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Friday, June 30, 2017

Show Me The Economic Case For Democracy

Nancy MacLean is a liberal professor whose new book, Democracy In Chains, makes the case that James Buchanan's work is anti-democratic.  He's my second favorite economist so I really appreciate the fact that she has given him so much attention.  As far as I know, no other liberal has written a book that is primarily, or even significantly, about Buchanan.

MacLean is 100% correct that Buchanan's work is anti-democratic.  Unfortunately, from what I've read about her book, she doesn't attack, or even acknowledge, his economic arguments against democracy.  This is why I haven't purchased her book.  But then again, I do love the fact that she has helped to direct so much attention to him.  So I probably should purchase her book if for no other reason than to positively reinforce her decision to put a spotlight on Buchanan.  I want the spotlight to be as big and bright as possible!

Even though I'm confident that Buchanan's work is anti-democratic, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong.  Recently Michael Munger published a response to MacLean's book... On the Origins and Goals of Public Choice.  He did not agree with MacLean that Buchanan's work is anti-democratic.  Here's the recent twitter exchange between Munger and myself...


Buchanan preferred democracy?  Let's get historical...


1776...

The people feeling, during the continuance of the war, the complete burden of it, would soon grow weary of it, and government, in order to humour them, would not be under the necessity of carrying it on longer than it was necessary to do so. The foresight of the heavy and unavoidable burdens of war would hinder the people from wantonly calling for it when there was no real or solid interest to fight for. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

1835...

Again, it may be objected that the poor are never invested with the sole power of making the laws; but I reply, that wherever universal suffrage has been established the majority of the community unquestionably exercises the legislative authority; and if it be proved that the poor always constitute the majority, it may be added, with perfect truth, that in the countries in which they possess the elective franchise they possess the sole power of making laws. But it is certain that in all the nations of the world the greater number has always consisted of those persons who hold no property, or of those whose property is insufficient to exempt them from the necessity of working in order to procure an easy subsistence. Universal suffrage does therefore, in point of fact, invest the poor with the government of society. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

1846...

The last point for consideration is the supposed disposition of the people to interfere with the rights of property.  So essential does it appear to me, to the cause of good government, that the rights of property should be held sacred, that I would agree to deprive those of the elective franchise against whom it could justly be alleged that they consider it their interest to invade them. - David Ricardo, Observations on Parliamentary Reform

1861...

It is also important, that the assembly which votes the taxes, either general or local, should be elected exclusively by those who pay something towards the taxes imposed. Those who pay no taxes, disposing by their votes of other people's money, have every motive to be lavish, and none to economize. As far as money matters are concerned, any power of voting possessed by them is a violation of the fundamental principle of free government; a severance of the power of control, from the interest in its beneficial exercise. It amounts to allowing them to put their hands into other people's pockets, for any purpose which they think fit to call a public one; which in some of the great towns of the United States is known to have produced a scale of local taxation onerous beyond example, and wholly borne by the wealthier classes. That representation should be coextensive with taxation, not stopping short of it, but also not going beyond it, is in accordance with the theory of British institutions. But to reconcile this, as a condition annexed to the representation, with universality, it is essential, as it is on many other accounts desirable, that taxation, in a visible shape, should descend to the poorest class. In this country, and in most others, there is probably no labouring family which does not contribute to the indirect taxes, by the purchase of tea, coffee, sugar, not to mention narcotics or stimulants. But this mode of defraying a share of the public expenses is hardly felt: the payer, unless a person of education and reflection, does not identify his interest with a low scale of public expenditure, as closely as when money for its support is demanded directly from himself; and even supposing him to do so, he would doubtless take care that, however lavish an expenditure he might, by his vote, assist in imposing upon the government, it should not be defrayed by any additional taxes on the articles which he himself consumes. It would be better that a direct tax, in the simple form of a capitation, should be levied on every grown person in the community; or that every such person should be admitted an elector, on allowing himself to be rated extra ordinem to the assessed taxes; or that a small annual payment, rising and falling with the gross expenditure of the country, should be required from every registered elector; that so every one might feel that the money which he assisted in voting was partly his own, and that he was interested in keeping down its amount.  
However this may be, I regard it as required by first principles, that the receipt of parish relief should be a peremptory disqualification for the franchise. He who cannot by his labour suffice for his own support, has no claim to the privilege of helping himself to the money of others. By becoming dependent on the remaining members of the community for actual subsistence, he abdicates his claim to equal rights with them in other respects. Those to whom he is indebted for the continuance of his very existence, may justly claim the exclusive management of those common concerns, to which he now brings nothing, or less than he takes away. As a condition of the franchise, a term should be fixed, say five years previous to the registry, during which the applicant's name has not been on the parish books as a recipient of relief. To be an uncertificated bankrupt, or to have taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act, should disqualify for the franchise until the person has paid his debts, or at least proved that he is not now, and has not for some long period been, dependent on eleemosynary support. Non-payment of taxes, when so long persisted in that it cannot have arisen from inadvertence, should disqualify while it lasts. - J.S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government

1896...

If once the lower classes are definitely in possession of the power to legislate and tax, there will certainly be a danger that they may behave no more unselfishly than those classes which have so far been in power. In other words, there will be danger that the lower classes in power may impose the bulk of all taxes on the rich and may at the same time be so reckless and extravagant in approving public expenditures to which they themselves contribute but little that the nation’s mobile capital may soon be squandered fruitlessly. This may well break the lever of progress. — Knut Wicksell, A New Principle of Just Taxation

1933 (regarding)...

As was noted in Chapter 3, expressions of malice and/or envy no less than expressions of altruism are cheaper in the voting booth than in the market. A German voter who in 1933 cast a ballot for Hitler was able to indulge his antisemitic sentiments at much less cost than she would have borne by organizing a pogrom. — Loren Lomasky, Geoffrey Brennan Democracy and Decision

These thoughts, by such well-respected thinkers, are anti-democratic.  But perhaps it doesn't necessarily mean that their work was anti-democratic?

In 1954 the Nobel economist Paul Samuelson wrote a paper that correctly recognized that private goods and public goods are different. People can benefit from national defense, for example, even if they don't help pay for it. If the amount of money that people spend on national defense does not accurately reflect their true valuation of it, then the wrong amount will be supplied. So the problem is not that people wrongly value national defense. The problem is false signals. Samuelson correctly argued that taxation is necessary and that the government should supply public goods. However, he simply assumed that government planners would be able to correctly guess the true signals.

Samuelson's assumption did not sit well with Buchanan. In 1963 he wrote a paper that argued that, since people are paying taxes anyways, if they are given the opportunity to earmark their tax dollars to specific public goods, they'd have no incentive to give false signals. If your valuation of national defense is $1000 of your tax dollars, but you only earmark $100 tax dollars to national defense, it doesn't mean that you'll be able to spend the difference on private goods (ie clothes, food). It means that you'll have $900 tax dollars to earmark to other public goods (ie education, healthcare)... which you value less than national defense. Therefore, there's absolutely no incentive to give false signals.

From my perspective, Buchanan's paper is blatantly and obviously anti-democratic.  Why is it anti-democratic?  Because it's pro-market.  When markets expand, the alternatives contract.

Right now Netflix is in a market, but it is not a market.  Subscribers can vote for specific content, but they aren't given the opportunity to decide how to divide their limited subscription dollars among the unlimited content.  If Netflix did become a market, then people's spending decisions would logically subvert their voting decisions.  It wouldn't matter how many "thumbs up" a show received, all that would matter is how many subscription dollars it had received.  So it's logically absurd to prefer markets and democracy.

However, I acknowledge that Buchanan's one paper might not be truly representative of his work.  Let's zoom out...

