Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Hah...ok, yes, I took a couple liberties with this passage. You caught me. But the basic economic/evolutionary concept is just as applicable to marriage as it is to welfare. Hayek also wrote... "The introduction of such a system therefore puts a strait jacket on evolution and places on society a steadily growing burden..." Yes!!!
Government marriage has definitely put a straight jacket on the evolution of marriage. It's obviously true that this straight jacket doesn't prevent all change... given that marriage now includes gays. But as usual, the challenge isn't to see the seen... the challenge is to see the unseen. What would marriage look like now if it had been privatized 50 years ago? If marriage had been exposed to the full, direct, and extremely powerful force of consumer choice... would it be closer to, or further from, the preferences of consumers? Would the market have found/made more, less, or the same number of improvements? Would society have allocated more, less, or the same amount of its limited resources to debating marriage? Obviously I wouldn't be spending my time writing this blog entry.
Here's Milton Friedman, nearly 50 years ago, theorizing what would happen to television if it was more fully subjected to consumer choice...
What kind of TV system would emerge from the free and unfettered operation of market forces? No one can say in detail. The market is most ingenious and always produces surprises. But certain things are clear. First, there would still be programs supported entirely by advertising—as giveaway newspapers are now. Second, there would be many programs supported partly by advertising, partly by fees—as many newspapers and magazines are now. Third, there would be many programs supported entirely by fees—as so many books and other publications are now. Fourth, the TV bill of fare would be far richer than it now is. It would cater to all viewers, not just those influenced by advertising. It would provide expensive programs for limited audiences as well as low-cost programs for mass audiences. - Milton Friedman, How to Free TV
The specifics might not be applicable to marriage... but the general concept certainly is. If we fully subjected marriage to consumer choice, then the supply of marriage would more accurately reflect the diversity of the demand for marriage.
Over at the Federalist... Stella Morabito posted this article... 5 Questions For Libertarians Who Support Privatizing Marriage. Here's my one question for anybody who opposes privatizing marriage...
1. What impact does a reduction of consumer choice have on supply?
A. Supply improves at a faster rate
B. Supply improves at the same rate
C. Supply improves at a slower rate
Unfortunately, this is a really difficult question for way too many people. Alex Tabarrok is my favorite living economist... but he opposes unbundling cable. Jason Kuznicki might not be my favorite libertarian... but he's definitely way up there. I only have 8 followers on twitter... and he's one of them! Just in case you're wondering, my favorite libertarian is David Boaz... in no small part because of his endorsement of tax choice.... We should get to decide how the government spends our taxes. Even though Kuznicki is one of my favorite libertarians... he opposes privatizing marriage. Does he also oppose unbundling cable? Does Tabarrok also oppose privatizing marriage?
Perhaps I should point out that I'm not a libertarian... I'm a pragmatarian. For libertarians, the only way to subject marriage to market forces would be to move marriage from the public sector to the private sector. However, as a pragmatarian, I believe that there's a second way. Rather than marriage going to the market... the market can go to marriage. This second way could easily be accomplished by allowing people to choose where their taxes go.
So actually, given that David Boaz endorses tax choice, he isn't a libertarian... he's a pragmatarian. This is an important distinction. It differentiates those people who merely give lip service to market forces (libertarians) from those who actually appreciate and understand the benefits of market forces (pragmatarians). Anybody who doesn't publicly endorse allowing people to choose where their taxes go... doesn't truly understand the value of consumer choice. What about Friedman, Hayek and Smith? Well... unfortunately, they didn't have the opportunity to consider pragmatarianism... so "conversion" wasn't an option.
What about anarcho-capitalists? Unlike pragmatarians, they fail to recognize that the free-rider problem is a real problem. But is the free-rider problem applicable to marriage? Heh. No. Eh...? No. So I don't see a problem with marriage going to the market. It wouldn't be my first choice... but it's infinitely better than allowing marriage to remain largely protected from consumer choice.
Even though I'm not a libertarian... I'll throw some answers at Morabito's 5 Questions For Libertarians Who Support Privatizing Marriage...
1. How does lack of state recognition of marriage—replaced by a system of domestic partner contracts—actually shrink government involvement? As Dalmia notes, these partnerships still need to be authorized, recorded, and registered by the state, all according to government regulations. Trading in the simple marriage license for a system of contracts seems akin to trading in a simple flat tax for today’s Internal Revenue Service tax code. The government is and will be deeply involved in the law, rules, regulation, and enforcement of contract law. So, please explain and demonstrate how the government’s role in our lives would be minimized by ending state-recognized marriage.
