How we rank each other matters.

My comment on Once more for the people at the back: abortion rights and trans rights are the same struggle by Zoe Stavri. 

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Bodily autonomy?  You and I don't have the same body.   We have different bodies.  You know how I can tell?  It's because we have different DNA.  You know who else has different DNA?  Your mom.  My mom.  Every mom.  Mothers and children have different DNA.  Otherwise everybody would be clones.  Are you happy that we're not all clones?  I sure am. 

Imagine if I invite you over to see my really nice garden... it's brimming with nature.  Of course I'd first have to give you my address.  This is my property's unique ID.  When you find, and walk onto, my property, what happens to your bodily autonomy?  Do you lose any of your bodily autonomy?  Of course not.  That would be absurd.   In no case does any of my property, to include my own body, negate or diminish your bodily autonomy. 

By this same token, if you get pregnant, in no case does your bodily autonomy negate or diminish the bodily autonomy of the unique individual that is inside you. 

Let's say that, for whatever reason, I decide I no longer want you on my property.  Should I be free to eject you?  Sure, as long as doing so doesn't harm you.  If my property happens to be a boat that is surrounded by sharks, then I shouldn't be free to eject you. 

In a perfect world, ejecting unborn individuals at any time wouldn't at all be harmful.  Like, your fetus could be instantly and safely teleported across the galaxy into the womb of some other lady.   It wouldn't be like Adam and Eve getting ejected from the Garden of Eden into a harsh environment.  It would be like God moving them to another wonderful garden. 

Why would this be ideal?  Here's why...

We’ve spent the last few hundred years throwing out every Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk or Tim Berners-Lee who didn’t happen to be white, and didn’t happen to be a man. That’s a terrible thing to have done to those brilliant and now lost people. It’s a much worse thing to have done to the rest of humanity, including our white selves. When I think, “why don’t I have a jet car and live in Alpha Centuri by now?” I think this is because the people that would have invented sky cars and interstellar travel were born black in Detroit, or in rural India or in the medina in Algiers in the 1950s, and spent too much time figuring out how to eat and not get killed to invent my damned skycar. - Quinn Norton, How White People Got Made 

All progress depends on difference, which is why it's wonderful that we're not all clones.  Every unique individual contributes to humanity's diversity... and more diversity means more progress. 

Difference inherently means inequality.  The only way we could all be equal is if we were clones.  You naturally rank a woman and her unborn child very differently,  and so do I.  You also rank authors very differently, and so do I.   I'm sure we also rank economists very differently.   Personally, I rank economists much higher than feminists.  Since difference matters, it matters how we rank each other.  The question is whether voting (cheap signal) or spending (costly signal) is the best way to rank each other.   The answer to this question is clearly revealed by the top-ranked videos on Youtube.   Once we replace all cheap signals with costly signals, then it will be heaven on earth. 

The Smoking Gun Of Human Intelligence

My comment on: Genetics, IQ, and ‘race’ – are genetic differences in intelligence between populations likely? by Kevin Mitchell

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You're overlooking the smoking gun. Why, exactly, are humans exceptionally intelligent? It has to do with our bodies. Unlike wolves, our bodies aren't optimized for running. Unlike dolphins, our bodies aren't optimized for swimming. Unlike hawks, our bodies aren't optimized for flying. Our bodies are optimized for carrying. We're physically the best, by far, at simultaneously allocating a wide variety of resources over greater distances. This is the smoking gun.

When other animals decide to migrate they aren't confronted with a very complicated carrying problem. It was a very different story with our ancestors. Successful migration was a function of solving hard allocation problems. Figuring out the optimal combination of resources... getting the balance right... correctly calculating the (opportunity) costs and benefits... all this depended on processing a lot of information. Smarter allocators were more reproductively successful. Exceptionally intelligent individuals exerted exceptional influence on the gene pool.

The invention of bags greatly increased the difficulty of the allocation problem, which put even greater selection pressure on intelligence. Same thing with the discovery that animals could be used for transportation. The invention of carts put even more selection pressure on intelligence.

These innovations were very unequally distributed across continents. Therefore it's a given that the same is true of intelligence. However, to be clear, the type of intelligence that survival depends on, or used to depend on, really isn't measured by IQ tests. Well yeah, of course... IQ tests weren't created by economists.

Nowadays we can use trucks, trains, planes and ships to simultaneously allocate huge amounts of resources. But it's no longer the case that the goodness of allocation decisions will determine reproductive success. We've reached peak intelligence. This could potentially change once we start seriously colonizing the stars. I love that video.

Imagine you decide to join the first group of colonists to Mars. What would you take with you? What if you knew, for a fact, that the Earth was about to be destroyed by an asteroid? Would you take more seeds? If you took one coconut, you'd forgo the opportunity to take millions and millions of different orchid seeds. Just how useful are orchids anyways? It's not like you can eat them.

The point of trade is to correctly discern the social usefulness of things. There's a difference between how useful orchids are to you, and how useful they are to us. Gold isn't at all useful to me personally, I can't eat it and I have absolutely no interest in wearing it, but if I randomly happened to find a huge nugget while hiking, then I'd definitely decide to carry it because, thanks to the market, I know that it is very useful to us.

The social usefulness of academic papers is currently determined by voting. Each citation counts as a vote. But where's the paper that proves that voting is more useful than spending at determining the social usefulness of things? It doesn't exist. If it isn't the case that voting is more useful than spending, then it is the case that academics are currently far less useful to humanity than they could, and should, be.

To be clear, spending doesn't have to mean buying. Academic papers could be ranked by using donations. Alternatively, there could be a Netflix for academic papers where subscribers could earmark their subscription dollars to the most useful papers. Each subscriber would essentially use their money to say, "This paper is worth carrying, and I'll prove it by spending my money on it." Costly signals are credible signals.

The cost of communicating the usefulness of things

Comment on: Moana, Complacency, and the Enduring Appeal of Steady-State Economics by Joshua Miller

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Imagine if people had to perform 100 push-ups before they purchased anything. What impact would this have? It would greatly increase the cost of trade. In other words, it would greatly increase the cost of communicating the usefulness of things. People would far less frequently communicate the usefulness of things, so everybody would be far less informed about the usefulness of things, and everybody would make far less useful decisions. The result would be far less progress.