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Historically, legislative bodies, through which the preferences of individual citizens are most directly represented, have exercised more control over revenue or tax decisions than they have over expenditure decisions. In part this asymmetry has its origin in the development of democratic political institutions out of monarchial institutions. Representative bodies, parliaments, first achieved the power to restrict the tax-gathering privileges of the kings. Before taxes could be levied on the people, representative bodies were given the right to grant their approval. No consideration was given to the spending side of the account because public expenses were assumed to benefit primarily the royal court, at least in the early days of constitutional monarchy. Taxes were viewed as necessary charges on the people, but they were not really conceived as any part of an "exchange" process from which the people secured public benefits. It was out of this conception of the fiscal process that both the modern institutions and the modern theory of public finance developed. - James Buchanan The Bridge Between Tax and Expenditure in the Fiscal Decision Process

The emerging of modern democratic states dramatically modified the setting for the fiscal process, but only recently has attention been paid to the necessity of revising age-old norms. As royal courts came to be replaced by executives, and monarchies by republics, taxes continued to be viewed as necessary to sustain the expenses of “government,” with the burden of these taxes to be minimized to the maximum extent possible. Surprisingly little recognition has been given, even yet, to the idea that taxes must, in the final analysis, be considered as the “costs” of those public goods and services which provide benefits to the same people who pay taxes. - James Buchanan, The Bridge Between Tax and Expenditure in the Fiscal Decision Process

A second analytical principle emerged more than a century after Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and it was not explicitly incorporated into the norms for policy. But it may have been implicitly recognized. It is important because it reinforces the classical principles from a different and essentially political or public-choice perspective. In 1896, Knut Wicksell noted that an individual could make an informed, rational assessment of various proposals for public expenditure only if he were confronted with a tax bill at the same time. Moreover, to facilitate such comparison, Wicksell suggested that the total costs of any proposed expenditure program should be apportioned among the individual members of the political community. These were among the institutional features that he thought necessary to make reasonably efficient fiscal decisions in a democracy. Effective democratic government requires institutional arrangements that force citizens to take account of the costs of government as well as the benefits, and to do so simultaneously. The Wicksellian emphasis was on making political decisions more efficient, on ensuring that costs be properly weighed against benefits. A norm of balancing the fiscal decision or choice process, if not a formal balancing of the budget, emerges directly from the Wicksellian analysis. - James Buchanan, Richard Wagner Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes

The necessity of relating decisions on public expenditures explicitly to decisions on taxes through the political process, and of assigning a definite revenue category to each single expenditure was stressed by Wicksell in his classic statement of the individualistic theory of public finance (see Knut Wicksell, "A New Principle of Just Taxation," in Classics in the Theory of Public Finance, ed. 1R. A. Musgrave and A. T. Peacock [London: International Economic Association, 1958], pp. 72-118, but esp. p. 94. The original Wicksell work is Finanztileorietisclie Uizlersuchlungen [Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1896]). - James Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

The most sophisticated contribution was made by Knut Wicksell in 1896.  He explicitly identified the fundamental methodological error in the then-orthodox approach, and he combined positive criticism with normative suggestions for reforms.  Wicksell recognized the necessity of bridging the two sides of the fiscal account, and he noted the indeterminacy of any proposed principles that were limited to tax-side considerations. - James Buchanan, Public Finance and Public Choice

In addition to the uncertainty factor, which can be readily understood to limit the range of rational calculus, the single individual loses the sense of decision-making responsibility that is inherent in private choice. Secure in the knowledge that, regardless of his own action, social or collective decisions affecting him will be made, the individual is offered a greater opportunity either to abstain altogether from making a positive choice or to choose without having considered the alternatives carefully. In a real sense, private action forces the individual to exercise his freedom by making choices compulsory. These choices will not be made for him. The consumer who refrains from entering the market place will starve unless he hires a professional shopper. Moreover, once having been forced to make choices, he is likely to be somewhat more rational in evaluating the alternatives before him. - Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, Individuality Rationality in Social Choice

The introduction of the debt alternative to taxation makes the bridge between cost and benefit more difficult for the individual to construct. - James Buchanan, "Fiscal Policy" and Fiscal Choice

Institutionally, earmarking provides a means of compartmentalizing fiscal decisions.  The individual citizen, as voter-taxpayer-beneficiary, is enabled to participate, separately, either directly or through his legislative representative, in the several public expenditure decisions that may arise. He may, through this device, "vote" independently on the funds to be devoted to schools, to sanitation, and so on, given the specified revenue sources. Only in this manner can he make "private" choices on the basis of some reasonably accurate comparison of the costs and the benefits of the specific public services, one at the time.  By contrast, general-fund budgeting, or non-earmarking, allows the citizen to "vote" only on the aggregate outlay for the predetermined "bundles" of public services, as this choice is presented to him by the budgetary authorities. - James Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

Conceptually, an "ideal" institutional arrangement might be that of allowing individuals to "pay for" governmental goods and services in a manner analogous to that which they have found most convenient for financing consumer durables. The quarterly payments of tax on declarations of income above or outside withholding probably tend, on balance, to promote "logical" response to the income tax structure. It is the absence of any conscious sense of transfer, the absence of any monthly or quarterly bill, that represents the questionable feature of withholding, and one that may tend to create a Puviani-type illusion.  - James Buchanan, Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice

Only one of these questions seems relatively easy to answer. If the individual can make separate fiscal choices for each public-goods program, which a structure of earmarked taxes conceptually allows him to do, directly or indirectly, he is informed as to the alternatives that he confronts, at least to the extent that the payment institutions allow, and subject, of course, to all of the qualifications noted in previous analysis. The uncertainty that he faces is clearly less than that which is present in the comparable decision on a “bundle” of public goods or services, with the mix among the separate components in the bundle to be determined in a separate decision process or through the auspices of a delegated budget-making authority. If this mix is not announced in advance to the voter-taxpayer, he must try to predict the outcome of another decision process, in which he may or may not participate, a process that need not exist at all in the more straightforward earmarking model where all revenue sources are specifically dedicated. - James Buchanan, Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice

In a balanced-budget context, a decision to spend publicly implies a decision to tax, and a decision to tax implies a decision to spend. Only if the actual institutions of fiscal choice are organized in such a way that this basic truism is reflected in the alternatives confronting the individual participant can these uncertainties be minimized. Much of the modern criticism of the United States Congress is directed at its failure to allow simultaneous consideration of expenditure and tax decisions. - James Buchanan, The Bridge Between Tax and Expenditure in the Fiscal Decision Process

Nevertheless, the fact remains that such choice embodies a direct correspondence between private cost and private benefit, the characteristic that is stressed here, and the one that is absent, in varying degree, from individual choice in collective decision processes.  This central feature of market choice, rather than any implied assumption of rationality, makes individual behavior in organized markets useful as a benchmark from which we begin to assess collective choice institutions. - James Buchanan, Public Finance in Democratic Process

Similar behavior can be predicted on the spending side of the account. If the individual citizen were asked, in mid-1963, his opinions on proposed expansions in the federal space program, he could, roughly and in some fashion, measure benefits in terms of sport, national prestige, adventure, technological fallout, etc. But what were the costs? He would not have translated the costs of the space program into increased taxes. And for a very simple reason: the individual knew that he would not have to pay such taxes. The predictable result of a democratic choice process is the generation of budget deficits when borrowing is available as an alternative to taxation unless deficit creation is not somehow restrained by constitutional limitations. - James Buchanan, Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice

The Clay committee has at last discovered the fiscal version of Aladdin's wonderful lamp, and that henceforth all governmental “good things” such as super-super highways may come to us without our having to bear either the burden of taxation of the sufferings of conscience over increasing national debt. - James Buchanan, Painless Pavements: Highways by High Finance