Uh what? It might help to have it straight from the horse's mouth...
At the most basic level, even if we can get government out of the business of issuing marriage licenses, it still has to register these partnerships (and/or authorize the entities that perform them) before these unions can have any legal validity, just as it registers property and issues titles and deeds. Therefore, government would need to set rules and regulations as to what counts as a legitimate marriage "deed." It won't—and can't—simply accept any marriage performed in any church—or any domestic partnership written by anyone. Suppose that Osho, the Rolls Royce guru who encouraged free sex before getting chased out of Oregon, performed a group wedding uniting 19 people. Would that be acceptable? How about a church wedding—or a civil union—between a consenting mother and her adult son? And so on—there are innumerable outlandish examples that make it plain that government would have to at least set the outside parameters of marriage, even if it wasn't directly sanctioning them. - Shikha Dalmia, Privatizing Marriage Is a Terrible Idea
LOL... just in case anybody was wondering why marriage is referred to as the last legalized form of slavery. Wives are property of their husbands? Or is it the other way around?
Not too long ago I registered a domain name. I didn't even have to leave the house. And it was super cheap... and quick. Does my domain name ownership have any legal validity? Will it stand up in court? If not, then I'd want a full refund. If I didn't get a full refund, then I'd organize a boycott! Next question...
2. How would you deal with possible legislation to license all parents, including biological parents, once the state no longer recognizes any union, including that of biological parents, as marriage? As stated above, the loss of state recognition of their union as anything more than an ordinary contract will deprive biological parents of the presumption of custody. This scenario seems to open us up to more state meddling in family life, as well as meddling by other parties—particularly when it comes to the child custody.
And I thought that marriage was the last legalized form of slavery?! If the for-profit or non-profit organization that certified your marriage didn't also offer a really good deal on certifying your custody... then you should get a refund. Same thing if the custody didn't hold up in court.
3. How does privatizing marriage preserve spousal immunity? At present, the government cannot force you to testify against your spouse. That is currently the law in all 50 states. But once the state no longer recognizes you and your spouse as a family unit—only as partners in an ordinary business-style contract—the case for spousal immunity significantly weakens. After all, what’s the rationale for immunity if a “marriage” is no more special than an ordinary contract, and “spouses” are merely associates, individual parties to ordinary contracts? It seems clear this would invite more state intrusion in family relationships, not less. It would invite less privacy, not more. If you disagree, please lay out your plan for preserving spousal immunity in a system without state-recognized marriage.
Hah. "Honey, aren't you so happy that we're officially business partners!??" LOL. How romantic? I'm pretty sure that there's a pretty significant difference between business partners and life partners. And I'm also pretty confident that the market will cater to this difference. So as long as life partners are certified as such... then the rationale for immunity is exactly the same.
4. What do you make of the fact that Sunstein, the Obama administration’s regulator-in-chief from 2009 to 2012, argues for essentially the same plan? Sunstein is a long-time advocate of policies that grow government. He’s a big fan of nanny-state style “nudging” intended to modify everyone’s behavior. Clearly, your intent for limited government deviates about 180 degrees from his intent for big government. (Ditto with Fineman’s project to end state-recognized marriage.) So it’s worth connecting a few dots and figuring out what actual path the abolition of civil marriage puts us on. Sunstein has thought this issue through for a very long time and he no doubt sees a road to bigger government. Explain how he is incorrect.
Hehe. Oh, I'm chuckling too much. This is by far the most solid argument against privatizing marriage. Sunstein's super shady. He's so shady that I wouldn't be surprised if he was somehow tricking me into writing this blog entry. Am I being choice architectured? It might help to do a bit of homework...
In a chapter titled "Privatizing Marriage," Thaler and Sunstein advocate, quite sensibly, moving in a libertarian direction by separating marriage and state. They point out that, despite the evidence, almost 100 percent of people who get married think that they are highly unlikely to get divorced. This is one of those systematic, but wrong, biases that people have. People also think that arranging pre-nuptial agreements will "spoil the mood." The result? Most people are vulnerable to "a legal system that has an astonishing degree of uncertainty." They advocate a nudge: a default contract that favors the weakest parties, typically women. Then, people would be free to avoid the default by tailoring a contract to their desires. They also suggest that taking marriage away from the state would, with one fell swoop, solve the thorny problem of gay marriage. Let churches and other organizations choose whatever marriages they want to approve and let people choose their churches. Interestingly, their nudge is a small part of this proposal, just as with their proposal on malpractice. - David Henderson, What Nudge Really Says
I dunno, maybe Henderson also got choice architectured? It's entirely possible! That Sunstein is real sneaky!
