Over on Medium, Scott Vonasek shared some concerns about pragmatarianism. Here's my reply...
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The term “political market” is an oxymoron. I prefer “public sector market”. You’re right about local knowledge… but it’s equally relevant to markets in both the private and public sectors. You’re going to know where potholes are and where it’s not safe to walk at night. Politicians can only have access to a vanishingly small fraction of all the local knowledge concerning public goods.
Regarding specificity… I don’t know what necessarily prevents the same level of specificity in both sector markets. In the private sector market you can spend your money on a specific brand of cereal. But in the public sector market you could theoretically spend your taxes on a specific type of education… for example… public finance economics. I don’t see why you couldn’t give your taxes to a specific professor of economics.
Regarding free-riding… a few days ago I addressed it in a reply to Koen Smets. Your example of people funding pet projects in the non-profit sector while neglecting important and effective things like vaccinations is only an example of free-riding if people truly want more vaccinations. But how can we be certain that people truly want more vaccinations? We obviously can’t ask them. If they know their answer will determine their personal payment then they’ll have a clear incentive to pretend to value vaccinations less than they truly do. And if they know that their answer will not determine their personal payment then they’ll have an incentive to pretend to value vaccinations more than they truly do.
It’s certainly the case though that we would expect to see free-rider problems in the non-profit sector. If people voluntarily contributed their true valuations to public goods then taxation wouldn’t need to be compulsory. Since people are paying taxes anyways, if they could choose where they go, they wouldn’t have an incentive to contribute less than their valuations to vaccinations.
To be clear, it’s entirely possible that everybody incorrectly values vaccinations. Nobody is omniscient. Nobody has a crystal ball. But let’s say that there are a few people who do correctly value vaccinations. Evidently they have better information than everybody else. In a public sector market these better informed people would have the maximum incentive to share their better information with everybody else. This is because anybody they shared this better information with would have the freedom to allocate their own tax dollars accordingly.
The problem with the current system can be illustrated like so. A door to door salesman generally isn’t going to bother giving his sales pitch to little Timmy if he answers the door. Instead the salesman is going to ask to speak to whoever controls the household budget. Right now politicians control the country’s budget. This means that all the better informed citizens have an incentive to share their better information with politicians. But this is an incredibly stupid system. It would be infinitely more intelligent if better informed citizens had an incentive to share their better information with each and every taxpayer. This would allow far more brains to evaluate and process far more information in far less time. As a result, better information would be far more quickly disseminated.
Regarding wild swings… first of all there wouldn’t be a set time for people to allocate their taxes. If Godzilla attacks in June we wouldn’t want taxpayers to have to wait until April to respond to the threat. When there is an earthquake or other natural disaster in some part of the world it’s very beneficial that donors have the freedom to immediately respond.
A market in the public sector should respond faster and better than politicians to significant changes. If not, then we should replace the Invisible Hand in the private sector with the Visible Hand.
Life changes fast so we should expect organizations to quickly and correctly adjust and adapt. Those that fail to do so should be allowed to go extinct. We want organizations to quickly evolve. We want organizations to be better and faster at meeting the ever-changing needs of society. This is why it’s essential for all organizations to be directly subject to market forces. This is why it’s just as necessary to have a market in the public sector as it is to have a market in the private sector.
Besides people being free to spend their taxes whenever they want… they should also be free to shop in any country’s public sector. No country is going to have a monopoly on the best public goods. Just like no country is going to have a monopoly on the best private goods. All countries are going to be better at supplying certain public goods… just like they are better at supplying certain private goods.
American taxpayers should be free to give their taxes to Brazil’s EPA and/or Israel’s DoD and/or China’s NASA and/or Zimbabwe’s IRS. Then everyone will clearly see, and be able to support, the world’s best suppliers of public goods. With a global market for public goods the best suppliers are going to receive a lot more money. The NASAs of the world are going to be competing over a much larger pool of money. Whichever NASA is best will be able to spend a bigger portion of this much larger pool of money. So we should expect to make much faster progress with space exploration, cancer research and every other public good. Nobody is going to care which country finds the cure to cancer first. Everybody just wants it found sooner rather than later. This depends on everyone having the freedom to give their taxes to whichever organization in the world is conducting the best cancer research. In all cases we want to empower the most effective organizations to compete the best brains away from less effective organizations.
Showing posts with label critique of pragmatarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critique of pragmatarianism. Show all posts
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Mr's Critique of Pragmatarianism
"Mr." is some guy who derives utility from commenting on my blog. But he's definitely not a fan of pragmatarianism. On a recent post, The Ingenious Gentleman George Monbiot, Mr. posted yet another attack on the idea of allowing people to choose where their taxes go. This time though...his comment consisted of a list of 10 points. Who can resist such a nicely organized attack? Not me. It's certainly worth a blog entry. Here's his list...
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1. Your tax choice scheme is completely unworkable, and just a vague fantasy with no practical application.
2. Your imaginary scheme is nothing like a market - it is just a Frankenstein's monster of a thing which attempts to vaguely ape market-like behaviour.
3. Individual government departments or agencies do not act like businesses in your imaginary scheme, but they are forced to vaguely ape certain aspects of businesses' behaviour. It is a completely fake construct which is logically incoherent.
4. Your imaginary scheme is based on a fundamental confusion about who legally owns tax revenue.
5. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how government expenditure actually works.
6. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how monetary systems work. The government creates the money you use to pay taxes.
7. Your unworkable non-market system does not "correctly determine the actual demand for public goods". All it does is express your particular political ideology.
8. Your imaginary scheme is fundamentally undemocratic. If it wasn't completely unworkable and just a vague fantasy, it would require a complete transformation of existing political and legal structures.
9. Your imaginary scheme gives far more power and control over public resources to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. This reflects your personal political ideology, but that ideology is not shared by most people.
10. You don't even believe yourself that supposed "tax choice" results in the correct allocation of resources. Your imaginary scheme only allows people to allocate taxes on certain things which are deemed to be 'public goods'. So you contradict yourself.
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Hey Mr, again, you should really start a blog. Why not? What's your hesitation?
Ok, on to your points...
The logistics are really straightforward. Given your complete lack of specifics...it seems like you must have missed them. Here they are... Tax Choice FAQ.