Good things come at a cost, whether they be provided by the government or the grocery store. - James Buchanan, Painless Pavements: Highways by High Finance

The apparent splitting of the fiscal process into two parts was shown to produce potential gaps between preferred spending on public goods and services and preferred levels of taxation. Until and unless these gaps are eliminated, budget deficits tend to emerge from democratic decision processes. - James Buchanan, "Fiscal Policy" and Fiscal Choice

Under the assumption that public output enters positively into the utility functions of citizens, the expenditure by itself will secure support for the politician. The taxes, however, will reduce the disposable income of citizens, thereby affecting them negatively and reducing support for the politician. In a plurality electoral system, for given preferences and fixed tax institutions, the budget will be expanded so long as a majority would prefer the public service to the private goods they would have to sacrifice via taxation. - James Buchanan, Richard Wagner Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes

The restoration of the balanced-budget rule will serve only to allow for a somewhat more conscious and careful weighting of benefits and costs. The rule will have the effect of bringing the real costs of public outlays to the awareness of decision makers; it will tend to dispel the illusory “something for nothing” aspects of fiscal choice. - James Buchanan, Richard Wagner Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes

Randall Bartlett makes the same point, only he uses a visual rather than an auditory metaphor. In his framework, some tax forms have higher visibility than others. Starting with perfect visibility, taxes can be arrayed in descending order of visibility. In both his analysis and ours, changes in the institutional format for extracting revenues will influence citizen perceptions of the cost of government. See Randall Bartlett, Economic Foundations of Political Power (New York: Free Press, 1973), pp. 92-95. - James Buchanan, Richard Wagner, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes

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Am I cherry picking?  Maybe.  But it's a fact that democracy and markets can't be equally effective at creating a bridge between choice and cost.  Take prohibition for example.  The majority voted for it.  Evidently lots of people wanted it... so they got it.  However, the amount of money spent on prohibition was not determined by voters, it was determined by government planners.

A = society's valuation of prohibition
B = the amount of money spent on prohibition
C = the difference between A and B

If Munger wants to argue that C is insignificant, then he should see markets as a massive waste of time and energy.  It's pointless for everybody to decide how much money to spend on milk when government planners already know the answer.

If Munger wants to argue that C is significant, but B is more socially beneficial than A, then not only should he see markets as a massive waste of time and energy, he should see that they provide the wrong answer.  It's incredibly undesirable for everybody to decide how much money to spend on milk when their answer is less correct than the answer already known by planners.

MacLean perceives that Buchanan's work is anti-democratic.  Munger has an infinitely better grasp of Buchanan's work than MacLean does.  Yet, for some reason, Munger doesn't perceive that Buchanan's work is anti-democratic.

From my perspective, Buchanan's work is anti-democratic because it's pro-truth.  Buchanan and Samuelson both agreed that false signals are a problem.  However, Samuelson was perfectly fine simply assuming that planners would have no problem correctly guessing the true signals.  Buchanan rejected Samuelson's assumption.  Buchanan correctly understood and endeavored to explain that true signals are a function of individual choices being directly informed/influenced by personal (opportunity) costs.

In his response/review, Munger wrote...

For Buchanan, “politics” is a means for groups to overcome the transactions costs of negotiating and enforcing agreements in groups too large to foster Coasian (Coase, 1960) bargaining arrangements.

It helps to break prohibition down into two questions...

1. Should alcohol be illegal?
2. How much money should be spent on prohibition?

The second question is only asked if the first question is answered affirmatively.  Coasianism is relevant to the first question, but it's really not relevant to the second one.  The second question can only be correctly answered by a market in the public sector.  Just like this question, "how much money should be spent on sci-fi shows?" can only be correctly answered by a market in Netflix.

So what does Munger mean that coasianism doesn't work for large groups?  Imagine that Munger and I are the only two people answering the first question.  He answers "yes" but I answer "no".  Voting wouldn't work... but arm-wrestling would.  So would coasianism.  We'd both get our phones out and open the coasian app.  He'd enter how much he'd be willing to pay for his preferred outcome and I'd enter how much that I'd be willing to pay for my preferred outcome.  After we had both entered our amounts, the app would show us each other's amounts.  If his amount was $100 dollars while my amount was only $25... then he would win.  Alcohol would be illegal for a year.  Since I didn't get my way, I wouldn't have to pay $25 dollars.  Instead, I would receive the $100 dollars that he was willing to pay.  Clearly the decision was made by facilitating a mutually beneficial trade.  The decision was made by a market.  It was made by a different type of market.  It was made by a coasian market.  It was made by coasianism.

Coasianism doesn't have an upper limit on the number of participants.  It works just as well for 2 billion people.  There might be technical issues to overcome but they don't diminish the desirability of coasianism.

With coasianism, people's choices are obviously informed/influenced by their consideration/comparison of the (opportunity) costs.  So Buchanan's work is relevant to coasianism.  But Buchanan didn't really focus on coasian markets.  His focus was on buchanian markets.

Coasianism should be used to decide whether alcohol should be illegal.  If coasianism determines that alcohol should be illegal, then there's the question of how much money to spend on prohibition.  This question should be answered by buchanianism.  Each and every taxpayer would consider/compare the (opportunity) costs of prohibition, and earmark their own tax dollars accordingly.

Each of the two questions is answered by each and every person having the chance to consider/compare/calculate the (opportunity) costs.

Making decisions without knowing/comparing/feeling the (opportunity) costs is really stupid.  Therefore, democracy is really stupid.  Buchanan was not stupid.  Munger isn't stupid either.  Neither is MacLean.  Munger and MacLean can both understand why democracy is so stupid.  But it should be easier and faster for him to do so given that he has a lot more economics under his belt.

Of course it's entirely possible that I'm wrong about everything.  Munger can certainly make the case that I'm wrong about Buchanan.  I'd be interested to see his case.  But I'd be far more interested to see his case for democracy.  When, exactly, is it beneficial for people to be clueless about costs?  When, exactly, is it desirable for people to have no idea what they will have to sacrifice for the things they want?


[update]


Sunday, June 25, 2017

The Efficient Allocation Of Blame

Netflix recently canceled one of my favorite shows... Sense8.  The show is about 8 strangers who share a psychic connection that allows them to utilize each other's strengths and knowledge.  Sense8 is by far the best fictional depiction of Hayek's important concept of partial knowledge.  So I really want to blame somebody for Sense8's cancellation.  Netflix is the obvious choice... but is it truly the best choice?  I really don't want to inefficiently allocate blame.

In order to efficiently allocate blame, it's necessary to thoroughly understand exactly why Netflix canceled Sense8.  From what I've read, the audience was too small.  Not enough people watched it.  Far more people watched 13 Reasons Why.  In other words, 13 Reasons Why was more popular than Sense8...


Which show should Netflix have canceled?  If this is all the information that we have to go on, then Netflix should have canceled Sense8.  It is obviously less popular.  So I should blame all the people who didn't watch the show?  Not necessarily.

Just because something isn't popular doesn't mean that it isn't valuable.  Let's imagine that Netflix gave each and every subscriber the opportunity to divide their subscription dollars however they wanted among all the different content.  To be clear, it would not be like iTunes or Blendle where specific content requires payment to access it.  Netflix subscribers would simply have the option to divide their $10 dollar monthly fee however they wanted between Sense8 and 13 Reasons Why and all the other content.  The more dollars that subscribers spent on a show, the greater its value.

Let's imagine how subscribers might divide their dollars between 13 Reasons Why and Sense8...




Now which show should Netflix have canceled?  If this is all the information that we have to go on, then Netflix should have canceled 13 Reasons Why.  It's obviously less valuable.  It's less beneficial.