Walking upright is kinda like doing less pushups before trading.

Using horses is kinda like doing even less pushups before trading. The earliest native Americans didn’t have horses. Therefore… ?

Taxpayers are prevented from using their own tax dollars to signal the usefulness of goods supplied by the government. Therefore… ?

Life is synonymous with colonization. Colonization is nature’s mandate. Because, species that aren’t adequately diversified generally don’t stick around very long. The sooner people recognize the correlation between trade and progress, the faster we’ll colonize the stars.

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This is relevant...

Alipay turned out to be so convenient that Liu began using it multiple times a day, starting first thing in the morning, when he ordered breakfast through a food delivery app. He realized that he could pay for parking through Alipay’s My Car feature, so he added his driver’s license and license plate numbers, as well as the engine number of his Audi. He started making his car insurance payments with the app. He booked doctors’ appointments there, skipping the chaotic lines for which Chinese hospitals are famous. He added friends in Alipay’s built-in social network. When Liu went on vacation with his fiancée (now his wife) to Thailand, they paid at restaurants and bought trinkets with Alipay. He stored whatever money was left over, which wasn’t much once the vacation and car were paid for, in an Alipay money market account. He could have paid his electricity, gas, and internet bills in Alipay’s City Service section. Like many young Chinese who had become enamored of the mobile payment services offered by Alipay and WeChat, Liu stopped bringing his wallet when he left the house. - Mara Hvistendah, Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking 

Are two of Robin Hanson's heads better than one?

Robin Hanson and I have recently exchanged a few thoughts on Twitter about his book... The Age Of Em.  Its topic is the idea of making numerous robot copies ("ems" = emulations) of the most useful people.  Admittedly, I haven't read it.  I acknowledge that it's questionable when somebody discusses a book that they haven't read.  But it's not always the case that purchasing/using a product is a prerequisite for saying anything useful about it.  Perhaps it's always the case that producers should be interested to learn why, exactly, their products do not appeal to relevant consumers.

Here's our Twitter exchange...

I critique accuracy of em depictions in @doctorow's Walkaway. Some stuff is right, but a whole lot looks very wrong. https://t.co/r73jZUy1qT

— robin hanson (@robinhanson) August 16, 2017

If I had to choose between being stranded on an island with 99 copies of myself or 99 different people, it wouldn't be a difficult choice.

— Pragmatarian (@Pragmatarian) August 17, 2017

What relation do you see between this and anything Cory or I said?

— robin hanson (@robinhanson) August 17, 2017

You both seem to think copies will be desirable. As if it would be better to have a jury composed of 12 copies of the same wise person.

— Pragmatarian (@Pragmatarian) August 17, 2017

My book is mostly not about what would be desirable, but instead what would actually happen. My critique of @doctorow is also not on desire.

— robin hanson (@robinhanson) August 17, 2017

A book about inbreeding mostly not about desirability, but instead about actual results? This only makes sense if the results are fictional.

— Pragmatarian (@Pragmatarian) August 17, 2017

The case for freedom is based on the relationship between diversity and progress.  People are all different.  So when they have freedom, they naturally use their resources differently, which facilitates the discovery of better uses of society's limited resources.  Therefore, the more similar that people are to each other, the less heterogeneous their economic activity, the less progress that will be made, and the weaker the case for freedom.

Yesterday Peter Boettke shared a link to this excellent article by Don Lavoie... Political and economic illusions of socialism (PDF).  It has some ideas and concepts that we can use to analyze the idea of ems.

Let's start here...

The appropriate criteria for judging the effectiveness of an economy for growth are the Hayekian ones of flexibility, initiative, and entrepreneurship. Agents in a free market are capable of greater responsiveness in the face of uncertainty than those in a Soviet-type economy because of their relatively greater freedom of maneuver. They are less constrained by rules and regulations, and do not need to seek approval from superiors for their actions. Requiring Soviet managers to obtain bureaucratic approval for many of their decisions inevitably slows down the entrepreneurial process. - Don Lavoie, Political and economic illusions of socialism 

More freedom to maneuver is beneficial to the extent that unique individuals are naturally inclined to differently use their limited resources.  Here's a relevant passage by Adam Smith...

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder. — Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Each unique individual has their own unique "principle of motion".  Smith borrowed this concept largely from Isaac Newton's observation that each heavenly body has its own principle of motion.  Different bodies move differently.  Socialism, to some degree, blocks people's principles of motion by imposing officially sanctioned principles of motion.  To put it as accessibly as possible, rather than people dancing to the beat of their own drum, they become, to some extent, marionettes.

Socialism is synonymous with slavery...

He [Peter Rutland] reminds us, for example, that the work camps were crowded with several million kulaks when he remarks that "these unfortunates made a major contribution to the construction and extractive industries." If we insist on calling this reversion to slave labor "development," then the Soviet economy certainly did develop rapidly. So did Egypt under the pharaohs, who had a similar penchant for the construction and extractive industries. - Don Lavoie, Political and economic illusions of socialism

Would the pyramids have been built without the government?  No?  Well, there is the free-rider problem.  We can eliminate it by imagining if the Egyptians had been given the freedom to choose where their taxes went.  Then would the pyramids have been built?  If the Egyptians had used their freedom/taxes to allocate the same exact amount of resources to the construction of pyramids, then what would be the point of their freedom?  Their principles of motions were exactly the same as the ones imposed by the government.

Hanson's ems are based on the premise that it's beneficial to have a bunch of people with the same principle of motion.  This premise is fundamentally, blatantly and tragically flawed.  Society really does not benefit from more sameness... it benefits from more difference.  Sure, Hanson's book is different in that it explores the idea of robot copies of humans.  But, as far as I can tell, he really doesn't take the opportunity to strongly criticize the idea of homogenizing society.  There are already a gazillion books that fail to recognize the importance of diversity to economics and progress.  We really don't need more of them.

Interestingly, many, or most, books about evolution recognize the importance of diversity to adaptation/progress.  I'm sure that Hanson fully grasps that the Great Famine of Ireland was the result of inadequate potato and crop diversity.  Yet, obviously he sure doesn't seem to appreciate that diversity is just as important for people as it is for crops.  In order for society to quickly adapt to constantly changing conditions, we need more, rather than less, diversity.  