When you spend your time commenting on my blog...is your behavior vaguely market-like? From my perspective...there's nothing vague about your behavior. You perceive a threat...and you allocate your limited resources accordingly. I love your behavior...if I didn't...then why would I want to extend your behavior over to the public sector? I really don't want your candle to be hidden under a bushel.
You're welcome to compare government organizations (GOs) in a pragmatarian system to non-profit organizations instead. In the private sector...non-profits lose funding when they make mistakes. Do GOs ever make mistakes? That should be up to taxpayers to decide.
Isn't this argument more relevant to anarcho-capitalism? In a pragmatarian system...if there was a 50% tax rate...then half the dollars in your wallet would be marked "public" and the other half would be marked "private". And if there was a 100% tax rate...then all the dollars in your wallet would be marked "public".
Government expenditure can not possibly work if consumer valuations are not part of the equation. And if you truly believe that the expenditure of limited resources can maximize value in the absence of consumer valuations...then please dedicate a blog to your belief. Because how great can your belief truly be if it's not worthy of a blog?
No no no, I create the money that I use to pay taxes. See...I have my own printing press. And I also have a tree that money grows on. Sheesh. Of course the government creates money...but so what? Money is simply a tool that we use to give people feedback on how well they are using society's limited resources. Maybe it works better than having to organize a wife-swapping party every time you need to buy a blanket.
It would only express my particular political ideology...because...I would be the only taxpayer? What do you think would happen to political parties in a pragmatarian system?
Pragmatarianism is all about ceteris paribus. The only thing that would change is that taxpayers would have the option of directly allocating their taxes. If you want to argue that most taxpayers would choose this option...then you're arguing that most taxpayers don't trust their impersonal shoppers. If you want to argue that few taxpayers would choose this option...then why bother opposing it?
Most people don't want to be ripped off. Unfortunately, most people don't appreciate that consumer choice has logical and extremely beneficial consequences. This is why it's so important to help people understand where better options come from.
If taxation was voluntary...then the allocation of resources would be Pareto optimal. Except, it wouldn't be socially optimal because it wouldn't take the preference revelation problem into account. Tax choice does take the preference revelation problem into account...which is why the allocation would be socially optimal.
Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, it's kinda...weird...for you to critique an "imaginary" scheme. Would you like to criticize my imaginary friend while you're at it?
Xero: Hey Mr, let me introduce you to my imaginary friend!
Mr: No way, your imaginary friend sucks!
Xero: You're wrong! My imaginary friend is super cool!
Mr: Here are 10 reasons why your imaginary friend is super lame...
1. He doesn't exist
2. He farts all the time
3. He has the worst fashion sense
4. He has terrible taste in music
5. His laugh is obnoxious
6. His political views are absurd
7. He's always late
8. He chews too loud
9. He's always bumming cigarettes
10. He drives slow in the fast lane
Xero: WTF?! He drives slow in the fast lane? That's the worst. I'm going to kick his imaginary ass to the curb.
Pragmatarianism doesn't drive slow in the fast lane. And it's a real ideology. Here you are criticizing it.
*************************************
1. Your tax choice scheme is completely unworkable, and just a vague fantasy with no practical application.
2. Your imaginary scheme is nothing like a market - it is just a Frankenstein's monster of a thing which attempts to vaguely ape market-like behaviour.
3. Individual government departments or agencies do not act like businesses in your imaginary scheme, but they are forced to vaguely ape certain aspects of businesses' behaviour. It is a completely fake construct which is logically incoherent.
4. Your imaginary scheme is based on a fundamental confusion about who legally owns tax revenue.
5. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how government expenditure actually works.
6. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how monetary systems work. The government creates the money you use to pay taxes.
7. Your unworkable non-market system does not "correctly determine the actual demand for public goods". All it does is express your particular political ideology.
8. Your imaginary scheme is fundamentally undemocratic. If it wasn't completely unworkable and just a vague fantasy, it would require a complete transformation of existing political and legal structures.
9. Your imaginary scheme gives far more power and control over public resources to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. This reflects your personal political ideology, but that ideology is not shared by most people.
10. You don't even believe yourself that supposed "tax choice" results in the correct allocation of resources. Your imaginary scheme only allows people to allocate taxes on certain things which are deemed to be 'public goods'. So you contradict yourself.
*************************************
Hey Mr, again, you should really start a blog. Why not? What's your hesitation?
Ok, on to your points...
1. Your tax choice scheme is completely unworkable, and just a vague fantasy with no practical application.
The logistics are really straightforward. Given your complete lack of specifics...it seems like you must have missed them. Here they are... Tax Choice FAQ.
2. Your imaginary scheme is nothing like a market - it is just a Frankenstein's monster of a thing which attempts to vaguely ape market-like behaviour.
When you spend your time commenting on my blog...is your behavior vaguely market-like? From my perspective...there's nothing vague about your behavior. You perceive a threat...and you allocate your limited resources accordingly. I love your behavior...if I didn't...then why would I want to extend your behavior over to the public sector? I really don't want your candle to be hidden under a bushel.
3. Individual government departments or agencies do not act like businesses in your imaginary scheme, but they are forced to vaguely ape certain aspects of businesses' behaviour. It is a completely fake construct which is logically incoherent.
You're welcome to compare government organizations (GOs) in a pragmatarian system to non-profit organizations instead. In the private sector...non-profits lose funding when they make mistakes. Do GOs ever make mistakes? That should be up to taxpayers to decide.
4. Your imaginary scheme is based on a fundamental confusion about who legally owns tax revenue.
Isn't this argument more relevant to anarcho-capitalism? In a pragmatarian system...if there was a 50% tax rate...then half the dollars in your wallet would be marked "public" and the other half would be marked "private". And if there was a 100% tax rate...then all the dollars in your wallet would be marked "public".
5. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how government expenditure actually works.
Government expenditure can not possibly work if consumer valuations are not part of the equation. And if you truly believe that the expenditure of limited resources can maximize value in the absence of consumer valuations...then please dedicate a blog to your belief. Because how great can your belief truly be if it's not worthy of a blog?
6. Your imaginary scheme demonstrates a basic ignorance of how monetary systems work. The government creates the money you use to pay taxes.