There's one more thing that we'd need to know in order to make a truly informed cancellation decision... the cost of each show.  I'm guessing that Sense8 was more costly than 13 Reasons Why.

Right now Netflix knows the cost of each show, but it doesn't know the benefit of each show.  It's a bit difficult to make an intelligent cost/benefit decision if the benefit isn't actually known!!!!!

Check out this article by Steven Horwitz... The Economist’s Superpower.  In it he applies Frederic Bastiat's Seen vs Unseen to the Wonder Woman movie.  I haven't watched the movie but evidently it involves Wonder Woman contemplating the true causes of war.  Let's make a list...

Sense8
13 Reasons Why
Wonder Women movie
What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen
The Economist's Superpower
war

One of these things is not like the others.  There is only one thing on this list that we can actually see the demand for... the Wonder Women movie.  We can't see the demand for Sense8.  We can't see the demand for 13 Reasons Why.  We can't see the demand for What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.  We can't see the demand for The Economist's Superpower.  We can't see the demand for war.  But we can see the demand for the Wonder Women movie.

Is this the Seen vs Unseen that Horwitz discussed in his article?  No.  It really isn't.  Let's consider Bastiat's Seen vs Unseen.  He was like yeah, a broken window requires that the owner will have to buy a new window, but if it hadn't been broken in the first place, then the owner would have spent his money on things that he truly needed.  Yeah, war requires that a lot of money be spent, but if the war hadn't been started in the first place, people would have spent their money on things that they truly needed.  Yeah, the pyramids required that a lot of money be spent, but if they hadn't been built in the first place, then people would have spent their money on things that they truly needed.

Let's break it down...

1. It matters what people truly need
2. People's true needs can only be revealed by their spending decisions
3. When people aren't given the opportunity to decide how to spend their money, they end up paying for things that they don't truly need

We can't see how much money Horwitz was paid for his article.  Maybe he didn't receive any money?  In any case, FEE certainly does receive money.  It decides how to divide all the money that it receives among all the articles/authors.  This logically means that the donors aren't given the opportunity to decide for themselves how they divide their own money among all the articles.  Therefore, the donors end up paying for articles that they don't truly need.

Netflix and FEE are based on different models.  Netflix receives money from subscribers while FEE receives money from donors.  But in neither case do the supporters have the opportunity to use their money to signal the value/benefit of specific products.  So neither organization knows the actual benefit of any of its products.  This entirely prevents both organizations from making adequately informed cost/benefit decisions.  As a result, the supporters end up paying for products that they don't truly need.

It boils down to a very simple question... how much do you need this?  If you, as a supporter, can't answer this question with your money, then you're going to end up paying for things that you don't truly need.

FEE and Netflix are two non-market spaces.  There are countless non-market spaces.  The largest such space is of course the government...

This means that the terraces of the Champ-de-Mars are ordered first to be built up and then to be torn down. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing philanthropic work when he had ditches dug and then filled in. He also said: "What difference does the result make? All we need is to see wealth spread among the laboring classes. - Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen 

Because the government is a non-market space, taxpayers pay for goods and services that they don't truly need.  It might seem like Bastiat's solution was to decrease the size of the government's space.   If the government is going to waste people's money, then it should be given less money.  A small defective government is better than a large defective government.  However, Bastiat definitely wanted the government to be effective.

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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. — Frédéric Bastiat, Private and Public Services

When James Goodfellow gives a hundred sous to a government official for a really useful service, this is exactly the same as when he gives a hundred sous to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes. It's a case of give-and-take, and the score is even. But when James Goodfellow hands over a hundred sous to a government official to receive no service for it or even to be subjected to inconveniences, it is as if he were to give his money to a thief. It serves no purpose to say that the official will spend these hundred sous for the great profit of our national industry; the more the thief can do with them, the more James Goodfellow could have done with them if he had not met on his way either the extralegal or the legal parasite. - Frederic Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

If the socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is, however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it. -  Frederic Bastiat, Justice and Fraternity

What do we want with a Socialist then, who, under pretence of organizing for us, comes despotically to break up our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilization back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association, because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it, judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come and impose upon us his plan and his will, and as it were, to concentrate mankind in himself? - Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

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. — Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

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People should get just as much benefit from public goods as they do from private goods... but government planners really aren't above mankind, and they certainly can't concentrate mankind in themselves... therefore... ?

Most libertarians argue that the solution is to shrink the size of the government's space.  "Starve the beast".  But that's like arguing that FEE and Netflix should be smaller spaces.  The real problem isn't the size of a non-market space, it's the fact that the supporters can't decide for themselves how they divide their contributions among all the different goods in the space.  So the real solution is to transform non-market spaces into market spaces.

Bastiat correctly identified the problem.  Unfortunately, he only hinted at the correct solution.  Or, he flirted with it.  Or, he danced around it.  In any case, I feel like I can slightly blame Bastiat for Sense8 being canceled.  But if Netflix does become a market then he will certainly deserve a decent share of the credit.

What about Horwitz?  He is far more blameworthy than Bastiat.  Not only does Horwitz have the opportunity to stand on Bastiat's shoulders, but he also has the opportunity to stand on Mises' shoulders, and on Hayek's shoulders, and on Friedman's shoulders, and on Buchanan's shoulders.  Despite these incredible opportunities to see far more of the economic picture than previous economists, Horwitz still doesn't see the incredible benefit of transforming non-market spaces into market spaces.

Then again, you really shouldn't need a PhD in economics or an MBA from Harvard to understand that making an intelligent cost/benefit decision depends on actually knowing the benefit.

A few days ago I mentioned the cost/benefit problem in a Medium reply that I tweeted to Noah Smith...



How much blame should I allocate to Noah?  Here's the very first comment that I ever made on his blog...

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.

I made that comment in 2010.  Then I made a "few" more comments on his entries.  Finally, in 2012 he replied...

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?

Let's switch the government with Netflix...

FWIW, people choosing which programs their subscription dollars go to presents a coordination problem. Imagine if the budget last year for sci-fi shows was $50B. Now imagine that everyone thinks they did a good job and sci-fi shows are important, so they allocate more to sci-fi shows. But since they all do it at once, sci-fi producers now have $500B this year. What do they do with all that extra cash?

Let's consult Adam Smith...

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

Recently Noah Smith published a post about the shouting class but he didn't even mention Adam Smith...

The people feeling, during the continuance of the war, the complete burden of it, would soon grow weary of it, and government, in order to humour them, would not be under the necessity of carrying it on longer than it was necessary to do so. The foresight of the heavy and unavoidable burdens of war would hinder the people from wantonly calling for it when there was no real or solid interest to fight for. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

A couple years ago I tweeted the following to Noah Smith...


So did he accept any responsibility for Sense8 being canceled?



I'm certainly happy to make his day weirder, but it sure doesn't seem like he quite grasped why I asked him, of all people, whether he accepts any responsibility for Sense8's cancellation.  The question was random in the sense that it was out of the blue.  But it was relevant in terms of all the information that I've shared with him over the past 7 years.  

If you lead a horse to water, but it doesn't drink, do you blame the horse?  Not if it isn't thirsty.

Honestly I do want to allocate some blame to Noah Smith for Sense8 being canceled.  But maybe it isn't his fault that he doesn't thirst for economic enlightenment.  Perhaps it's his professors' fault.

I think Miles Kimball was one of Noah's professors.  He does deserve some of the blame for Sense8's cancellation.

But I'm pretty sure that Bryan Caplan deserves more blame than Kimball.  In a recent blog entry Caplan wrote...

The heart of the left isn't helping the poor, or reducing inequality, or even minority rights.  The heart of the left is being anti-market.

For thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men?  Figuring out what's truly important to people is what markets are good for.  In theory, Caplan is extremely pro-market.  I say "in theory" because he has never made the case that Netflix should be a market.  As far as I know, he has never once argued in favor of transforming any non-market space into a market space.  And it's not like he's unfamiliar with the concept... Bryan Caplan Please Show Us The Unseen.

Can Caplan be truly pro-market if he is indifferent to the countless spaces that aren't markets?  If he deeply loves markets, then for sure he'd notice, and be pained by, their absence.  But it's not like he's ever argued that prisons or schools should be markets.  Instead, he spends lots of time arguing that borders should be open.

The free flow of people and other resources is only beneficial to the extent that they flow to where they are most needed.  Knowing where resources are most needed depends on accurate value signals.  The minimum wage is an inaccurate value signal.  As a result, it inefficiently allocates people... especially poor people.

It's important that problems are tackled in the correct order.  Before borders are opened, it's necessary to abolish minimum wages.  In order to abolish minimum wages, people have to understand the importance of accurate value signals.  But before people can understand the importance of accurate value signals, they first have to understand the importance of value signals.  The best way to help people understand the importance of value signals is to help them understand that valuable, but unpopular shows, will be canceled if their value is unseen.

I don't actually know if this is the best way.  But the fact is that everybody hates it when their favorite show is cancelled.  It doesn't matter if somebody is a socialist or anarcho-capitalist, they are pained by the loss of their favorite show.  People are very different, but not so different that some people enjoy loss.  Everybody hates losing their keys.  Life is all about avoiding/minimizing loss.  So it's really important to efficiently allocate the blame for our loss of Sense8.

Where it gets tricky is how to divide the blame between Bryan Caplan and Alex Tabarrok.  As far as I know, Caplan hasn't publicly addressed the economics of bundling content.  Tabarrok, on the other hand, has.  Unfortunately, he supports bundling.  I endeavored to explain the problem with bundling content and he addressed my critique on his blog.  Even though I didn't manage to persuade him, he did draw attention to my arguments against bundling.

Caplan and Tabarrok were both colleagues of James Buchanan.  This is interesting because he is a super strong contender for deserving the least blame for Sense8's cancellation...

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 M. Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

Netflix subscribers are already paying a monthly fee.  So if they are given the opportunity to earmark their fees to their favorite content, they wouldn't have any incentive to conceal their "true" preferences.

I tried really hard to explain this concept (here and here) to Jeff Jarvis.  He responded to my first attempt but didn't respond to my second.  So perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to allocate some blame to him for Sense8's cancellation.

Buchanan's paper was written in response to a contender for the most blameworthy...

But, and this is the point sensed by Wicksell but perhaps not fully appreciated by Lindahl, now it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has, etc. — Paul Samuelson, The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure

Samuelson correctly understood that false signals are a problem, but then he simply assumed that planners would be able to divine the true signals.  Voila!  Sense8 is cancelled!

For some reason I think that "Voila!" should be reserved for when decent things are pulled from a magician's hat.  So "Voila!" really doesn't seem like the appropriate word for Samuelson pulling Sense8's cancellation from his butt.   Let me try again...

Samuelson simply assumed that planners would be able to divine the true signals.  Oh shit!  Sense8 is canceled!

It's better but not quite anti-magical enough.

Oh yeah, I should probably mention that Buchanan's paper wasn't nearly as popular as Samuelson's paper.  The importance of a paper is largely determined by how many times it's been cited.

Citation indexing is currently employed to map the breaking "hot" areas of science. Clusters of a few extremely highly cited papers can indicate a rapidly moving area of research. An unintended corollary of this system is that government fund-givers use the Citation Index to assist them in determining whose research to fund. They count the total number of citations -- adjusted for the "weight" or stature of the journal publishing the paper -- of an individual scientist's work in order to indicate the importance of that scientist. But like any network, citation evaluation breeds the opportunity for a positive feedback loop: the more funding, the more papers produced, the more citations garnered, the more funding secured, and so on. And it engenders the identical reverse loop of no funding, no papers, no citations, no funding. -  Kevin Kelly, Out of Control 

Can we blame Kelly for not reading Buchanan's paper?  Google didn't read Buchanan's paper either...

Now, Google is a republic, not a perfect democracy.  As the description says, the more people that have linked to a page, the more influence that page has on the final decision.  The final vote is a "weighted average" - just as a stock price or an NFL point spread is - rather than a simple average like the ox-weighters' estimate.  Nonetheless, the big sites that have more influence over the crowd's final verdict have that influence only because of all the dollar votes that smaller sites have given them.  If the smaller sites were giving the wrong sites too much influence, Google's search results would not be accurate.  In the end, the crowd still rules.  To be smart at the top, the system has to be smart all the way through. - James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

Surely I can blame Surowiecki for not appreciating the difference between a regular vote and a dollar vote.

The importance of webpages isn't determined by a market.  The importance of academic papers isn't determined by a market.  The importance of shows on Netflix isn't determined by a market.  So many many many markets are missing.  But so few few few people even notice their absence.

To be honest though, I'm pretty sure that I deserve most of the blame for Sense8's cancellation.  This blog entry isn't wonderfully written or organized, there's a severe shortage of cleverness, and my diagrams aren't eye-catching.  This really isn't my forte.  But it's the most important job that nobody else is doing.  Voila!  Here I am!  I've got the heart of a champion!  I'm doing my very best to do the most important job.  I'm arguing, albeit poorly, that not-markets should be markets.  I'd make a super strange comic book hero.

But if you're reading this, then guess what?  Now you know the problem and the solution.  So if your favorite show gets canceled despite its social benefit being unknown, then you'll be partly responsible.  This thought provides me with some comfort.

While I'm at it, I kinda want to blame this guy...

It’s like some asshole coming up to you at the bus stop and saying “Ready to have your mind blown? Modern life is often alienating and lonely.” Thanks for the insight, Socrates, I’ve never been exposed to such wisdoms before. - Freddie deBoeryou people are out of your minds, Master of None is terrible

Given the opportunity, I'm guessing that he wouldn't allocate any of his subscription dollars to Master of None.  I gave it a thumbs up but not sure if I would allocate any dollars to it either.  It's good but it's not great.  It's charming, but it's not nearly as charming as Amelie.

Part of the reason that I want to blame deBoer is that I sent him an e-mail about Classtopia but he didn't reply.  So it's not like he's ignorant about the idea of transforming non-markets into markets.

Scott Alexander is in the same general category.  Alexander and deBoer could both do a far better job than I am at selling Netflix being a market.  Except they aren't likely to do so if even Caplan and Tabarrok aren't interested in doing so.  Does that make sense?

*scratches head*

On Facebook we can see how many thumbs up a post has received.  On Youtube we can see how many thumbs up (and down) a video has received.  But on Netflix we can't see how many thumbs up/down a show/movie has received.  Subscribers can judge content by its cover, but not by its popularity, or lack thereof.

If Netflix subscribers could divide their dollars among all the content, then I'd definitely want to see how many dollars a show has received.  Some content would receive a lot more dollars than other content.  Just like some cars are a lot more expensive than other cars?  Well... cars are private goods while the content, in the context of Netflix, is a public good.

I can't take a random Lamborghini for a ride, but I could certainly watch a "luxury" show.  Eh?  Let's consult Smith...

The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither. Such people may be called the effectual demanders, and their demand the effectual demand; since it may be sufficient to effectuate the bringing of the commodity to market. It is different from the absolute demand. A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

I'm guessing that a coach and six was the equivalent of a Lamborghini.  Thanks to rich people being willing to pay so much money for fancy rides, better and better rides became more and more affordable.  Orchids and oranges and many other things used to be luxury goods, but now they are common goods.