5. How would abolishing state-recognized marriage promote freedom of association for all? The family serves as a buffer zone, or mediating institution, between the individual and the state. But logically, if the government does not have to recognize your marriage, it does not have to respect it. It does not have to recognize your family relationships at all, or your family as a unit. You are merely a separate party in an ordinary contract with someone else, as far as the state is concerned. While the contract with your associate might mutually recognize one another as a “spouse,” and claim that your biological children are “yours,” the state isn’t bound to do the same. And this legal separation in the eyes of the state is destined to reverberate through every other personal association in society. Please explain how abolishing state-recognized marriage protects the family and helps insulate individuals from an increasingly Leviathan state.
The reason that the state is Leviathan is because people don't recognize the value of consumer choice. Tax choice only has 81 likes on facebook! Given that people don't respect each other's choices... why should we expect anything different from the government? Even in a representative democracy, the government can't be better than the people. If people disrespect each other, then their government will disrespect them.
If we can convince enough people that marriage would be improved by consumer choice... then this would be a huge step in the right direction.
******************************************
Bueller's Basement
Last year I started a thread in a cactus forum... Plant On Plant Action. It was about growing plants epiphytically. Here was one of the replies that I received...
Aha i see your tree, so u just hack some holes in a tree and stuff um with shpagnam moss then toss some seeds or a plant in their and WAHLA! Epitree's ! - KittieKAT
WAHLA!? Eh? I scratched my head for a while before I figured out that she meant VOILA! For some reason I found it terribly endearing and WAHLA! Now we're married! Hah, not... really. Those few exchanges in the thread were pretty much the extent of our interaction.
Why did I find her WAHLA! to be so endearing? I don't know. I don't think I'm more easily endeared than the next guy. Or maybe I am? My favorite movie is Chungking Express. It has an abundance of quirky/endearing details. That's why I've been able to watch it far more times than any other movie.
Why is there a scarcity of movies that have an abundance of quirky/endearing details? Part of the answer surely depends on the fact that I haven't been given the opportunity to accurately communicate my demand for Chungking Express. Am I supposed to buy the same movie 10 times? Not really. The supply can't be optimal when demand is largely unknown. Producers aren't omniscient.
Netflix allowing people to choose where their fees go would certainly help clarify demand. What about taxes though? Movies fall in the category of goods that we treat like private goods... but doing so goes against their true nature. So I'm inclined to believe in the Dept of Movies...
It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
If we could choose where our taxes go... would we have to worry about people spending too much of their tax dollars on the Dept of Movies? Not according to Smith...
It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their taxes towards the public goods which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards say, the Dept of Movies, the fall of benefit in it and the rise of the benefit in all others... such as the Dept of Books... immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society.
If marriage was privatized, would we have to worry about producers allocating too much capital to supplying marriage certificates? No... because after a certain point... there would be a surplus. And we would know that there was a surplus because the profitability of supplying marriage certificates would decrease. Other endeavors would be relatively more profitable... and capital would shift accordingly.
If the market went to marriage though... would we then have to worry about government producers allocating too much capital to supplying marriage licenses? After all, there wouldn't be any profits to guide the producers. Profit, however, is merely a reflection of consumers' perception of relative scarcity. As long as consumers can allocate their money to communicate their perception of relative scarcity... then the distribution would still be optimal. Because as more and more resources were allocated to the Dept of Books... there would be less and less resources available for defense. This would increase people's perception of the relative scarcity of defense... which would increase the benefit of allocating taxes to the DoD. But of course we don't all have the same perception of relative scarcity. Which is a big part of the reason why consumer choice is so important.
It's really not easy to describe a mass of individuals each allocating their money according to their different perceptions of relative scarcity.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Noah Smith's Critique of Pragmatarianism
I've certainly "harassed" a lot of people about pragmatarianism. But nobody has consistently endured my repeated pestering longer than Noah Smith has. For example...here's my very first comment on his Sept 2010 blog entry...