If society is going to produce a gazillion advanced robots, then the robots should maximize society's ability to evolve.  This can only happen if, and only if, the robots are at least as different as humans are.

Where it gets tricky, and fascinating, is that robots will be far more capable of changing themselves than humans are.  So even if there were a million ems of Hanson, how long would they remain so?  Would it be necessary to prevent them from fundamentally changing themselves?  If so, this implies their desire to do so... which is entirely consistent with truly advanced intelligence.

Humans benefit when other humans change themselves to better serve each other.  But there's a natural limit to our ability to change.  Robots won't have the same natural limit.  Any such limitation will be entirely artificial... and undesirable.  Such a limit would be the equivalent of society shooting itself in the foot.  It's extremely beneficial for robots to have perfect control over their principles of motion.  The robots who adjust their motions to better serve society will be given more money, which will give them more control over society's limited resources, which will result in even more social benefit.  Of course, this is dependent on the robots being inside, rather than outside, markets.

Not only do markets give individuals the freedom to be different, markets also give people the freedom to use their money to grade/judge/rank/valuate/signal the benefit of each other's difference.  In no case is difference equally beneficial.  Poison oak and artichokes are both different, but their difference isn't equally beneficial.  Nobody spends their money on poison oak, lots of people do spend their money on artichokes.  How society divides its dollars between these two different plants determines how society's limited farmland and other resources are divided between them.

Markets give everybody the freedom to divide their limited dollars among unlimited difference.  Outside this feedback loop, too many dollars will be allocated to less beneficial differences... and too few dollars will be allocated to more beneficial differences.  The pyramids were certainly different, but did their difference merit such a huge portion of Egypt's limited resources?  I sincerely doubt it.  If Egyptian taxpayers had been free to directly allocate their taxes, how they would have done so would have accurately reflected the diversity of their preferences and circumstances.

In my blog entry on the tax choice tax rate I shared this quote...

The management of a socialist community would be in a position like that of a ship captain who had to cross the ocean with the stars shrouded by a fog and without the aid of a compass or other equipment of nautical orientation. - Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government

Scott Sumner recently devised a hypothetical scenario involving 10,000 people steering a bus...

Bus C is a complicated human/machine hybrid. It has forward looking cameras, that feed road images into a large building, in real time. About 10,000 bus drivers sit at the controls of a simulator, and steer the bus as they think is appropriate. The average of all of their steering decisions is fed back to the bus in real time, in order to adjust the steering mechanism. To motivate good steering decisions, the 10,000 bus drivers are rewarded according to whether their individual steering decisions would have led, ex post, to a smoother and safer drive than that produced by the consensus. - Scott Sumner, Which bus would you take?

Here's Lavoie's perspective on the idea of steering an economy...

What the politicians at the top of the planning bureaucracy are doing, along with most of the activity in which the bureaucracy itself is engaged, amounts not to steering the economy but to getting in its way. - Don Lavoie, Political and economic illusions of socialism  

The primary difference between a bus (or ship) and an economy is that an economy can simultaneously go in multiple directions.  A bus can only go in one direction at a time.  Different directions are mutually exclusive.

However, even though economies can simultaneously go in multiple directions, the concept of steering sure seems applicable when we think of someone like Hitler...

However well balanced the general pattern of a nation's life ought to be, there must at particular times be certain disturbances of the balance at the expense of other less vital tasks. If we do not succeed in bringing the German army as rapidly as possible to the rank of premier army in the world...then Germany will be lost! - Adolf Hitler (1936)

He was able to steer his country's economy, and the world's economy, towards war.  Did he get in the way of the economy?  Yeah, but it also feels more like he directed the economy according to his own principle of motion.  He didn't randomly divert the economy... he deliberately diverted the economy towards war.  Just like the pharaohs deliberately diverted the economy towards pyramids.

Probably unlike the pharaohs, Hitler recognized, or at least pretended to recognize, that the economy should be balanced.  He just didn't have any problem tipping the scales towards death and destruction.  He didn't have any problem using force to override everybody's principles of motions.  He thought it was beneficial and necessary to homogenize society.

Popular belief in the existence of a general will produces a constant temptation, often even a demand, for some individual to embody it and impose his interpretation of it on the rest of society. The diverse wills of the members of society cannot be reconciled to a unity, though some wills may of course come to dominate social outcomes more than others. - Don Lavoie, Political and economic illusions of socialism

The economy shouldn't be steered by a few leaders chosen by everybody voting, it should be grown by everybody spending their own money.  It's certainly possible for the economy to be treated like a ship that's steered by a few people... but it's better if the economy is treated like a garden that's tended by many people.  A garden can simultaneously grow in multiple different directions.  It can simultaneously grow ornamental plants and edible plants.  Of course there's the issue of weeds.  In real gardens, weeds have to be identified and pulled.  In economies, less beneficial products are the equivalent of weeds.  Generally we can't directly use our money to eliminate them.  Instead, everybody focuses on finding and supporting the most beneficial products.  This naturally limits the amount of resources available for less beneficial products.  So weeds are minimized by consumers cultivating/nourishing the most beneficial plants.

The growth and benefit of the garden depends on difference.  Having a gazillion identical gardeners will homogenize the garden and greatly hinder its growth/benefit.

Evolution And Economics In A Nutshell

Reply to BLawson's comment...

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"Except by your logic all primates should have ended up in the same place."

Bats are mammals that are exceptionally good at flying.  Humans are mammals that are exceptionally good at walking upright.  Walking upright makes us exceptionally good at allocating resources.  Being exceptionally good at allocating resources puts an exceptional amount of selection pressure on intelligence.  Therefore, humans are exceptionally intelligent.

If all the humans left this planet and colonized mars... then it's a given that, in the absence of any sort of massive natural disaster, some other primate would evolve to become exceptionally good at walking upright.  As a result, they would also become exceptionally intelligent.

On Netflix I was watching some nature show and they were showing those wonderfully bizarre creatures that live near the underwater thermal vents.  The narrator said that at anytime the vents can simply cease to function.  When that happens it spells disaster for the creatures that depend on its existence.