What about books?  Books are certainly a lot more affordable than they used to be.  But we don't generally hear about any modern books being luxury items.  Luxury cars?  Yes.  Luxury books?  No.  It's tricky because books are simply vehicles for ideas.  A faster car can more quickly transport a person from point A to point B.  But there's no such thing as a faster book that can more quickly transport ideas from the book to your brain.  Too bad!

A bestselling book doesn't mean that many people especially appreciated the physical book itself, it means that they especially appreciated the ideas that the book contains.  However, even when somebody truly loves some ideas in a book, it's not like they are going to continue buying the same book.  They might buy it for others.  Personally, I love the ideas in the Wealth of Nations but it's not like I've ever bought it for myself or others.  Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

The story, at least for shows and movies, would be very different if Netflix becomes a market.  Let's consider a hypothetical subscriber named Samantha.  She isn't going to spend her subscription dollars to buy Sense8 like she buys a book or an orchid.  She already "bought" the show when she subscribed to Netflix.  So there's absolutely no need for her to buy it again.  Instead, she needs to communicate how much benefit she derives from the show.  This crucial information could be accurately transmitted by Samantha using her subscription dollars to grade the benefit/value/relevance/quality of the show.  Each month she would have the opportunity to decide how many of her $10 dollars to spend on Sense8.  If she really loves it, then each month she would spend many of her dollars on it.

Each month Samantha spends some money on chocolate.  And each month she spends some money on Sense8.  The show is canceled so it's not like she's spending her money on new episodes.  And she might not even be rewatching the episodes.  But each month she still highly values the idea of Sense8.  She communicates her high valuation of the show by spending many of her subscription dollars on it.  She would be using her money to say, "This is still the best show on Netflix."

Every subscriber would essentially use their subscription dollars to help create a treasure map.  Sense8 would be one treasure chest on the map.  The size of each and every treasure chest would be determined by subscribers deciding how to divide their limited subscription dollars among all the different chests.

The treasure map would help subscribers decide how to divide their limited time and attention among all of the content.  It would also help content creators decide how to divide their limited time and creativity among all the different topics.

It stands to reason that some treasure chests are going to be a lot larger than other treasure chests.  Some shows are going to receive a lot more money than other shows.  So there will certainly be luxury ideas.  Will 20% of the ideas get 80% of the dollars?

It's hard to wrap my mind around the idea of luxury ideas.  Luxury items are pretty much defined by most people's inability to afford them.  As oranges became more and more affordable, they become less and less luxurious.

So maybe it's technically impossible for there to ever be luxury ideas.  There will simply be super high quality ideas that most people can afford.

When the highest quality ideas have the brightest value signals, all the subscribers are going to quickly spot and respond to them.  An entire country's worth of people will take the highest quality ideas and combine them to create the next crop of ideas.

The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776.  Around 230 years later, I had the idea to apply Smith's idea of the Invisible Hand to the government.  A few years later I discovered that, 15 years before I was even born, Buchanan had come up with the same idea.  And now here I am with the idea to apply his idea to Netflix and all the other non-markets.

Right now, because so many spaces aren't markets, we don't see or know the social value of countless ideas.  Oh shit!  Super slow synthesis!

If every space was a market, then we'd see and know the social value of every idea.  Voila!  Super swift synthesis!

Speaking of which, here's one last blame candidate...

To understand how persistent growth, even accelerating growth is possible, it helps to step back and ask where growth comes from. At the most basic level, an economy grows when whenever people take resources and rearrange them in a way that makes them more valuable. A useful metaphor for rearrangement as value creation comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. Human history teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. New recipes produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more economic value per unit of raw material. - Paul Romer, Economic Growth

Do we need to know how much society values an ingredient?  Of course!  Right now we don't know the social value of Buchanan's "The Economics of Earmarked Taxes".  This means that people can't make adequately informed decisions whether to include it in their recipes.  The same is true of the Wealth of Nations.

A couple times (here and here) I endeavored to explain to Romer the importance of knowing the social value of ingredients.  Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, he didn't publicly examine my explanation.  So I'm pretty sure that he also deserves some of the blame for Sense8's cancellation.

It's time to stop the senseless cancellations.  It's time to know the social value of each and every idea.  It's time to fully utilize the best ideas.  It's time to transform every non-market into a market.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Market-Avoiding Activity

Living in the dark ages really sucks.  So it's really wonderful that this paper by Peter Salib (Vox overview-interview) shines a brilliant light on the prison system.  He makes the painfully obvious, but exceedingly overlooked, argument that preventing prisoners from helping society is the same thing as harming society.  Prisoners should be put to their most socially valuable uses.  But since prisons can only provide a very small fraction of all the possible employment opportunities, prisoners can only be put to their most socially valuable uses outside of prison.

1. Prisoners should be put to their most valuable uses
2. Prisons have extremely limited employment opportunities
3. Prisons should be abolished

The trick is appreciating that his prescription doesn't really maximize his premise.  In order for prisoners to truly be put to their most socially valuable uses, they must have the most suitable, appropriate, personalized and customized training, skills and knowledge.  But what are the chances that any given prisoner already has the optimal education?

Schools, like prisons, are not markets.  The point of markets is to optimally (efficiently) allocate resources… including people.   Markets accomplish this task through the use of value signals… prices/wages/revenue/profits.  Participants in markets spend their money in order to help guide people and other resources to their most socially valuable uses.

From Salib's paper...

Both criminal and tort law are designed to regulate bad acts. Specifically, according to economic thinking, they are designed to regulate behavior that would otherwise cause net social losses. We can tell that bad acts cause such losses because such behaviors almost always circumvent perfectly functional markets.   Bad actors—burglars, fraudsters, murderers, and the like—take via pure coercion what they could have otherwise bargained for.  Markets with low transaction costs are, “virtually by definition, the most efficient method of allocating resources,” because they allow parties to freely decline wealth-reducing transactions.  Thus, the economic argument goes, both criminal and tort law seek to efficiently minimize such market-avoiding acts. - Peter N. Salib, Why Prison?: An Economic Critique 

In order to maximize socially beneficial behavior.... we first have to actually know how beneficial any given behavior is to society!  Having to explain this is proof that we're living in the dark ages.

Nearly all the activity that occurs in schools qualifies as market-avoiding.  Students do an incredible amount of work, but virtually none of it is graded/judged by the market.  As a result, students are almost entirely ignorant of the true social benefit of their behavior.

Today I read this article...

But, while households cannot spend their way out of a recession, their government can do that spending for them. It can increase its spending, providing the amount needed for a revival of the economy. And, insofar as the government represents the populace, and is entrusted with its interests - as is supposed to be the case in a democracy - it must increase its expenditure. The welfare of the public requires it. - Nina Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Privatization 

Let's consult Bastiat...

This means that the terraces of the Champ-de-Mars are ordered first to be built up and then to be torn down. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing philanthropic work when he had ditches dug and then filled in. He also said: "What difference does the result make? All we need is to see wealth spread among the laboring classes. - Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen 

Let's jump back to Shapiro...

Discussions of the advantages of education usually focus on its economic benefits, to both the educated and the nation. These economic benefits, however, were not so significant in Smith’s times, as the jobs available to the “common people” were menial, requiring little skill or understanding, and indeed, it was because they were that their education was paramount. It counteracted the “dulling” of the mind that occurred in the performance of their simple, uninterrupted and repetitive tasks, and was needed not for the advancement of their fortunes, but for the development of their minds. They had to have some minimal understanding of the world, and ability to learn about it, to act intelligently within it, and respect the others in it. A “civil” society required an educated public. -  Nina Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Privatization

In order for students to act intelligently within the world, the world needs the opportunity to directly and monetarily judge the intelligence of students' activities.  Students should put all their work online and everybody should have the opportunity to use their own money to grade the intelligence/relevance/value of the work.