After several more attempts to engage him on the idea of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...I took my usual summer break from promoting pragmatarianism. That seemed to do the trick! Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Here's our discussion from his latest blog entry...EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary
Xero: Hah...you saved the best for last! This post alone was worth adding your blog to my blog roll.
Now I feel obligated to live up to my reputation. But I'm so tuckered from trolling so many other places that I don't know if I can muster the effort to spam you. Oh wait...I already did. [I linked the words in that sentences to other places I had discussed pragmatarianism]
Have you ever had Spam Musubi? My gf is from Hawaii...it's her favorite dish...she thinks it's deeeelish. Then again...her favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber. That probably explains why she's dating me.
What's with the uncategorizable though? Maybe I haven't said "pragmatarianism" enough times? Oh oh...and I think I'd go with this as my one liner... "Here I am...trying to convince you that it's a brilliant idea that leaders of government organizations should be forced convince you that their brilliant ideas are worth your taxes. So many brilliant ideas...so few resources! That's how economics works."
Well...since I'm here anyways...[truncated]
Noah: Awww, I missed you Xerographica! Not sarcasm. :)
FWIW, people choosing which programs their tax dollars go to presents a coordination problem. Imagine if the budget last year for highway-building was $50B. Now imagine that everyone thinks they did a good job and highways are important, so they allocate more to highways. But since they all do it at once, the highway-building dept. now has $500B this year. What do they do with all that extra cash?
Xero: Heh, missing a troll of any sort is way bad precedent.
Too much extra cash? Here's the simple answer. Brace yourself...because this might sound absurd...but I'm guessing that each government organization would have a fundraising progress bar on its website. And...just like in the non-profit sector...taxpayers would be able to pay their taxes at anytime throughout the year.
Here's a fun "fact" that I learned the hard way (via a speeding ticket and traffic school)..."A $10 million investment in public transportation results in a $30 million gain in sales for local businesses." Does that mean that a $100 million investment in public transportation results in a $300 million gain in sales for local businesses? I have no idea what the curve would look like...but I can guarantee that every single government organization would want to maximize their revenue...just like most taxpayers would intuitively understand the idea of diminishing returns.
Now for the complicated answer. The other day I was driving at the speed limit on the freeway when I noticed a couple cars ahead pull over to the side of the freeway. I instantly assumed they had gotten into an accident but then more and more cars started pulling over to the side. What did they know that I didn't? As I was slowing down and looking all around...I spotted something in the sky...it wasn't a bird...it wasn't superman...it was actually the shuttle Endeavor.
If all the blind men agree that they are touching an elephant...if both libertarians and liberals allocate 100% of their taxes to the Dept of Defense...then is it a coordination problem or is everybody seeing Godzilla heading our way? If everybody you know buys the new iPhone...is that a coordination problem...or a bandwagon problem...or a bubble...or a fad...or just our consumer culture at work? Personally...I would never buy an Apple product...just like some people would never buy spam. Our wide diversity of perspectives, interests, values, concerns, fears and hopes would ensure heterogeneous activity in a pragmatarian system. So if everybody should happen to bet on the same horse...then you'd have to ask yourself whether they know something that you do not.
Eh, don't take my word for it. Just e-mail Peter Boettke...after all...the name of his blog is "Coordination Problem". If you haven't read his new book yet...my offer to buy it for you still stands.
Noah: OK, so what determines the size of the fundraising bars? Isn't there an incentive for govt. agencies to say they need much more than they actually need?
Xero: Definitely...but it would be checked and balanced by taxpayers wanting more for less. That's the basic dynamic involved every time you spend your own money. You want to purchase products at the lowest possible price and producers want to sell their products at the highest possible price. The bargaining process is what incorporates all our perspectives (information, values, interests, concerns, hopes, dreams, etc) into determining how limited resources are used.
Public goods don't have literal price tags on them...and you aren't going to sit by the door waiting for the EPA to send you a box of environmental protection. But when you give your money to the EPA...you're actually giving them a portion of your life. Here's the quote from Henry David Thoreau that "Name" shared in the comments..."The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." How much of your life is protecting the environment worth?
Who are taxpayers? They are the people that produce the products/services that we voluntarily exchange our lives for. That's why they are our true representatives. And if I feel like Jeff Bezos is failing to represent my interests in the public sector....then I can easily give him less money to spend in the public sector simply by choosing not to shop on Amazon.