No no no, I create the money that I use to pay taxes. See...I have my own printing press. And I also have a tree that money grows on. Sheesh. Of course the government creates money...but so what? Money is simply a tool that we use to give people feedback on how well they are using society's limited resources. Maybe it works better than having to organize a wife-swapping party every time you need to buy a blanket.
7. Your unworkable non-market system does not "correctly determine the actual demand for public goods". All it does is express your particular political ideology.
It would only express my particular political ideology...because...I would be the only taxpayer? What do you think would happen to political parties in a pragmatarian system?
8. Your imaginary scheme is fundamentally undemocratic. If it wasn't completely unworkable and just a vague fantasy, it would require a complete transformation of existing political and legal structures.
Pragmatarianism is all about ceteris paribus. The only thing that would change is that taxpayers would have the option of directly allocating their taxes. If you want to argue that most taxpayers would choose this option...then you're arguing that most taxpayers don't trust their impersonal shoppers. If you want to argue that few taxpayers would choose this option...then why bother opposing it?
9. Your imaginary scheme gives far more power and control over public resources to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. This reflects your personal political ideology, but that ideology is not shared by most people.
Most people don't want to be ripped off. Unfortunately, most people don't appreciate that consumer choice has logical and extremely beneficial consequences. This is why it's so important to help people understand where better options come from.
10. You don't even believe yourself that supposed "tax choice" results in the correct allocation of resources. Your imaginary scheme only allows people to allocate taxes on certain things which are deemed to be 'public goods'. So you contradict yourself.
If taxation was voluntary...then the allocation of resources would be Pareto optimal. Except, it wouldn't be socially optimal because it wouldn't take the preference revelation problem into account. Tax choice does take the preference revelation problem into account...which is why the allocation would be socially optimal.
Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, it's kinda...weird...for you to critique an "imaginary" scheme. Would you like to criticize my imaginary friend while you're at it?
Xero: Hey Mr, let me introduce you to my imaginary friend!
Mr: No way, your imaginary friend sucks!
Xero: You're wrong! My imaginary friend is super cool!
Mr: Here are 10 reasons why your imaginary friend is super lame...
1. He doesn't exist
2. He farts all the time
3. He has the worst fashion sense
4. He has terrible taste in music
5. His laugh is obnoxious
6. His political views are absurd
7. He's always late
8. He chews too loud
9. He's always bumming cigarettes
10. He drives slow in the fast lane
Xero: WTF?! He drives slow in the fast lane? That's the worst. I'm going to kick his imaginary ass to the curb.
Pragmatarianism doesn't drive slow in the fast lane. And it's a real ideology. Here you are criticizing it.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Noah Smith's Critique of Pragmatarianism
I've certainly "harassed" a lot of people about pragmatarianism. But nobody has consistently endured my repeated pestering longer than Noah Smith has. For example...here's my very first comment on his Sept 2010 blog entry...
After several more attempts to engage him on the idea of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...I took my usual summer break from promoting pragmatarianism. That seemed to do the trick! Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Here's our discussion from his latest blog entry...EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary
Xero: Hah...you saved the best for last! This post alone was worth adding your blog to my blog roll.
Now I feel obligated to live up to my reputation. But I'm so tuckered from trolling so many other places that I don't know if I can muster the effort to spam you. Oh wait...I already did. [I linked the words in that sentences to other places I had discussed pragmatarianism]
Have you ever had Spam Musubi? My gf is from Hawaii...it's her favorite dish...she thinks it's deeeelish. Then again...her favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber. That probably explains why she's dating me.
What's with the uncategorizable though? Maybe I haven't said "pragmatarianism" enough times? Oh oh...and I think I'd go with this as my one liner... "Here I am...trying to convince you that it's a brilliant idea that leaders of government organizations should be forced convince you that their brilliant ideas are worth your taxes. So many brilliant ideas...so few resources! That's how economics works."
Well...since I'm here anyways...[truncated]
Noah: Awww, I missed you Xerographica! Not sarcasm. :)
FWIW, people choosing which programs their tax dollars go to presents a coordination problem. Imagine if the budget last year for highway-building was $50B. Now imagine that everyone thinks they did a good job and highways are important, so they allocate more to highways. But since they all do it at once, the highway-building dept. now has $500B this year. What do they do with all that extra cash?
Xero: Heh, missing a troll of any sort is way bad precedent.
Too much extra cash? Here's the simple answer. Brace yourself...because this might sound absurd...but I'm guessing that each government organization would have a fundraising progress bar on its website. And...just like in the non-profit sector...taxpayers would be able to pay their taxes at anytime throughout the year.
Here's a fun "fact" that I learned the hard way (via a speeding ticket and traffic school)..."A $10 million investment in public transportation results in a $30 million gain in sales for local businesses." Does that mean that a $100 million investment in public transportation results in a $300 million gain in sales for local businesses? I have no idea what the curve would look like...but I can guarantee that every single government organization would want to maximize their revenue...just like most taxpayers would intuitively understand the idea of diminishing returns.
Now for the complicated answer. The other day I was driving at the speed limit on the freeway when I noticed a couple cars ahead pull over to the side of the freeway. I instantly assumed they had gotten into an accident but then more and more cars started pulling over to the side. What did they know that I didn't? As I was slowing down and looking all around...I spotted something in the sky...it wasn't a bird...it wasn't superman...it was actually the shuttle Endeavor.
If all the blind men agree that they are touching an elephant...if both libertarians and liberals allocate 100% of their taxes to the Dept of Defense...then is it a coordination problem or is everybody seeing Godzilla heading our way? If everybody you know buys the new iPhone...is that a coordination problem...or a bandwagon problem...or a bubble...or a fad...or just our consumer culture at work? Personally...I would never buy an Apple product...just like some people would never buy spam. Our wide diversity of perspectives, interests, values, concerns, fears and hopes would ensure heterogeneous activity in a pragmatarian system. So if everybody should happen to bet on the same horse...then you'd have to ask yourself whether they know something that you do not.
Eh, don't take my word for it. Just e-mail Peter Boettke...after all...the name of his blog is "Coordination Problem". If you haven't read his new book yet...my offer to buy it for you still stands.