Here's a glimpse of a far more enlightened world... Classtopia.  On this page you can see their entries sorted by their social relevance.

Our current education system fails everybody.  Well duh.  Schools aren't markets.  Everybody's education is suboptimal so we can guarantee that nobody is being put to their most valuable uses.  We are all victims of the education system.  This is more obvious for some people... such as criminals.  Abolishing prisons would certainly put prisoners to more valuable uses, but it wouldn't come even remotely close to putting them to their most valuable uses.

Rather than abolishing prisons, they should be transformed into school-markets.  "School-markets"?   That really can't be the best term.  Coming up with the best term is a problem.  It's a problem that can be solved by school-markets.  Students would offer solutions and donors would use their money to grade the solutions.

Digging/filling random holes is certainly a solution to some problem.  But who in their right mind would reach into their own pocket to pay for this solution?  Would Nina Shapiro?  Would John Quiggin?

We live in the dark ages because so many people erroneously believe that society's limited resources can be adequately allocated even in the absence of everybody's opportunity to use their own money to grade the relevance/value of an allocation.

I highly value Salib's paper because it helps to illuminate these dark ages.  But it's not like I've spent any money on it.  Maybe it's because I'm a free-rider, or maybe it's because SSRN isn't a market.

Here are the statistics that SSRN provides on Salib's paper...

Abstract views: 9,555
Downloads: 2,821
Rank: 3,114

What if the rank of his paper was determined entirely by the amount of money that was donated to it?  The more money that was donated to it, the higher its rank.  The higher its rank, the more reason people would have to read it.

I wouldn't be spending my money on his paper so that I could read it.  I would be spending my money on his paper to encourage more people to read it.

Should papers be ranked by downloads or donations?  Having to ask this question is more proof that we're living in the dark ages.

If prisons were transformed into school-markets, then prisoners would put all their work online and everybody would have the opportunity to use their donations to rank the work.  Every prison would be a talent contest.  Everyone would be a talent scout.  Given enough eyeballs, all talent is conspicuous.  Talent that had been overlooked/unappreciated by parents and teachers would be spotted and cultivated by donors.

Youtube proves that people's tastes and appetites are endlessly diverse.  Unfortunately, since videos are ranked by views and thumbs up, rather than by donations, Youtube also proves that we're living in the dark ages.

Every prisoner has a multitude of natural/innate talents.  Prison should facilitate the discovery of talents.  Then it's a matter of markets informing prisoners of the social value of their different talents.  Donors would highlight and positively reinforce the most socially beneficial behavior.

Of course, once schools become school-markets, the number of criminals will plummet.  When the Invisible Hand guides students to their personally and socially optimal occupations, crime will almost entirely be a thing of these dark ages.  When every place/space is a market, it will be virtually impossible for any activity to avoid it.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Demystifying Greg Stevens

Comment on: Killing the myth that taxes are anti-democratic by Greg Stevens

****************************

Round 2?  Andrew Sabl wrote a really thoughtful article... Liberalism Beyond Markets.   Unfortunately, he really didn't provide a coherent view of things.   Here's what I wrote in response...

*****

Laws are products that are outside the market.  Prohibition, for example, was a product that was created because enough people voted for it.  They voted for it because they valued it.  But of course they didn't equally value it.  The amount of money spent on this product was not determined by voters, or consumers, it was determined by government planners.

A = society's valuation of prohibition
B = the amount of money spent on prohibition
C = the difference between A and B

If Sabl wants to argue that C is insignificant, then he must believe that shopping is a massive waste of everybody's time and energy.  He should want the Invisible Hand (IH) to be entirely replaced by a combination of the Democratic Hand (DH) and the Visible Hand (VH).

If Sabl wants to argue that C is significant, but B is more socially beneficial than A, then he must believe that not only is shopping a massive waste of everybody's time and energy, but that the IH's division of resources is less socially beneficial than the DH+VH's division.

*****

His only response was that he probably wouldn't be able to find any intellectual common ground with me because I had referred to laws as "products".   Heh.  How convenient for him that semantics saved him from having to address my actual argument!

It might help to reframe the issue.  Netflix has around 100 million subscribers.  They give their money to Netflix and Netflix decides how to divide it between all the different types of content.   Deciding how to divide limited dollars among unlimited content is the prioritization process.  Do subscribers have the opportunity to participate in this process?  Yes...

1. They can unsubscribe if they don't like the content
2. They can vote for/against specific content
3. They can e-mail (and call?) Netflix

Netflix's current prioritization process results in the current division of dollars.

What if, rather than Netflix deciding how to divide subscribers' dollars among all the content, subscribers could decide how to divide their dollars themselves?  This very different prioritization process would result in a different division of dollars.

A = The division of dollars as determined by Netflix
B = The division of dollars as determined by subscribers
C = The difference between A and B

How significant is C?  If it's insignificant then what's the point of consumers ever deciding how to divide their limited dollars among unlimited products?  If it's significant, then which is more socially optimal... A or B?  If A is more socially optimal, then all markets should be replaced by DH+VH.

You believe that DH+VH is an effective way to divide society's limited resources among its unlimited wants.  But why do you believe that this system is more effective than the alternative?   Is your belief correct?  Are you interested in testing your belief?  Or do you wish to keep your political belief outside of science?

Right now Netflix and Hulu both use the same prioritization process... DH+VH.   What would happen if Hulu gave its subscribers the opportunity to divide their limited subscription dollars among its unlimited content?   What's your prediction?  How confident are you in your prediction?   How much would you be willing to bet on your prediction?   If you firmly believe that the IH is truly inferior to the DH+VH, then you should be willing to bet a lot of money that Hulu would lose a lot of money.

Alex Tabarrok, my favorite living economist, observed that a bet is a tax on bullshit.  So if somebody is unwilling to bet on their beliefs, then clearly they recognize that their beliefs are bullshit.  Same thing if they have no interest in coming up with a way to test their beliefs.   My belief is that no idea should be outside the market.  I believe that the IH, rather than the DH+VH, should determine the importance/relevance/value of each and every idea.  I'm very interested in testing this belief because I'm very uninterested in carrying around bullshit beliefs.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Demystifying Andrew Sabl

Andrew Sabl wrote this incredibly thoughtful article... Liberalism Beyond Markets.  It's unfortunate that it's so incredibly untrue.

That a system of laws need not contradict market values is of course orthodox Hayekianism, and that it furthers diverse individual purposes is also central to Lon Fuller’s similar account of law. But few Hayekians acknowledge what this means: that the Rule of Law, and not just the market, is an institution central to furthering our diverse ends.

Laws are products that are outside the market.  Prohibition, for example, was a product that was created because enough people voted for it.  They voted for it because they valued it.  But of course they didn't equally value it.  The amount of money spent on this product was not determined by voters, or consumers, it was determined by government planners.

A = society's valuation of prohibition
B = the amount of money spent on prohibition
C = the difference between A and B

If Sabl wants to argue that C is insignificant, then he must believe that shopping is a massive waste of everybody's time and energy.  He should want the Invisible Hand (IH) to be entirely replaced by a combination of the Democratic Hand (DH) and the Visible Hand (VH).

If Sabl wants to argue that C is significant, but B is more socially beneficial than A, then he must believe that not only is shopping a massive waste of everybody's time and energy, but that the IH's division of resources is less socially beneficial than the DH+VH's division.

There you go.  I just easily proved that what Sabl wrote is incredibly untrue.  I demystified Andrew Sabl.  Well... I handed him the cure.  Whether or not he takes it is another story.

Now what?  If he's still reading, maybe I should mention that I'm not a libertarian.  I'm a pragmatarian.  From my perspective, we should create a market in the public sector.  Taxpayers should have the opportunity to divide their limited tax dollars among the unlimited goods supplied by the government.  Rules would be inside, rather than outside, the market.