J.S. Mill referred to bonsai trees a few times in On Liberty. A bonsai apple tree won't produce nearly as much fruit as an apple tree that has had the opportunity to reach its full potential. Perhaps liberals perceive that poor people, through no fault of their own, are like bonsai trees...and we would greatly benefit as a society by giving them whatever they need to reach their full potential. Clearly giving them all iPhones wouldn't help them reach their full potential...so what would? Options...giving them more options. But options are created by giving people the freedom to come up with new and innovative uses for limited resources. For example, people now have the option to become pilots because the Wright Brothers had the freedom to apply their unique perspectives to their limited resources.
Having more options in life is having more freedom and more freedom leads to more options. So we give taxpayers the freedom to choose how they spend their own taxes in the public sector. This freedom will invariably lead to more options and everybody will greatly benefit.
In other words...a mind is a terrible thing to waste. If you can't choose how you spend your time/money then your mind is wasted. By allowing 538 congresspeople to spend taxpayers' money...we are wasting the minds of 150 million of our most productive citizens. Well...partially wasting. Socialist experiments have already demonstrated the consequences of completely wasting the minds of your citizens. Yet...we still allow a small group of government planners to decide how 1/4 of our nation's revenue is spent.
Errr...somewhat less seriously...I figure government organizations would create commercials kind of like Pat Robinson asking people to donate money for an interstellar cruiser. Would you spend any of your taxes on an interstellar cruiser? Yes? Well don't blame me if you wake up on Mars one day...it was your tax allocation decisions that contributed to the NASA bubble.
Noah: OK, but how would taxpayers know how much each agency needed? They can determine how much money they give, but the amount of money requested is set by the agency, right? So if the agency sets its website fundraising thermometer with a max of $100B when it can only really spend $50B effectively, how do people know when to stop giving it money?
Xero: Errr...because you would tell them. You would create a blog entry that offers conclusive proof that the Dept of Transportation can only really effectively spend $50 billion dollars. Isn't that what economists are for? And then the Dept of Transportation would offer conclusive evidence that refutes your conclusive evidence. And then all the trolls would chime in with their own conclusive evidence.
And taxpayers would be swimming in all sorts of conclusive evidence. Why? Because we forced government organizations to "solely" rely on persuasion. Persuasion is the most wonderfullest thing. It's really hard to overestimate its value. Without persuasion there wouldn't be any information. A person holding a gun doesn't have to explain to you why you should give him your money. But if he didn't have the gun then he would be forced to explain that he wants your money to buy drugs. That information would not persuade you to give him your money...which is why he resorted to using a gun in the first place.
Capitalism works because people are forced to solely rely on persuasion if they want your life...which explains exactly why socialism does not work.
If you understand the value of persuasion...then you will very much appreciate that Milton Friedman was not overreacting in this video when an interviewer started to ask him a hypothetical..."if you were a dictator for a day..." question. Friedman quickly cut him off and emphatically said..."If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it." Oh man oh man! That perfectly embodies the difference between capitalism and socialism...the difference between conceit and humility. As Hayek said..."The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
In a pragmatarian system...because of the possibility of the free-rider problem...people would still be forced to pay taxes anyways...so the gun would still be there. But that doesn't mean that we have to eliminate persuasion from the equation. We force people to pay taxes but we should solely rely on persuasion to convince them to spend their money...to spend a significant portion of their lives...on the public goods that we believe are underfunded.
Another way of looking at persuasion...and understanding what impels people to act...is from the perspective of "unease". I disagree with Mises on quite a few points...but it's really hard to find anybody who has explained the general idea of human action as effectively and concisely as he did...
"We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care."
The amount of funding that government organizations received would reflect our levels of unease. If the thought of taxpayers giving too much money to the Dept of Transportation made you uneasy then you'd blog about it. If your unease was based on solid evidence...then your evidence would make taxpayers uneasy and influence their tax allocation decisions.
What makes me uneasy is not knowing what is truly making 150 million of our most productive citizens uneasy. Why wouldn't we want to find out? How can we prioritize how we spend our limited resources when we don't truly know what the biggest public concerns of our nation actually are?
Truthfully signalling our biggest concerns will help our brightest minds understand exactly where they can make the biggest impact in our lives.
Allowing tax payers to vote with their taxes would lead to the most efficient division of labor between the public and private sector.