Noah: OK, so what determines the size of the fundraising bars? Isn't there an incentive for govt. agencies to say they need much more than they actually need?
Xero: Definitely...but it would be checked and balanced by taxpayers wanting more for less. That's the basic dynamic involved every time you spend your own money. You want to purchase products at the lowest possible price and producers want to sell their products at the highest possible price. The bargaining process is what incorporates all our perspectives (information, values, interests, concerns, hopes, dreams, etc) into determining how limited resources are used.
Public goods don't have literal price tags on them...and you aren't going to sit by the door waiting for the EPA to send you a box of environmental protection. But when you give your money to the EPA...you're actually giving them a portion of your life. Here's the quote from Henry David Thoreau that "Name" shared in the comments..."The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." How much of your life is protecting the environment worth?
Who are taxpayers? They are the people that produce the products/services that we voluntarily exchange our lives for. That's why they are our true representatives. And if I feel like Jeff Bezos is failing to represent my interests in the public sector....then I can easily give him less money to spend in the public sector simply by choosing not to shop on Amazon.
J.S. Mill referred to bonsai trees a few times in On Liberty. A bonsai apple tree won't produce nearly as much fruit as an apple tree that has had the opportunity to reach its full potential. Perhaps liberals perceive that poor people, through no fault of their own, are like bonsai trees...and we would greatly benefit as a society by giving them whatever they need to reach their full potential. Clearly giving them all iPhones wouldn't help them reach their full potential...so what would? Options...giving them more options. But options are created by giving people the freedom to come up with new and innovative uses for limited resources. For example, people now have the option to become pilots because the Wright Brothers had the freedom to apply their unique perspectives to their limited resources.
Having more options in life is having more freedom and more freedom leads to more options. So we give taxpayers the freedom to choose how they spend their own taxes in the public sector. This freedom will invariably lead to more options and everybody will greatly benefit.
In other words...a mind is a terrible thing to waste. If you can't choose how you spend your time/money then your mind is wasted. By allowing 538 congresspeople to spend taxpayers' money...we are wasting the minds of 150 million of our most productive citizens. Well...partially wasting. Socialist experiments have already demonstrated the consequences of completely wasting the minds of your citizens. Yet...we still allow a small group of government planners to decide how 1/4 of our nation's revenue is spent.
Errr...somewhat less seriously...I figure government organizations would create commercials kind of like Pat Robinson asking people to donate money for an interstellar cruiser. Would you spend any of your taxes on an interstellar cruiser? Yes? Well don't blame me if you wake up on Mars one day...it was your tax allocation decisions that contributed to the NASA bubble.
Noah: OK, but how would taxpayers know how much each agency needed? They can determine how much money they give, but the amount of money requested is set by the agency, right? So if the agency sets its website fundraising thermometer with a max of $100B when it can only really spend $50B effectively, how do people know when to stop giving it money?
Xero: Errr...because you would tell them. You would create a blog entry that offers conclusive proof that the Dept of Transportation can only really effectively spend $50 billion dollars. Isn't that what economists are for? And then the Dept of Transportation would offer conclusive evidence that refutes your conclusive evidence. And then all the trolls would chime in with their own conclusive evidence.
And taxpayers would be swimming in all sorts of conclusive evidence. Why? Because we forced government organizations to "solely" rely on persuasion. Persuasion is the most wonderfullest thing. It's really hard to overestimate its value. Without persuasion there wouldn't be any information. A person holding a gun doesn't have to explain to you why you should give him your money. But if he didn't have the gun then he would be forced to explain that he wants your money to buy drugs. That information would not persuade you to give him your money...which is why he resorted to using a gun in the first place.
Capitalism works because people are forced to solely rely on persuasion if they want your life...which explains exactly why socialism does not work.
If you understand the value of persuasion...then you will very much appreciate that Milton Friedman was not overreacting in this video when an interviewer started to ask him a hypothetical..."if you were a dictator for a day..." question. Friedman quickly cut him off and emphatically said..."If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it." Oh man oh man! That perfectly embodies the difference between capitalism and socialism...the difference between conceit and humility. As Hayek said..."The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
In a pragmatarian system...because of the possibility of the free-rider problem...people would still be forced to pay taxes anyways...so the gun would still be there. But that doesn't mean that we have to eliminate persuasion from the equation. We force people to pay taxes but we should solely rely on persuasion to convince them to spend their money...to spend a significant portion of their lives...on the public goods that we believe are underfunded.
Another way of looking at persuasion...and understanding what impels people to act...is from the perspective of "unease". I disagree with Mises on quite a few points...but it's really hard to find anybody who has explained the general idea of human action as effectively and concisely as he did...
"We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care."
The amount of funding that government organizations received would reflect our levels of unease. If the thought of taxpayers giving too much money to the Dept of Transportation made you uneasy then you'd blog about it. If your unease was based on solid evidence...then your evidence would make taxpayers uneasy and influence their tax allocation decisions.
What makes me uneasy is not knowing what is truly making 150 million of our most productive citizens uneasy. Why wouldn't we want to find out? How can we prioritize how we spend our limited resources when we don't truly know what the biggest public concerns of our nation actually are?
Truthfully signalling our biggest concerns will help our brightest minds understand exactly where they can make the biggest impact in our lives.
Allowing tax payers to vote with their taxes would lead to the most efficient division of labor between the public and private sector.
The only difference between public and private goods is that, with public goods, people can free-ride off the contributions of others. Add the element of coercion (taxes) and the invisible hand can allocate public resources as efficiently as it can allocate private resources.That was the only comment on his blog entry...and he didn't even respond. After a few more comments he still didn't respond so I created a blog entry to document his lack of response...The Ostrich Response to Pragmatarianism. That manged to get a response out of him...which was..."I guess it's just that I have trouble understanding what you write..." Ehh....oh. I did get a C in one English class...so...it wasn't like he was the first to bring that to my attention. Writing definitely does not come easy to me so I found his response to be somewhat reasonable.
After several more attempts to engage him on the idea of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...I took my usual summer break from promoting pragmatarianism. That seemed to do the trick! Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Here's our discussion from his latest blog entry...EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary
Xero: Hah...you saved the best for last! This post alone was worth adding your blog to my blog roll.