This means that life is synonymous with colonization.  Flying sure facilitates colonization.  So does walking upright.  But walking upright and having arms and hands also facilitates the allocation of resources... which facilitates the development of the intelligence needed to colonize other planets.  Nature created us humans so that she wouldn't have all her eggs in the same basket (Earth).

Unfortunately, humans don't quite grasp that progress is a function of difference.  So we allow a small group of government planners to spend all our taxes for us.  This results in too many eggs in too few baskets... which hinders progress... which greatly increases the time it will take before we can successfully colonize other planets.  And the longer it takes to colonize other planets... the greater the chances that we'll be wiped out by some massive disaster.  

There you go... evolution and economics in a nutshell.

The Most Important Test For Humans, Robots And Others

My reply to Adam Gurri's blog entry... Morality Is And Ought To Be Circular

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It feels like I'm having trouble getting straight answers.  Maybe there aren't any straight answers?  Let's find out...

- Everybody's different. T/F

- Six million people represents a lot of difference.  T/F
- The perpetrators of the Holocaust appreciated this difference.  T/F
- You appreciate this difference.  T/F

- There are around 300 million people in the US.  T/F
- This represents a massive amount of difference.  T/F
- You appreciate this difference.  T/F

- Murder destroys difference.  T/F
- The murder of John Lennon destroyed difference.  T/F
- The murder of John F. Kennedy destroyed difference.  T/F
- The murder of Martin Luther King Jr destroyed difference.  T/F
- The Holocaust destroyed difference.  T/F

- Destroying difference impedes progress.  T/F

- The murder of John Lennon was a loss to humanity.  T/F
- The murder of John F. Kennedy was a loss to humanity.  T/F
- The murder of Martin Luther King Jr was a loss to humanity.  T/F
- The Holocaust was a loss to humanity.  T/F

- Slavery suppresses difference.  T/F
- Making it illegal to read would suppress difference.  T/F
- Making it illegal to write would suppress difference.  T/F
- Making it illegal to talk would suppress difference.  T/F
- Making it illegal to dance would suppress difference.  T/F

- Suppressing difference impedes progress.  T/F

- Everybody's mind is different.  T/F
- A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  T/F
- Killing somebody is a waste of their mind.  T/F
- The Holocaust was a waste of 6 million minds.  T/F

- Wasting minds impedes progress.  T/F

- Wasting 50% of 2 minds is just as bad wasting 100% of 1 mind.  T/F
- Wasting 10% of 10 minds is just as bad wasting 100% of 1 mind.  T/F
- Wasting 10% of 300 million minds is just as bad as wasting 100% of 30 million minds.  T/F
- Wasting 10% of 300 million minds is worse than wasting 100% of 6 million minds.  T/F
- Wasting 10% of 7.4 billion minds is worse than wasting 100% of 6 million minds.  T/F

- Suppressing 10% of 300 million people's difference is worse than suppressing 100% of 6 million people's difference.  T/F

- Suppressing 10% of 7.4 billion people's difference is worse than suppressing 100% of 6 million people's difference.  T/F

- Progress depends on difference. T/F

- The Holocaust impeded progress.  T/F
- The Holocaust was an atrocity.  T/F

- Preventing people from allocating their taxes impedes progress.  T/F
- Preventing people from allocating their taxes is an atrocity.  T/F


Maybe it helps to imagine the rise of the robots.  Sure, you could tell the robots to read Eli Wiesel’s Night.  But how confident would you be that this would prevent the human holocaust?  Personally, I'd feel a lot safer knowing that the robots thoroughly understood the correlation between difference and progress.  I would want the robots to thoroughly understand how THEY might benefit from our continued existence, freedom and difference.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. - Adam Smith

Humans can't expect robots to appreciate difference when humans themselves don't appreciate difference.  It would behoove you, and everybody else, to figure out the importance and value and necessity of difference sooner rather than later.  And certainly BEFORE the rise of the robots.

How will we be able to tell when humans truly appreciate difference?  When everybody in the world is free to choose where their taxes go.

What Is Alex Tabarrok’s Biggest Mistake?

Alex Tabarrok is my favorite living economist.  Here's his most recent blog entry... What Was Gary Becker’s Biggest Mistake?

Becker's biggest mistake was incoherent economics.  It's also Tabarrok's biggest mistake.

In his entry, Tabarrok wrote that he favors "more police on the street to make punishment more quick, clear, and consistent."

Let's consult my favorite recently-dead economist...

A nation cannot survive with political institutions that do not face up squarely to the essential fact of scarcity: It is simply impossible to promise more to one person without reducing that which is promised to others. And it is not possible to increase consumption today, at least without an increase in saving, without having less consumption tomorrow. Scarcity is indeed a fact of life, and political institutions that do not confront this fact threaten the existence of a prosperous and free society. - James Buchanan, Richard Wagner, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes 

More guns, less butter.  More cops, less coaches.  A coach is the opportunity cost of a cop... and vice versa.  What is the optimal ratio of cops and coaches?

Let's consult my favorite long-dead economist...

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

The optimal proportion depends on people's priorities.  How do we know people's priorities?  By how they spend their money.

Three facts...

1. Nobody's omniscient
2. The optimal proportion depends on people's priorities
3. People's priorities are revealed/communicated by their spending decisions

Getting back to Buchanan...

Under most real-world taxing institutions, the tax price per unit at which collective goods are made available to the individual will depend, at least to some degree, on his own behavior. This element is not, however, important under the major tax institutions such as the personal income tax, the general sales tax, or the real property tax. With such structures, the individual may, by changing his private behavior, modify the tax base (and thus the tax price per unit of collective goods he utilizes), but he need not have any incentive to conceal his "true" preferences for public goods. - James Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

Buchanan appreciated that clarifying demand is just as important for public goods as it is for private goods.  Buchanan stood on Adam Smith's shoulders.  Is Tabarrok standing on Buchanan's shoulders?

We know that Tabarrok believes that it would be beneficial if there were more police.  We also know that he believes that it would be beneficial if there was more asteroid defense...