The only difference between public and private goods is that, with public goods, people can free-ride off the contributions of others. Add the element of coercion (taxes) and the invisible hand can allocate public resources as efficiently as it can allocate private resources.That was the only comment on his blog entry...and he didn't even respond. After a few more comments he still didn't respond so I created a blog entry to document his lack of response...The Ostrich Response to Pragmatarianism. That manged to get a response out of him...which was..."I guess it's just that I have trouble understanding what you write..." Ehh....oh. I did get a C in one English class...so...it wasn't like he was the first to bring that to my attention. Writing definitely does not come easy to me so I found his response to be somewhat reasonable.
After several more attempts to engage him on the idea of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...I took my usual summer break from promoting pragmatarianism. That seemed to do the trick! Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Here's our discussion from his latest blog entry...EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary
Xero: Hah...you saved the best for last! This post alone was worth adding your blog to my blog roll.
Now I feel obligated to live up to my reputation. But I'm so tuckered from trolling so many other places that I don't know if I can muster the effort to spam you. Oh wait...I already did. [I linked the words in that sentences to other places I had discussed pragmatarianism]
Have you ever had Spam Musubi? My gf is from Hawaii...it's her favorite dish...she thinks it's deeeelish. Then again...her favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber. That probably explains why she's dating me.
What's with the uncategorizable though? Maybe I haven't said "pragmatarianism" enough times? Oh oh...and I think I'd go with this as my one liner... "Here I am...trying to convince you that it's a brilliant idea that leaders of government organizations should be forced convince you that their brilliant ideas are worth your taxes. So many brilliant ideas...so few resources! That's how economics works."
Well...since I'm here anyways...[truncated]
Noah: Awww, I missed you Xerographica! Not sarcasm. :)
FWIW, people choosing which programs their tax dollars go to presents a coordination problem. Imagine if the budget last year for highway-building was $50B. Now imagine that everyone thinks they did a good job and highways are important, so they allocate more to highways. But since they all do it at once, the highway-building dept. now has $500B this year. What do they do with all that extra cash?
Xero: Heh, missing a troll of any sort is way bad precedent.
Too much extra cash? Here's the simple answer. Brace yourself...because this might sound absurd...but I'm guessing that each government organization would have a fundraising progress bar on its website. And...just like in the non-profit sector...taxpayers would be able to pay their taxes at anytime throughout the year.
Here's a fun "fact" that I learned the hard way (via a speeding ticket and traffic school)..."A $10 million investment in public transportation results in a $30 million gain in sales for local businesses." Does that mean that a $100 million investment in public transportation results in a $300 million gain in sales for local businesses? I have no idea what the curve would look like...but I can guarantee that every single government organization would want to maximize their revenue...just like most taxpayers would intuitively understand the idea of diminishing returns.
Now for the complicated answer. The other day I was driving at the speed limit on the freeway when I noticed a couple cars ahead pull over to the side of the freeway. I instantly assumed they had gotten into an accident but then more and more cars started pulling over to the side. What did they know that I didn't? As I was slowing down and looking all around...I spotted something in the sky...it wasn't a bird...it wasn't superman...it was actually the shuttle Endeavor.
If all the blind men agree that they are touching an elephant...if both libertarians and liberals allocate 100% of their taxes to the Dept of Defense...then is it a coordination problem or is everybody seeing Godzilla heading our way? If everybody you know buys the new iPhone...is that a coordination problem...or a bandwagon problem...or a bubble...or a fad...or just our consumer culture at work? Personally...I would never buy an Apple product...just like some people would never buy spam. Our wide diversity of perspectives, interests, values, concerns, fears and hopes would ensure heterogeneous activity in a pragmatarian system. So if everybody should happen to bet on the same horse...then you'd have to ask yourself whether they know something that you do not.
Eh, don't take my word for it. Just e-mail Peter Boettke...after all...the name of his blog is "Coordination Problem". If you haven't read his new book yet...my offer to buy it for you still stands.
Noah: OK, so what determines the size of the fundraising bars? Isn't there an incentive for govt. agencies to say they need much more than they actually need?
Xero: Definitely...but it would be checked and balanced by taxpayers wanting more for less. That's the basic dynamic involved every time you spend your own money. You want to purchase products at the lowest possible price and producers want to sell their products at the highest possible price. The bargaining process is what incorporates all our perspectives (information, values, interests, concerns, hopes, dreams, etc) into determining how limited resources are used.