Now I feel obligated to live up to my reputation. But I'm so tuckered from trolling so many other places that I don't know if I can muster the effort to spam you. Oh wait...I already did. [I linked the words in that sentences to other places I had discussed pragmatarianism]
Have you ever had Spam Musubi? My gf is from Hawaii...it's her favorite dish...she thinks it's deeeelish. Then again...her favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber. That probably explains why she's dating me.
What's with the uncategorizable though? Maybe I haven't said "pragmatarianism" enough times? Oh oh...and I think I'd go with this as my one liner... "Here I am...trying to convince you that it's a brilliant idea that leaders of government organizations should be forced convince you that their brilliant ideas are worth your taxes. So many brilliant ideas...so few resources! That's how economics works."
Well...since I'm here anyways...[truncated]
Noah: Awww, I missed you Xerographica! Not sarcasm. :)
FWIW, people choosing which programs their tax dollars go to presents a coordination problem. Imagine if the budget last year for highway-building was $50B. Now imagine that everyone thinks they did a good job and highways are important, so they allocate more to highways. But since they all do it at once, the highway-building dept. now has $500B this year. What do they do with all that extra cash?
Xero: Heh, missing a troll of any sort is way bad precedent.
Too much extra cash? Here's the simple answer. Brace yourself...because this might sound absurd...but I'm guessing that each government organization would have a fundraising progress bar on its website. And...just like in the non-profit sector...taxpayers would be able to pay their taxes at anytime throughout the year.
Here's a fun "fact" that I learned the hard way (via a speeding ticket and traffic school)..."A $10 million investment in public transportation results in a $30 million gain in sales for local businesses." Does that mean that a $100 million investment in public transportation results in a $300 million gain in sales for local businesses? I have no idea what the curve would look like...but I can guarantee that every single government organization would want to maximize their revenue...just like most taxpayers would intuitively understand the idea of diminishing returns.
Now for the complicated answer. The other day I was driving at the speed limit on the freeway when I noticed a couple cars ahead pull over to the side of the freeway. I instantly assumed they had gotten into an accident but then more and more cars started pulling over to the side. What did they know that I didn't? As I was slowing down and looking all around...I spotted something in the sky...it wasn't a bird...it wasn't superman...it was actually the shuttle Endeavor.
If all the blind men agree that they are touching an elephant...if both libertarians and liberals allocate 100% of their taxes to the Dept of Defense...then is it a coordination problem or is everybody seeing Godzilla heading our way? If everybody you know buys the new iPhone...is that a coordination problem...or a bandwagon problem...or a bubble...or a fad...or just our consumer culture at work? Personally...I would never buy an Apple product...just like some people would never buy spam. Our wide diversity of perspectives, interests, values, concerns, fears and hopes would ensure heterogeneous activity in a pragmatarian system. So if everybody should happen to bet on the same horse...then you'd have to ask yourself whether they know something that you do not.
Eh, don't take my word for it. Just e-mail Peter Boettke...after all...the name of his blog is "Coordination Problem". If you haven't read his new book yet...my offer to buy it for you still stands.
Noah: OK, so what determines the size of the fundraising bars? Isn't there an incentive for govt. agencies to say they need much more than they actually need?
Xero: Definitely...but it would be checked and balanced by taxpayers wanting more for less. That's the basic dynamic involved every time you spend your own money. You want to purchase products at the lowest possible price and producers want to sell their products at the highest possible price. The bargaining process is what incorporates all our perspectives (information, values, interests, concerns, hopes, dreams, etc) into determining how limited resources are used.
Public goods don't have literal price tags on them...and you aren't going to sit by the door waiting for the EPA to send you a box of environmental protection. But when you give your money to the EPA...you're actually giving them a portion of your life. Here's the quote from Henry David Thoreau that "Name" shared in the comments..."The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." How much of your life is protecting the environment worth?
Who are taxpayers? They are the people that produce the products/services that we voluntarily exchange our lives for. That's why they are our true representatives. And if I feel like Jeff Bezos is failing to represent my interests in the public sector....then I can easily give him less money to spend in the public sector simply by choosing not to shop on Amazon.
J.S. Mill referred to bonsai trees a few times in On Liberty. A bonsai apple tree won't produce nearly as much fruit as an apple tree that has had the opportunity to reach its full potential. Perhaps liberals perceive that poor people, through no fault of their own, are like bonsai trees...and we would greatly benefit as a society by giving them whatever they need to reach their full potential. Clearly giving them all iPhones wouldn't help them reach their full potential...so what would? Options...giving them more options. But options are created by giving people the freedom to come up with new and innovative uses for limited resources. For example, people now have the option to become pilots because the Wright Brothers had the freedom to apply their unique perspectives to their limited resources.
Having more options in life is having more freedom and more freedom leads to more options. So we give taxpayers the freedom to choose how they spend their own taxes in the public sector. This freedom will invariably lead to more options and everybody will greatly benefit.
In other words...a mind is a terrible thing to waste. If you can't choose how you spend your time/money then your mind is wasted. By allowing 538 congresspeople to spend taxpayers' money...we are wasting the minds of 150 million of our most productive citizens. Well...partially wasting. Socialist experiments have already demonstrated the consequences of completely wasting the minds of your citizens. Yet...we still allow a small group of government planners to decide how 1/4 of our nation's revenue is spent.
Errr...somewhat less seriously...I figure government organizations would create commercials kind of like Pat Robinson asking people to donate money for an interstellar cruiser. Would you spend any of your taxes on an interstellar cruiser? Yes? Well don't blame me if you wake up on Mars one day...it was your tax allocation decisions that contributed to the NASA bubble.
Noah: OK, but how would taxpayers know how much each agency needed? They can determine how much money they give, but the amount of money requested is set by the agency, right? So if the agency sets its website fundraising thermometer with a max of $100B when it can only really spend $50B effectively, how do people know when to stop giving it money?
Xero: Errr...because you would tell them. You would create a blog entry that offers conclusive proof that the Dept of Transportation can only really effectively spend $50 billion dollars. Isn't that what economists are for? And then the Dept of Transportation would offer conclusive evidence that refutes your conclusive evidence. And then all the trolls would chime in with their own conclusive evidence.