Rules would be subject to the same consumer selection pressure as clothes and computers.  The DoD and the EPA would be subject to the same consumer selection pressure as the NRA and the Red Cross.

Right now Netflix is in a market, but it is not a market.  Netflix as a whole is subject to consumer selection pressure, but its parts are not.  People can decide how they divide their limited dollars between Netflix and clothes, but if they do decide to allocate money to Netflix, they can't decide how they divide their subscription dollars between nature documentaries and sci-fi shows.

A = consumer selection pressure
B = no consumer selection pressure

It really can't be the case that A and B are equally effective at serving society's interests.  This fact should be blindingly obvious.

Humanity is a process of demystification.  This means that, just because we have an institution doesn't necessarily prove that it's beneficial.  The institution might be propped up by mysticism.  This was the case for making sacrifices to Gods.  Can you imagine the incredible amount of valuable resources that humanity wasted as a result of this pervasive mysticism?  Democracy is also propped up by mysticism.  Same thing for the government deciding how to divide tax dollars between environmental protection and space colonization.  Same thing for Netflix deciding how to divide subscription dollars between nature documentaries and sci-fi shows.  In all cases mysticism wastes humanity's limited resources.

Any single product (rule, belief, idea, institution, system) can be propped up by mysticism.  This is why markets accelerate demystification.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

So Many Humanists, So Little Time

A humanist, Gary Saul Morson, and an economist, Morton Schapiro, recently collaborated to produce this book... Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities.  I read the first chapter and parts of the 7th chapter.

Economists can certainly learn a lot from humanists.  But economists can also learn a lot from psychologists, sociologists, biologists and many other "ists".   The issue is that economists, like all people, are constrained by time.  All the time spent learning from humanists is time that can't be spent learning from psychologists.

Let's take the economist David Henderson for example.  Like all of us, his time is limited but his desires are not.  Therefore, he has to prioritize.  He has to decide how to divide his limited time among his unlimited desires.

Henderson recently decided to allocate some his limited time to writing an entry about Cents and Sensibility (C&S).  Thanks to his decision, I learned of the book's existence.  The concept of cross-pollination matches my preferences so I decided to allocate some of my limited time to reading parts of C&S.  Doing so inspired me to allocate some of my limited time to writing an entry about it.

The authors of C&S appreciate the fact that time, and other resources, are limited...

To reject the idea of scarce resources is to reject reasonable thought altogether.

Right.  But is not rejecting this idea really the standard?  In order to answer this question it might help to allocate a minute of your limited time to watching this commercial...





We can imagine that all the people in this video are humanists.  The dog is Henderson the economist.  His mission is to select a humanist.  There are so many humanists to choose from... but he can't pick them all.  So how does he pick a humanist?

How does an economist pick a humanist?  How did Morton Schapiro pick Gary Saul Morson?  Did he randomly pick him from a pool that only consisted of white, older, male humanists from Northwestern University?  This university doesn't have a monopoly on humanists, does it have a monopoly on the best humanists?  Or did Schapiro pick Morson out of convenience?  Did Schapiro settle for Morson?

For sure an economist can learn something from every humanist.  Just like a humanist can learn something from every economist.  But...

1. Everybody's time is limited
2. Lessons aren't equally valuable

Therefore, if Henderson is going to pick a humanist, then he should pick the one with the most valuable lesson.  The question is... how can he spot this humanist?





If the loudest humanist also had the most valuable lesson then there wouldn't be an issue.  However, there's absolutely no correlation between loudness and value.

Morson and Schapiro are correct that economists should learn from humanists.  I doubt many economists would disagree with this.  But the real issue is how to connect economists with the best humanists.  This real issue is a purely economic problem.

The authors correctly recognize that Adam Smith is the "most important source of economic thought".  Unfortunately, they failed to use Smith's most important thought to solve the purely economic problem of connecting economists with the best humanists.

Smith's most important thought is the Invisible Hand (IH)...

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

In a market, people divide their limited dollars among their unlimited desires.  This prioritization process results in society's limited resources being optimally divided among its unlimited wants.

Most people don't understand what markets are good for.  For example, Netflix is in a market, but it is not a market.  There are around 100 million subscribers who don't have the opportunity to divide their limited fees among Netflix's unlimited content.  People think the system works fine, but how could it possibly work better than a market?  If it does truly work better than a market... then why should Netflix be in a market?

Imagine a Netflix that was a market but with academic papers.  Subscribers could freely read all the papers, but they'd have the opportunity to divide their limited fees among the unlimited papers.  This prioritization process would highlight the most valuable papers in each field, which would facilitate the most profitable cross-pollination.

Let's apply the IH to the pedigree scenario.  Henderson walks in and wants to pick a humanist to learn from.  Because his time is limited, he should choose the most valuable humanist.  Doing so depends on actually knowing the value of the humanists, which depends on readers dividing their limited dollars among the unlimited humanists.  The IH would guide Henderson to the most valuable humanist.

To some extent we already use this process.  Even though Schapiro is an economist I'm sure that he's heard of J.K. Rowling.  Even though Morson is a humanist I'm sure that he's heard of Tomas Piketty.  Piketty and Rowling both wrote bestsellers.  Lots of people used their limited dollars to say, "Pick her" and "Pick him".

Personally, I'm not going to buy C&S.  I'm not going to use my money to say, "Pick them".  It would be a completely different story if the authors had actually advocated using Smith's best idea to solve the problem of connecting economists to the best humanists.  Heck, even if they had attacked/criticized Smith's best idea I still would have purchased their book.  But they didn't even mention, notice, admit, or acknowledge its relevance to their objective.

The authors said, "To reject the idea of scarce resources is to reject reasonable thought altogether."  But they completely failed to see, or mention, the relevance of the IH.  Once you accept the idea of scarce resources, then you must also accept the necessity of choosing the best system for dividing society's limited resources among unlimited wants.  In order to efficiently divide society's limited resources, it's necessary to know the social value of the different wants.  Resources can't be efficiently allocated if we don't know the social value of things.

It might help the authors to see a small, but real life, example of the IH applied to scholarly products.  The students in my friend's 4th grade class have a blog... Classtopia.  On the homepage their products are sorted by the hand of time.  But on this page their products are sorted by the Invisible Hand.

Right now the IH is pretty small.  It consists of the students, their teacher and myself.  But in theory the IH could be as large as everybody in the world.

Schapiro is the president of Northwestern University (NU).  He could implement the same system for the entire university.  Students could put their papers online and donors could grade them with their dollars.  This system could supplement, rather than replace, traditional grading.  So each paper could potentially have two grades.  One would be given by the professor... the other would be given by the market.  Which grade would be more useful, credible, reliable, trustworthy and informative?

If NU was a market, then it would be easy for everyone in the world to find and learn from the most valuable papers that it produces.  It would be hard to avoid, or ignore, or neglect the most valuable papers in the different fields.  If a paper promoting the IH was the most valuable economics paper, it would be hard for humanists to ignore it.  If a paper criticizing the IH was the most valuable humanities paper, it would be hard for economists to ignore it.

Should NU be a market?  Of course.  If we embrace the idea of scarce resources, then knowing the value of papers is the only way for people to efficiently divide their limited time among unlimited papers.

I sneezed while writing this entry.  The gray cat woke up and looked at me.  I said, "It was just a sneeze.  I'm not a mouse.  Go back to sleep."

Nobody benefits from the inefficient allocation of attention.  Was this blog entry an efficient allocation of my limited attention and time?  It matched my preferences but, then again, no man is an island.  Socially efficient allocations can only be facilitated by the market process.