Public goods don't have literal price tags on them...and you aren't going to sit by the door waiting for the EPA to send you a box of environmental protection. But when you give your money to the EPA...you're actually giving them a portion of your life. Here's the quote from Henry David Thoreau that "Name" shared in the comments..."The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." How much of your life is protecting the environment worth?
Who are taxpayers? They are the people that produce the products/services that we voluntarily exchange our lives for. That's why they are our true representatives. And if I feel like Jeff Bezos is failing to represent my interests in the public sector....then I can easily give him less money to spend in the public sector simply by choosing not to shop on Amazon.
J.S. Mill referred to bonsai trees a few times in On Liberty. A bonsai apple tree won't produce nearly as much fruit as an apple tree that has had the opportunity to reach its full potential. Perhaps liberals perceive that poor people, through no fault of their own, are like bonsai trees...and we would greatly benefit as a society by giving them whatever they need to reach their full potential. Clearly giving them all iPhones wouldn't help them reach their full potential...so what would? Options...giving them more options. But options are created by giving people the freedom to come up with new and innovative uses for limited resources. For example, people now have the option to become pilots because the Wright Brothers had the freedom to apply their unique perspectives to their limited resources.
Having more options in life is having more freedom and more freedom leads to more options. So we give taxpayers the freedom to choose how they spend their own taxes in the public sector. This freedom will invariably lead to more options and everybody will greatly benefit.
In other words...a mind is a terrible thing to waste. If you can't choose how you spend your time/money then your mind is wasted. By allowing 538 congresspeople to spend taxpayers' money...we are wasting the minds of 150 million of our most productive citizens. Well...partially wasting. Socialist experiments have already demonstrated the consequences of completely wasting the minds of your citizens. Yet...we still allow a small group of government planners to decide how 1/4 of our nation's revenue is spent.
Errr...somewhat less seriously...I figure government organizations would create commercials kind of like Pat Robinson asking people to donate money for an interstellar cruiser. Would you spend any of your taxes on an interstellar cruiser? Yes? Well don't blame me if you wake up on Mars one day...it was your tax allocation decisions that contributed to the NASA bubble.
Noah: OK, but how would taxpayers know how much each agency needed? They can determine how much money they give, but the amount of money requested is set by the agency, right? So if the agency sets its website fundraising thermometer with a max of $100B when it can only really spend $50B effectively, how do people know when to stop giving it money?
Xero: Errr...because you would tell them. You would create a blog entry that offers conclusive proof that the Dept of Transportation can only really effectively spend $50 billion dollars. Isn't that what economists are for? And then the Dept of Transportation would offer conclusive evidence that refutes your conclusive evidence. And then all the trolls would chime in with their own conclusive evidence.
And taxpayers would be swimming in all sorts of conclusive evidence. Why? Because we forced government organizations to "solely" rely on persuasion. Persuasion is the most wonderfullest thing. It's really hard to overestimate its value. Without persuasion there wouldn't be any information. A person holding a gun doesn't have to explain to you why you should give him your money. But if he didn't have the gun then he would be forced to explain that he wants your money to buy drugs. That information would not persuade you to give him your money...which is why he resorted to using a gun in the first place.
Capitalism works because people are forced to solely rely on persuasion if they want your life...which explains exactly why socialism does not work.
If you understand the value of persuasion...then you will very much appreciate that Milton Friedman was not overreacting in this video when an interviewer started to ask him a hypothetical..."if you were a dictator for a day..." question. Friedman quickly cut him off and emphatically said..."If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it." Oh man oh man! That perfectly embodies the difference between capitalism and socialism...the difference between conceit and humility. As Hayek said..."The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
In a pragmatarian system...because of the possibility of the free-rider problem...people would still be forced to pay taxes anyways...so the gun would still be there. But that doesn't mean that we have to eliminate persuasion from the equation. We force people to pay taxes but we should solely rely on persuasion to convince them to spend their money...to spend a significant portion of their lives...on the public goods that we believe are underfunded.
Another way of looking at persuasion...and understanding what impels people to act...is from the perspective of "unease". I disagree with Mises on quite a few points...but it's really hard to find anybody who has explained the general idea of human action as effectively and concisely as he did...
"We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care."
The amount of funding that government organizations received would reflect our levels of unease. If the thought of taxpayers giving too much money to the Dept of Transportation made you uneasy then you'd blog about it. If your unease was based on solid evidence...then your evidence would make taxpayers uneasy and influence their tax allocation decisions.