And taxpayers would be swimming in all sorts of conclusive evidence. Why? Because we forced government organizations to "solely" rely on persuasion. Persuasion is the most wonderfullest thing. It's really hard to overestimate its value. Without persuasion there wouldn't be any information. A person holding a gun doesn't have to explain to you why you should give him your money. But if he didn't have the gun then he would be forced to explain that he wants your money to buy drugs. That information would not persuade you to give him your money...which is why he resorted to using a gun in the first place.
Capitalism works because people are forced to solely rely on persuasion if they want your life...which explains exactly why socialism does not work.
If you understand the value of persuasion...then you will very much appreciate that Milton Friedman was not overreacting in this video when an interviewer started to ask him a hypothetical..."if you were a dictator for a day..." question. Friedman quickly cut him off and emphatically said..."If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it." Oh man oh man! That perfectly embodies the difference between capitalism and socialism...the difference between conceit and humility. As Hayek said..."The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
In a pragmatarian system...because of the possibility of the free-rider problem...people would still be forced to pay taxes anyways...so the gun would still be there. But that doesn't mean that we have to eliminate persuasion from the equation. We force people to pay taxes but we should solely rely on persuasion to convince them to spend their money...to spend a significant portion of their lives...on the public goods that we believe are underfunded.
Another way of looking at persuasion...and understanding what impels people to act...is from the perspective of "unease". I disagree with Mises on quite a few points...but it's really hard to find anybody who has explained the general idea of human action as effectively and concisely as he did...
"We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care."
The amount of funding that government organizations received would reflect our levels of unease. If the thought of taxpayers giving too much money to the Dept of Transportation made you uneasy then you'd blog about it. If your unease was based on solid evidence...then your evidence would make taxpayers uneasy and influence their tax allocation decisions.
What makes me uneasy is not knowing what is truly making 150 million of our most productive citizens uneasy. Why wouldn't we want to find out? How can we prioritize how we spend our limited resources when we don't truly know what the biggest public concerns of our nation actually are?
Truthfully signalling our biggest concerns will help our brightest minds understand exactly where they can make the biggest impact in our lives.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Troy Camplin's Critique of Pragmatarianism
In a recent post of mine...What Are Taxes Worth?...I commented on Peter Boettke's post highlighting Don Boudreaux's perspective on Ludwig Lachmann. Among the comments on Boettke's post...I found this one to be particularly agreeable...
In this first part of the critique he recognizes that people would be forced to put their taxes where their mouths are. But he doesn't necessarily seem to find much value in this. How much value is there in only being able to spend your own taxes? How much value is there in preventing other people from spending your own taxes? From my perspective this is priceless. This would allow 150 million of our most productive citizens to ask themselves whether it was worth it to give their own hard-earned money to the government. How many taxpayers would truly believe that they would be getting their money's worth of public goods?
The second part of his critique leaned heavily on the political party heuristic...liberals vs conservatives...in order to guesstimate the values of 150 million taxpayers. According to his analysis, conservatives would spend their taxes on national defense and liberals would spend their taxes on welfare. Well...this strikes me as a much too hasty generalization that does not accurately represent myself...nor anybody that I've ever met. Don't get me wrong...it's not that I don't rely on this heuristic myself...but perfect caricatures of political ideologies are exceptions rather than the rule.
Pragmatarianism is the epitome of political pluralism. Rather than having 3 or 4 or 10 political parties...we would have 150 million completely unique political parties. From my perspective...a much more effective heuristic to consider would be Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...
This can help us grasp the idea that taxpayers would allocate their taxes according to their priorities. If a liberal felt like another country genuinely threatened their safety...then chances are pretty good that their priorities would change...they would sacrifice funding welfare in order to spend their taxes on solutions that might peacefully resolve our disagreements with the other country.
Basically, there's more than one way to skin a cat. The idea of giving 150 million of our most productive citizens the freedom to directly allocate their taxes is based on that simple concept. We all have limited perspectives....therefore we all make mistakes. Yet, we all have unique perspectives...therefore we can see problems from different angles.
Bob: Hey Sally...you should really spend more of your taxes on the EPA
Sally: Actually...the news said that Canada might try and invade us
Bob: Oh, that would be no good. I better check the fundraising progress bar on the DoD website
In my post on Perspectives Matter - Economics in One Lesson...I pointed out that persuasion is instrumental in ensuring the dissemination of partial knowledge throughout society. People would certainly debate which government organizations needed the most funding...and that debate would be priceless.
The next critique Camplin offers has to do with corruption. How could decentralizing power and control increase corruption? Right now if you want to "corrupt" the government it's relatively easy to do given that we have too many eggs in one basket. You only need to go to one location...Washington DC. If you wanted to engage in some "corruption" in a pragmatarian system you'd have to buy an ad on TV just like the rest of the organizations that want to persuade us change our priorities.
Regarding subsidies...a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Farmers would only be shooting themselves in the foot if they ignored other links that were essential to the successful operation of their business. To quote the bible, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" What good is it to subsidize your own industry...if there are no roads to transport your products...no police to protect your property...no courts to handle disputes...no military to prevent Canada from invading? In my post on the opportunity costs of public transportation I address this concept from the aspect of public transportation.
Pragmatarianism is also valuable because it begs the question of what organizations should qualify as tax recipients. Should farming really qualify if only farmers allocate their taxes to it? How many taxpayers would have to allocate their taxes to something for it to be considered a genuine "public" good? That important debate would certainly be a positive externality of considering pragmatarianism.
Lastly, Camplin suggests a more acceptable system...where private donations would be 100% tax deductible. Sure, I would have no problem with this compromise...but I doubt many liberals would find it acceptable. This was the point I addressed in my entry on Libertarianism and the Free-rider Problem.
But what I didn't quite get from Camplin was an explanation as to why pragmatarianism wouldn't result in anarcho-capitalism. Given that Austrian economists believe that the private sector does everything better than the public sector...why wouldn't giving self-interested, utility maximizing, psychic profit-seeking consumers (taxpayers) the freedom to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to shrink the scope of government down to nothing? Why would consumers give their taxes to public organization B if private organization A offered them more bang for their buck? If no government organizations are truly fit...then why wouldn't applying survival of the fittest to the public sector result in the mass extinction of all government organizations?