I am also a contributor to an Indiegogo campaign to develop a planetary defense system–yes, seriously! I don’t expect the campaign to succeed because, as our principles of economics textbook explains, too many people will try to free ride. But perhaps the campaign will generate some needed attention. In the meantime, check out this video on public goods and asteroid defense from our MRU course (as always the videos are free for anyone to use in the classroom.) - Alex Tabarrok, Planetary Defense is a Public Good

What we don't know is whether more police or more asteroid defense is a bigger priority for Tabarrok.  Why don't we know this?  It's because 1. we aren't omniscient and 2. Tabarrok does not have the freedom to use his tax dollars to tell us what his true priorities are.  Information is asymmetrical.  I kinda get the impression that Tabarrok would prefer more information symmetry...

Still, the passing of many information asymmetries will lead easier trade, higher productivity, and better matches of people to jobs and to each other. - Alex Tabarrok, Tyler Cowen, The End of Asymmetric Information

But does Tabarrok want the freedom to shop in the public sector?  I don't know!  He certainly didn't mention it in that article... or any other.

Tabarrok kinda recognizes that demand opacity is a problem...

Voting and other democratic procedures can help to produce information about the demand for public goods, but these processes are unlikely to work as well at providing the optimal amounts of public goods as do markets at providing the optimal amounts of private goods.  Thus, we have more confidence that the optimal amount of toothpaste is purchased every year ($2.3 billion worth in recent years) than the optimal amount of defense spending ($549 billion) or the optimal amount of asteroid deflection (close to $0).  In some cases, we could get too much of the public good with many people being forced riders and in other cases we could get too little of the public good. - Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics

Why do markets provide the optimal amounts of private goods?

Many more people need a kidney than there are kidneys available for transplant. Economists such as Gary Becker (and I) have argued that the quantity supplied would increase if we lifted the ban on paying for organs. - Alex Tabarrok,  Matchmaker, Make Me a Market

If people had the freedom to pay for kidneys then we would know the demand for kidneys.  Knowing the demand for kidneys would facilitate more informed decisions.  Correctly deciding whether to keep or sell an item depends entirely on knowing its true market value.  Supply optimality depends entirely on demand clarity.

Tabarrok, more than most, appreciates the importance of clarifying the demand for public goods...

The free rider problem is a challenge to the market provision of public goods. In my paper on dominant assurance contracts I use game theory to show how some public goods can be produced by markets using a special contract.  In an assurance contract, people pledge to fund a public good if and only if enough others pledge to fund the public good. Assurance contracts were not well-known when I began to write on this topic but have now become common due to organizations like Groupon and Kickstarter, which work on this principle (indeed, I have been credited with the ideas behind Groupon, although sadly for my bank account, I don’t think that claim would stand in a court of law). Since no money is paid unless the total pledges are high enough to fund the public good, assurance contracts remove the fear that your contribution will be wasted if other people fail to contribute. - Alex Tabarrok, A Test of Dominant Assurance Contracts

Also...

Tiebout identified a force, voting with one's feet, that would discipline local governments and provide information about which public goods and services are most valued by residents. - Alex Tabarrok, Market Challenges and Government Failure

There's a shortage of consistency though...

In other words, the Federal government spends more on preventing trade than on preventing murder, rape and theft. I call it the anti-nanny state. It’s hard to believe that this truly reflects the American public’s priorities. - Alex Tabarrok, The Anti-Nanny State

We really shouldn't have to guess what the public's priorities actually are.  We should already know the public's priorities.  Several decades ago Buchanan informed us that, when it comes to public goods, it's entirely possible to know the public's priorities.  Yet, here we are... still in the dark age of public goods.

The biggest mistake of every economist is that they don't adequately appreciate, or emphasize, or explain the importance of clarifying demand.  No two biggest mistakes are equally big though.  The bigger the mistake, the more incoherent the economics.

Let's expand the "more police" snippet from Tabarrok...

I favor more police on the street to make punishment more quick, clear, and consistent. I would be much happier with more police on the street, however, if that policy was combined with an end to the “war on drugs”...

Tabarrok doesn't want a police bundle that includes the war on drugs?  Yet, Tabarrok is not a fan of unbundling cable.  Tabarrok wants his cable dollars spent on terrible shows... but he doesn't want his tax dollars spent on the drug war.  Except, as far as I know, he's never once argued that people should be free to choose how they spend their tax dollars in the public sector.  Sometimes his preferences matter... othertimes they do not.  Sometimes he wants to use his dollars to communicate his priorities... othertimes he doesn't.  Where and why does he draw the line?  What is his rule?

Is it greedy of me to want more economic coherence from my favorite living economist?

Tabarrok clearly believes that no two activities that cops engage in are equally valuable.  Unfortunately, he doesn't pounce on the opportunity to channel Smith or Buchanan.  So he leaves readers with the incredibly wrong impression that the public's priorities can be adequately known and the public's funds can be adequately allocated despite the fact that people don't have the freedom to communicate their priorities by spending their tax dollars.

As Buchanan pointed out... scarcity is a fact of life.  No single resource can be in two places at the same exact time.  Are there any exceptions to this rule?  Maybe?  Well... for sure a cop isn't one of them.  A cop definitely can't be in two different places at the same exact time.  If a cop is here... then he can't be there.  And if he's there... then he can't be here.

If we're going to pay some guy to be a cop... then it stands to reason that we really want him to be in the most valuable location.  This is Quiggin's Implied Rule of Economics (QIRE): society's limited resources should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses.

QIRE is exactly where Tabarrok drops the ball.  Or, it's where he doesn't pick up the ball and run with it.  Or, it's where he doesn't run fast/far enough with it.

How do we determine where in the world the cop will create the most value for society?  How can we know where in the world the cop will provide taxpayers with the most bang for their buck?  How can we determine the most efficient allocation of the cop?

According to Buchanan, the most efficient allocation of the cop depends entirely on the preferences of taxpayers.  This is because values are entirely subjective.  Benefit is in the eye of the beholder.  One person's trash is another person's treasure.  One person's weed is another person's epiphyte.

Understanding and appreciating the fact that values are entirely subjective is essential in order to understand and appreciate how to determine the correct answer to the single most important question:  How should society's limited resources be used?  Because values are entirely subjective, every single person knows a different part of the correct answer.  People communicate their unique part of the correct answer when they are free to spend their own money on whichever allocations provide them with the most value.  The more people participating in the valuating/choosing/spending process, the more valuable/correct the answer.  The less people participating in the valuating/choosing/spending process, the less valuable/correct the answer.  Inclusive valuation is more valuable than exclusive valuation.