What makes me uneasy is not knowing what is truly making 150 million of our most productive citizens uneasy. Why wouldn't we want to find out? How can we prioritize how we spend our limited resources when we don't truly know what the biggest public concerns of our nation actually are?
Truthfully signalling our biggest concerns will help our brightest minds understand exactly where they can make the biggest impact in our lives.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Survey
The pragmatarian approach advocates that taxpayers should be allowed to directly choose which government organizations (GOs) receive their individual taxes. So it makes sense that the primary criticism of pragmatarianism revolves around how other people would allocate their taxes.
This criticism doesn't hold much weight for me though because so far I haven't found anybody that would admit to intentionally paying for failure. The first sentence on that White House Office of Budget and Management page says...
If a GO doesn't produce results...would you continue to allocate your taxes to it? If a private organization (PO) produces better results than a GO...would you continue to allocate your taxes to that GO? It is my firm belief that the people who earn the money have the strongest incentives to ensure that their money is not wasted.
A while back I ran across this interview where Milton Friedman is asked which of the Cabinet Departments he considers to be redundant. With this interview in mind I decided to create a similar survey.
This survey asks how you would allocate your individual taxes among the 15 Cabinet Departments. But, I also included Congress in the selection. The more you trust Congress not to waste your money the more of your taxes you would allocate to Congress.
This survey only represents the top two of the three tiers in the pragmatarian system. With a pragmatarian system tax payers would be able to divvy up their individual taxes among three different tiers...Congress (top), Cabinet Departments (middle) and individual GOs (bottom). Each GO would have a fundraising progress bar on their website and tax payers would be able to pay their taxes at any time throughout the year. They would pay their taxes directly to the GOs and the GOs would give them a receipt and send a receipt to the IRS.
Taxpayers will no longer be blindly shelling out their money to a faceless organization. They will become donors altruistically supporting the public goods that they believe to be essential to the well being of our society. The focus will no longer be on cutting...it will be on contributing. The process of contributing to the common good of society will go from impersonal to personal. The associated feeling will no longer be a "cold prickle"...instead it will be a "warm glow".
Feel free to share your surveys in the following forums...
This criticism doesn't hold much weight for me though because so far I haven't found anybody that would admit to intentionally paying for failure. The first sentence on that White House Office of Budget and Management page says...
For too long, the U.S. Government has funded programs based upon metrics that tell us how many people we are serving, but little about how we are improving their lives.In other words, for too long our taxes have been paying for failure.
If a GO doesn't produce results...would you continue to allocate your taxes to it? If a private organization (PO) produces better results than a GO...would you continue to allocate your taxes to that GO? It is my firm belief that the people who earn the money have the strongest incentives to ensure that their money is not wasted.
A while back I ran across this interview where Milton Friedman is asked which of the Cabinet Departments he considers to be redundant. With this interview in mind I decided to create a similar survey.
This survey asks how you would allocate your individual taxes among the 15 Cabinet Departments. But, I also included Congress in the selection. The more you trust Congress not to waste your money the more of your taxes you would allocate to Congress.
This survey only represents the top two of the three tiers in the pragmatarian system. With a pragmatarian system tax payers would be able to divvy up their individual taxes among three different tiers...Congress (top), Cabinet Departments (middle) and individual GOs (bottom). Each GO would have a fundraising progress bar on their website and tax payers would be able to pay their taxes at any time throughout the year. They would pay their taxes directly to the GOs and the GOs would give them a receipt and send a receipt to the IRS.
Taxpayers will no longer be blindly shelling out their money to a faceless organization. They will become donors altruistically supporting the public goods that they believe to be essential to the well being of our society. The focus will no longer be on cutting...it will be on contributing. The process of contributing to the common good of society will go from impersonal to personal. The associated feeling will no longer be a "cold prickle"...instead it will be a "warm glow".
| Department | % of Your Taxes | ||||
| Agriculture | % | ||||
| Commerce | % | ||||
| Congress | % | ||||
| Defense | % | ||||
| Education | % | ||||
| Energy | % | ||||
| Health | % | ||||
| Homeland | % | ||||
| Housing | % | ||||
| Interior | % | ||||
| Justice | % | ||||
| Labor | % | ||||
| State | % | ||||
| Transportation | % | ||||
| Treasury | % | ||||
| Veterans | % | ||||
| TOTALS | % | ||||
| |||||
| |||||
Feel free to share your surveys in the following forums...
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