In the beginning of his critique, Camplin acknowledged that pragmatarianism would force taxpayers to put their money where their mouths are...but I don't think he quite recognized that pragmatarianism itself represents an opportunity for socialists, liberals, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists to put their money where their political ideologies are. What does it mean when people aren't willing to allow 150 million taxpayers to use their hard-earned taxes to determine the proper scope of government? Socialists, liberals, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists can't all be right...so perhaps the possibility of being right is far better than the possibility of being proved wrong.
The proof is in the pudding.
What Austrian believes any free market economy could ever be "optimal"? That's the mistake made by mainstream economists, believing such nonsense, not Austrians. Complexity implies messiness, redundancy, etc. Complexity implies both coordination and discoordination. That is, it implies equilibrium is impossible to achieve. Which, again, is what all the Austrians I have ever read have ever said. If Austrians believe anything, it's that the economy is a far-from-equilibrium process. Thus, Lachmann's ideas are rightly understood to be Austrian. - Troy Camplin...so I visited Camplin's blog...Interdisciplinary World...and really enjoyed reading his entries. Figured it wouldn't hurt to ask him for his perspective on pragmatarianism...and he was nice enough to oblige me... Troy Camplin's Critique of Pragmatarianism
In this first part of the critique he recognizes that people would be forced to put their taxes where their mouths are. But he doesn't necessarily seem to find much value in this. How much value is there in only being able to spend your own taxes? How much value is there in preventing other people from spending your own taxes? From my perspective this is priceless. This would allow 150 million of our most productive citizens to ask themselves whether it was worth it to give their own hard-earned money to the government. How many taxpayers would truly believe that they would be getting their money's worth of public goods?
The second part of his critique leaned heavily on the political party heuristic...liberals vs conservatives...in order to guesstimate the values of 150 million taxpayers. According to his analysis, conservatives would spend their taxes on national defense and liberals would spend their taxes on welfare. Well...this strikes me as a much too hasty generalization that does not accurately represent myself...nor anybody that I've ever met. Don't get me wrong...it's not that I don't rely on this heuristic myself...but perfect caricatures of political ideologies are exceptions rather than the rule.
Pragmatarianism is the epitome of political pluralism. Rather than having 3 or 4 or 10 political parties...we would have 150 million completely unique political parties. From my perspective...a much more effective heuristic to consider would be Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...
This can help us grasp the idea that taxpayers would allocate their taxes according to their priorities. If a liberal felt like another country genuinely threatened their safety...then chances are pretty good that their priorities would change...they would sacrifice funding welfare in order to spend their taxes on solutions that might peacefully resolve our disagreements with the other country.
Basically, there's more than one way to skin a cat. The idea of giving 150 million of our most productive citizens the freedom to directly allocate their taxes is based on that simple concept. We all have limited perspectives....therefore we all make mistakes. Yet, we all have unique perspectives...therefore we can see problems from different angles.
Perhaps the individual taxpayer feels better about where their money is going, but I also see how this can result in much deeper divisions in the country, where people become resentful that their neighbors are not supporting their pet projects.Well...our society is based on the idea of a division of labor...which I addressed in my post on a taxpayer division of labor. But do a substantial number of people really become resentful when their neighbors don't invest in their pet projects? Here's kind of a ridiculously oversimplified version of how I see it playing out between neighbors.
Bob: Hey Sally...you should really spend more of your taxes on the EPA
Sally: Actually...the news said that Canada might try and invade us
Bob: Oh, that would be no good. I better check the fundraising progress bar on the DoD website
In my post on Perspectives Matter - Economics in One Lesson...I pointed out that persuasion is instrumental in ensuring the dissemination of partial knowledge throughout society. People would certainly debate which government organizations needed the most funding...and that debate would be priceless.
The next critique Camplin offers has to do with corruption. How could decentralizing power and control increase corruption? Right now if you want to "corrupt" the government it's relatively easy to do given that we have too many eggs in one basket. You only need to go to one location...Washington DC. If you wanted to engage in some "corruption" in a pragmatarian system you'd have to buy an ad on TV just like the rest of the organizations that want to persuade us change our priorities.
Regarding subsidies...a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Farmers would only be shooting themselves in the foot if they ignored other links that were essential to the successful operation of their business. To quote the bible, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" What good is it to subsidize your own industry...if there are no roads to transport your products...no police to protect your property...no courts to handle disputes...no military to prevent Canada from invading? In my post on the opportunity costs of public transportation I address this concept from the aspect of public transportation.
Pragmatarianism is also valuable because it begs the question of what organizations should qualify as tax recipients. Should farming really qualify if only farmers allocate their taxes to it? How many taxpayers would have to allocate their taxes to something for it to be considered a genuine "public" good? That important debate would certainly be a positive externality of considering pragmatarianism.
Lastly, Camplin suggests a more acceptable system...where private donations would be 100% tax deductible. Sure, I would have no problem with this compromise...but I doubt many liberals would find it acceptable. This was the point I addressed in my entry on Libertarianism and the Free-rider Problem.
But what I didn't quite get from Camplin was an explanation as to why pragmatarianism wouldn't result in anarcho-capitalism. Given that Austrian economists believe that the private sector does everything better than the public sector...why wouldn't giving self-interested, utility maximizing, psychic profit-seeking consumers (taxpayers) the freedom to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to shrink the scope of government down to nothing? Why would consumers give their taxes to public organization B if private organization A offered them more bang for their buck? If no government organizations are truly fit...then why wouldn't applying survival of the fittest to the public sector result in the mass extinction of all government organizations?
In the beginning of his critique, Camplin acknowledged that pragmatarianism would force taxpayers to put their money where their mouths are...but I don't think he quite recognized that pragmatarianism itself represents an opportunity for socialists, liberals, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists to put their money where their political ideologies are. What does it mean when people aren't willing to allow 150 million taxpayers to use their hard-earned taxes to determine the proper scope of government? Socialists, liberals, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists can't all be right...so perhaps the possibility of being right is far better than the possibility of being proved wrong.
The proof is in the pudding.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Daniel Kuehn's Critique of Pragmatarianism
Daniel Kuehn just shared his critique of pragmatarianism.... Thoughts on "tax choice": is it just anarcho-capitalism? His critique is really interesting because Kuehn kinda seems like a libertarian...but all his concerns were of a liberal nature. So I wonder which label he goes by...not that it really matters though.