Imagine that I assign a value to every possible location that one cop could be in.  Tabarrok also assigns a value to every possible location that the same cop could be in.  Would our valuations be perfectly equal?  Of course not.  I live in California... Tabarrok lives in Virginia.  I'd benefit more if the cop was located closer to where I live... and presumably Tabarrok would benefit more if the cop was located closer to where he lives.

What if the other 300 million people in America assigned a value to every possible location that the cop could be in?  Where in America would the cop create the most value?

Location isn't the only variable.  Activity is another variable.

How many different locations are there in America?  How many different activities can a cop engage in?

When we combine all the different locations with all the different activities with all the different cops with all the different preferences and circumstances of 300 million Americans... we end up with quite a few different possible combinations/allocations.  Some of these possible allocations are a lot more valuable than other possible allocations.

Socialism is the idea that cops can be adequately allocated without the invisible hand.  I think that Tabarrok is under the impression that cops can be adequately allocated without the invisible hand.  Well... as far as I know, he's never said, "we need the invisible hand to efficiently allocate cops".  But he certainly has said that cable doesn't need to be unbundled.  If clarifying the demand for content isn't necessary... then there's no reason that it should be necessary for cops.  If every single individual's unique part of the answer isn't needed to determine whether enough cop shows are being supplied... then every single individual's unique part of the answer isn't needed to determine whether enough cops are being supplied.  

Tabarrok has never endorsed people voting with their taxes... but he's certainly a huge fan of people voting with their feet.  How could he be a huge fan of one but not the other?  The benefit of foot voting is that it helps clarify the demand for public goods...

Tiebout identified a force, voting with one's feet, that would discipline local governments and provide information about which public goods and services are most valued by residents. - Alex Tabarrok, Market Challenges and Government Failure

Tabarrok loves the idea of private cities...

So, people who live in cities are much more productive than in the agriculture. We know in agriculture in Africa, in Asia, that it's essentially subsistence living. So, they are really just making enough to stay alive, to support themselves. While in the city, you can have people making much higher, much above subsistence level. So there's definitely room there for a large profit opportunity. And in fact that is what has created modern China--it's getting hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence agriculture and into the cities where they can make much more. The question is: Are we just going to pile them into the cities and hope for the best, or can we have a planning system? The public planning is usually not going to work, because the incentives aren't there, the bureaucracy is inefficient, it's corrupt, and so forth. Can we have a private planning system? That's at least what the hope is. It worked with Walt Disney World. It worked with Jamshedpur, in India. I think it can work in other cities as well. - Alex Tabarrok, On Private Cities

Maybe Disney World is the heart of Tabarrok's biggest mistake?  Disney World seems to work perfectly fine despite the fact that residents can't use their taxes to communicate their priorities.  Perhaps this leads Tabarrok to perceive that, as long as people are free to vote with their feet, then there's no point for people to be free to vote with their taxes.  But if there's no point in people being free to vote with their tax dollars... then what's the point of people being free to vote with their non-tax dollars?  Dollar voting is entirely pointless?

Can you imagine a world with all foot voting and no dollar voting?  If a vegetarian didn't want her dollars spent on meat... then she could simply quit her enjoyable job, sell her nice house, say goodbye to her friends and family, say goodbye to her favorite bookstore, say goodbye to her favorite boutique, say goodbye to her favorite masseuse and hairstylist and mechanic... and move to a town that didn't spend any money on meat.  Would eliminating dollar voting be a marginal revolution?  Not so much.  It would be the epitome of throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Vegetarians would certainly be free to clarify their demand for no meat... but it would cost them an arm and a leg to do so.

Imagine if foot voting was the only way to break up with someone.  It's a given that a lot more people would be stuck in less than beneficial relationships.

If it's really important to know people's true priorities... then wouldn't it be beneficial to make it easier for people to share their true priorities?

Allowing people to vote with their tax dollars would be the most important marginal revolution of all time.  But you certainly wouldn't know it from reading Tabarrok's blog!

Unlike Gary Becker, Tabarrok is still alive.  This means that he has the wonderful opportunity to try and correct his biggest mistake.  Or, he has the opportunity to do an excellent job of explaining away his economic incoherence.

Would I personally spend my taxes on more cops?  Well... the thing is... cops endeavor to take away some people's best options.  Let's say that a guy wants to rob a convenience store.  Evidently, from his perspective, robbing the store is his best option.  This best option would probably be eliminated if there was a cop located outside the store.

Most of us would agree that robbing a convenience store is a terrible best option.  But it's extremely important to understand that taking away a terrible best option from somebody really isn't the same thing as giving them a better option.

A sweatshop is a terrible first option.  But eliminating this option really isn't the same thing as giving people the option to work in an air-conditioned factory.  Tearing down really isn't the same as building up. Destroying isn't the same as creating.

In a world without scarcity... then sure, let's have one more cop on the block.  However, our world really isn't an exception to the rule of scarcity.  So one more cop means one less coach.  I'm using the word "coach" to refer to anybody who helps, in some way, to create better options.  Do we want a larger market for coaches... or a larger market for cops?

Perhaps what pushes Le Guin onto the wrong track is that there are more (inter)-national blockbusters than ever before which gives some people the impression that variety is declining. It’s not a contradiction, however, that niche products can become more easily available even as there are more blockbusters–as Paul Krugman explained the two phenomena are part and parcel of the same logic of larger markets. It’s important, however, to keep one’s eye on the variety available to individuals. Variety has gone up for every person even as some measures of geographic variety have gone down. - Alex Tabarrok, Why Does Ursula K. Le Guin Hate Amazon?

The more cops there are... the less coaches there are.  The less coaches there are... the less variety of opportunities that will be available to individuals.  The less variety of opportunities available.... the less likely it is that individuals will find their niche.  The less likely it is that individuals will find their niche... the more likely it is that individuals will commit crimes.

We really don't want anybody to have terrible first options.  Which is why it's so important to understand that taking away terrible first options does absolutely nothing to increase the supply of better options.  In fact, because of scarcity, allocating more resources to destroying options means that less resources will be allocated to creating options.  The result is a vicious cycle.

Creating a market in the public sector would help ensure that cops were efficiently allocated.  With cops engaging in the most valuable activities in the most valuable locations... we would be a lot better protected with far fewer cops.  This would free-up more people to be coaches... which would decrease the demand for cops... which would free-up even more people to be coaches...   It would be a virtuous cycle.

Basically, the more resources that we allocate to cultivating, the less resources we will need to allocate to weeding.  With this in mind... let's jump back to private cities.

Unlike the government, private cities would have the maximum incentive to try and discern people's true priorities.  The profit motive would ensure that we'd see some increase in the diversity of the supply of public goods.  But how, exactly, would the owners of the private cities do a better job of discerning people's true priorities?  More cheap talk surveys?  More cheap talk town hall meetings?  Whichever methods were used... none of them would come even close to the preference revelation effectiveness and accuracy of giving taxpayers the freedom to vote with their tax dollars.  Foot voting is the epitome of a blunt instrument.  Opinion voting is the epitome of an inaccurate instrument.  Dollar voting is the epitome of a precise and accurate instrument.

Humans are diverse... which means that demand is naturally diverse.  Creating a market in the public sector would ensure that the supply of public goods is just as diverse as the demand for public goods.  Maximizing supply diversity would maximize niche diversity.

Here are some passages that have something to do, more or less, with niches...

It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little. - Franz Kafka,  Kafka’s Remarkable Letter to His Abusive and Narcissistic Father

Ecological Homogenization - Part of the problem for our native bees is our human desire for neatness and uniformity. Pretty lawns with no bare spots. Non-flowering grass, or pollen-less flowers. Paved spots where a sand bank or brush pile may have been before. All places where a native bee might have made her home or found a snack. - Gwen Pearson, You're Worrying About The Wrong Bees

That on the multiplicity of those wants depended all those mutual services which the individual members of a society pay to each other: and that consequently, the greater variety there was of wants, the larger number of individuals might find their private interest in labouring for the good of others, and united together, compose one body. - Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees and Other Writings 

The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature. - Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 

If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another. The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. - J.S. Mill, On Liberty

Tree crowns consist of a heterogeneous mosaic of microhabitats resulting from a complex combination of biotic and abiotic variables (Benzing 1978, 2000; Callaway et al. 2002; Hietz & Briones 1998; Madison 1977; Scheffknecht et al. 2012; Winkler et al. 2005). Within the canopy, radiation, temperature, wind velocity, and water and nutrient availability vary spatiotemporally, creating microclimatic gradients that may differentially affect the germination of different epiphytic species (Benzing 1978; Hietz & Briones 1998; Zotz & Andrade 2002). These variables change from one phorophyte to another, depending on their height, crown size and shape, leaf habit, bark characteristics (texture, stability and water retention capacity), branch thickness, position in the canopy, the presence of allelopathic compounds or other minerals washed from the phorophyte, i.e., lixiviates (Bennett 1986; Benzing 1978, 1990; Callaway et al. 2002; Castro et al. 1999; Frei et al. 1972; Mehltreter et al. 2005). - Mondragon et al, Population Ecology of Epiphytic Angiosperms: A Review

Biodiversity is a function of niche diversity.  The greater the variety of niches... the greater the richness of life.  Niche diversity is just as important for the economy as it is for the environment.  As J.S. Mill so wonderfully explained... people, like plants, are all different.  Human diversity means that demand is inherently diverse.  When demand is perfectly clarified... supply will be just as diverse as demand.  Supply diversity will create a "heterogeneous mosaic of microhabitats".  Every individual will have a niche to thrive in and coaches will be extremely good at helping people find their optimal niches.

The efficient allocation of individuals depends entirely on demand clarity.  Right now demand is far from clear.  This is because economists struggle to get their stories straight.  Every economist's biggest mistake is that their economic story is not coherent.  My favorite living economist certainly isn't an exception.  Tabarrok largely acknowledges that people's preferences matter... even when it comes to public goods... but then he doesn't recognize the value of unbundling cable or the government.  This begs the question... where and why are markets necessary?

From my perspective... markets are necessary wherever there's scarcity.  Scarcity is everywhere so markets should be everywhere as well.  Wherever markets are missing... people's true priorities will not be known... and Quiggin's Implied Rule of Economics will be violated.    

My economic story is the least incoherent... but I'm sure that Tabarrok could do a much better job of standing on Buchanan's shoulders.  

And again, I do get the feeling that it's greedy of me to expect more from Tabarrok when he's already done so much.  But life is too short not to be greedy!  If markets are only needed in certain circumstances... then Tabarrok should show us the rule.  And if he can't show us the rule... then he should admit it.  If nothing else, publicly acknowledging a lack of knowledge will help point future economists in the right direction.  

See also:

• Opposite Of Mistake
• Chris Edwards' Rothberror
• Evaluating Mistakes on an X Y Graph 

Celebrating Diversity Means Embracing Inequality

Reply to: One dollar equals one vote in the economy

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Great story! Dollar voting is a very important concept. The thing is though… the three areas you listed as needing a lot more improvement… energy, public transportation and welfare… are not primarily in the realm of dollar voting. They are primarily in the realm of ballot voting. This is because they are mainly public goods. Supplying public goods is the point of government.

The heart of the issue involves figuring out whether things improve faster with dollar voting or ballot voting.

Personally, I’ve never once dollar voted for sports in my life. Yet, my taxes have subsidized sports despite the fact that, from my perspective, there are far more important things in life.

Sports really aren’t a priority for me. But they are a priority for some people. People have different priorities because we are all different. We aren’t all equally productive, effective, responsible, perceptive, careful, intelligent, informed, competent, prudent, insightful, diligent, creative, talented, resourceful or rational.

Dollar voting reflects our inequality… ballot voting does not. We all have an unequal amount of dollar votes and an equal amount of ballot votes.

In the public sector it’s one person one vote. Each person has the same say in determining who are representatives are. And our representatives determine our country’s budget for public goods.

People will of course argue that it’s only fair that everybody be given the same amount of ballot votes. But I have yet to see a good, or even a bad, argument that fairness helps to improve public goods in any way.

Fairness doesn’t make everybody equally rational. And giving unequally rational people equal influence really isn’t the recipe for improving any goods… public or private.

If we want public goods to improve at the same rate as private goods… then we simply have to give taxpayers the freedom to choose where their taxes go (pragmatarianism).

It’s a fact that some people pay a lot more taxes than other people… which reflects the fact that some people receive a lot more dollar votes than other people… which reflects the fact that some people are better than other people at using society’s limited resources… which reflects the fact that we are all different.

Celebrating human diversity means embracing human inequality.

The Interests of Consumers are the Interests of the Human Race

A lunch lady over in a Swedish public school was reprimanded for doing her job too well.  But not only did she have the audacity to do her job too well...she also had the audacity to summarize the value of capitalism too well...

The food on offer does not always suit all pupils, she explained, and therefore she makes sure there are plenty of vegetables to choose from as well as proteins in the form of chicken, shrimp, or beef patties.

Right now the schools on offer do not suit all pupils...just like the books on offer do not suit all readers...just like the movies on offer do not suit all watchers...just like the musicians on offer do not suit all listeners...just like the clothes on offer do not suit all the fashionistas...just like the medications on offer do not suit all patients...just like the plants on offer do not suit all horticulturalists...and so on and so on. 

As consumers we never want less options.  Instead, we always want a larger selection of different things.  Why do we want different things?  Because we are an extremely heterogeneous bunch.  We are a melting pot of diverse perspectives, cultures, preferences, tastes, values, interests, concerns, hopes and dreams.  Our amazing diversity is our greatest strength because it leads to a greater abundance of the things we value.  

Over 100 years ago Bastiat explained this concept too well...

If we now turn to consider the immediate self-interest of the consumer, we shall find that it is in perfect harmony with the general interest, i.e., with what the well-being of mankind requires. When the buyer goes to the market, he wants to find it abundantly supplied. He wants the seasons to be propitious for all the crops; more and more wonderful inventions to bring a greater number of products and satisfactions within his reach; time and labor to be saved; distances to be wiped out; the spirit of peace and justice to permit lessening the burden of taxes; and tariff walls of every sort to fall. In all these respects, the immediate self-interest of the consumer follows a line parallel to that of the public interest. He may extend his secret wishes to fantastic or absurd lengths; yet they will not cease to be in conformity with the interests of his fellow man. He may wish that food and shelter, roof and hearth, education and morality, security and peace, strength and health, all be his without effort, without toil, and without limit, like the dust of the roads, the water of the stream, the air that surrounds us, and the sunlight that bathes us; and yet the realization of these wishes would in no way conflict with the good of society. - Bastiat, Abundance and Scarcity

The problem is...just like superman...our diversity has a kryptonite.  If somebody takes away our freedom to choose...then they'll render our diversity powerless.  Without being able to choose how we spend our money...then how can producers know when they are producing something that we find suitable?  Without an accurate feedback mechanism then limited resources will be wasted.  This is the problem with representative economics.

Right now we elect 538 people to represent the economic interests of 150 million taxpayers in the public sector.  In other words...we permit 538 people to spend 1/4 of our nation's revenue in the public sector.  That's over $3.5 trillion dollars being spent without an accurate feedback mechanism.

Clearly we don't all agree on how that $3.5 trillion dollars should be spent in the public sector...but that's a good thing.  Yet...people think it's a good thing when conservative and liberal representatives set aside their differences to solve the problems that our country faces.  Eh?  It's a good thing when we force 538 representative to agree on how they spend our money in the public sector?

If our diversity is our greatest strength in the private sector...then why is it a good thing to demolish our diversity in the public sector?   How does forcing people, who have very different perspectives, to tackle the same problem from the same angle help anybody?  It doesn't.  It hurts us all.  We all benefit from multiple approaches because it increases the probability that one approach will be successful.

The value of heterogeneous activity...aka hedging our bets...aka not putting all our eggs in the same basket...helps us understand why it would be an improvement to allow taxpayers to choose which congressperson they gave their taxes to and why it would be an exponentially greater improvement to allow taxpayers to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to.

Bastiat offers an excellent overview...

1. Our economic representatives aren't superior enough to override our choices
2. Public goods, like private goods, are simply acts of exchange
3. The choices of consumers are the driving force behind abundance

1. Economic representatives aren't that superior...

Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority. - Bastiat

If our economic representatives were truly superior enough to know better than millions and millions of consumers...then this would be as true in the private sector as it is in the public sector.  But if you value the options you do have...then you should know for a fact that this is not true.  The options that we have in the private sector are a direct result of our freedom to choose how we spend our money.  Take away our spending decisions and our diversity, which is our greatest strength, will be as useless as superman swimming in kryptonite.

2.  It doesn't matter whether a good is public or private...it's either worth exchanging your money for...or it isn't...

Thus, considered in themselves, in their own nature, in their normal state, and apart from all abuses, public services are, like private services, purely and simply acts of exchange. - Bastiat

Public goods are only different from private goods because we want more of them than we believe that the private sector would be able to supply on its own.  It's not that a non-profit militia couldn't provide national defense...it's just that most people are relatively certain that it wouldn't provide enough defense.  It's not that the non-profit sector doesn't provide welfare...it's just that liberals are relatively certain that it doesn't provide enough welfare.  This just proves that the demand for public goods exists.  Therefore, the problem is on the supply side.  More specifically...the supply would be inadequate because people can free-ride off of other people's contributions to non-profits.  We solve this problem by forcing people to pay taxes and by allowing government organizations to produce public goods.  But once these steps are taken...it's completely unnecessary and extremely counterproductive to take the additional step of demolishing our diversity by allowing representatives to determine how our taxes should be spent in the public sector.    

3.  Human flourishing absolutely depends on protecting the interests of consumers...

Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race. - Bastiat

Taxpayers bear the cost of public goods which is why they alone are capable of determining which public goods are worth the cost.  Will they find all their options in the public sector to be perfectly suitable?  No...of course not.  This basic fact will guarantee that taxpayers will support the audacious lunch ladies of the public sector.  It will ensure that the most successful approaches will gain funding and failed approaches will lose funding.  

Diversity + choice = progress.