What's neat about his entry is that it illustrates all but one of the five most common responses to pragmatarianism.
1. The Ostrich Response (aka no response)
2. The Coordination Problem Response (Information Problems)
For some reason I was kind of surprised to see this concern. I guess because I see him occasionally comment over at Peter Boettke's blog...Coordination Problem. Also, the name of Kuehn's blog is "Facts and Other Stubborn Things". The first thing that comes to mind when I think about "Facts" is my favorite passage from Hayek....
3. The Taxes are Theft Response
This was the one argument he didn't make.
4. The Rich People Are Evil Response
My discussion with the liberal John Holbo - Selling Votes - I challenged him to show me a correlation between wealth and values. Also, quite a few times I brought up personal responsibility in terms of ethical consumerism......Dude, Where's My Ethical Consumerism.
My discussion with the liberal Linda Beale - Other People's Values - It's a hasty generalization to say that the wealthy are evil.
My discussion with a communist - A "Hard Times" Milestone "Yes, the more taxes people pay the more power they have...but I can't see how this power to fund public "goods" can possibly be used for evil purposes."
My discussion with the libertarian Matt Zwolinski - Fallibilism vs Fairness - People should be able to put their taxes where their hearts are...aka ethical consumerism. Also, fairness should never trump the efficient allocation of scarce resources.
Tax Choice - A Strategy for the Occupy Movement - Again with the idea of ethical consumerism...you can't give corporations the middle finger with one hand and your money with the other hand.
To summarize...
1. There's no correlation between wealth and values
2. Fairness should never trump the efficient allocation of scarce resources
3. The 99% has a personal responsibility to put their money where their hearts are
5. Other (The Free-rider Problem)
As I discussed in my post on Libertarianism and the Free-rider problem...the possibility of the free-rider problem is partly what motivated me to reject libertarianism.
Kuehn's Conclusion
What's funny is that I can imagine back in the day...the people who defended regular human sacrifice would say...we haven't had a drought in years, we've been winning all our battles, the volcano hasn't erupted, the sun hasn't fallen from the sky and the demons haven't stolen our children.
It's a total myth that 538 congresspeople can efficiently allocate the taxes of 150 million taxpayers. There's just no way that a committee of any sort can determine the optimal level of funding for any organization.
What's neat about his entry is that it illustrates all but one of the five most common responses to pragmatarianism.
- The ostrich response (~ 85%)
- The coordination problem response (~ 9%)
- The taxes are theft response (~3%)
- The rich people are evil response (~ 2%)
- Other (~1%)
1. The Ostrich Response (aka no response)
At first I thought it was a really dumb idea - then after he clarified some stuff I'm somewhat more positively disposed.I wonder what percentage of non-responders fall into this category. First impressions are pretty darn important so it would be great to figure out how to make the tax choice idea not appear so dumb at first glance.
2. The Coordination Problem Response (Information Problems)
For some reason I was kind of surprised to see this concern. I guess because I see him occasionally comment over at Peter Boettke's blog...Coordination Problem. Also, the name of Kuehn's blog is "Facts and Other Stubborn Things". The first thing that comes to mind when I think about "Facts" is my favorite passage from Hayek....
The problem is thus in no way solved if we can show that all the facts, if they were known to a single mind (as we hypothetically assume them to be given to the observing economist), would uniquely determine the solution; instead we must show how a solution is produced by the interactions of people each of whom possesses only partial knowledge. To assume all the knowledge to be given to a single mind in the same manner in which we assume it to be given to us as the explaining economists is to assume the problem away and to disregard everything that is important and significant in the real world. - Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in SocietyPragmatarianism is the solution to the information problem. I discuss this in more detail in my post on partial knowledge and opportunity costs. Kuehn wrote...
But I don't think I have nearly enough information to allocate my taxes properly across all these functions even the ones that I find perfectly legitimate (which to be honest is most of them). Others are going to struggle with this too. And that information problem could come up with some perverse results. You may get a massive EPA budget, far beyond what makes sense, because people can't really grapple with all these trade-offs but they know they want to "protect the environment". What does that really help? You probably stop doing the environment much good pretty quickly, you suck funds away from other uses, and you're probably going to hurt the economy if you beef up the EPA's regulatory capacity.This passage fit nicely into my collection of coordination problem responses...Unglamorous but Important Things.
3. The Taxes are Theft Response
This was the one argument he didn't make.
4. The Rich People Are Evil Response
Basically, the public goods that will get provided are the public goods that rich people like. In this sense, the system isn't democratic at all - it's hardly "one person one vote".I should really start a collection dedicated to this type of response. Here are a few of the places where I've addressed it...
My discussion with the liberal John Holbo - Selling Votes - I challenged him to show me a correlation between wealth and values. Also, quite a few times I brought up personal responsibility in terms of ethical consumerism......Dude, Where's My Ethical Consumerism.
My discussion with the liberal Linda Beale - Other People's Values - It's a hasty generalization to say that the wealthy are evil.
My discussion with a communist - A "Hard Times" Milestone "Yes, the more taxes people pay the more power they have...but I can't see how this power to fund public "goods" can possibly be used for evil purposes."
My discussion with the libertarian Matt Zwolinski - Fallibilism vs Fairness - People should be able to put their taxes where their hearts are...aka ethical consumerism. Also, fairness should never trump the efficient allocation of scarce resources.
Tax Choice - A Strategy for the Occupy Movement - Again with the idea of ethical consumerism...you can't give corporations the middle finger with one hand and your money with the other hand.
To summarize...
1. There's no correlation between wealth and values
2. Fairness should never trump the efficient allocation of scarce resources
3. The 99% has a personal responsibility to put their money where their hearts are
5. Other (The Free-rider Problem)
As I discussed in my post on Libertarianism and the Free-rider problem...the possibility of the free-rider problem is partly what motivated me to reject libertarianism.
Kuehn's Conclusion
You don't see the government funding indisputably private goods here, and you don't see a complete lack of rhyme or reason to how things are allocated. The things that bug Xerographica are real - but I think we should take it as an opportunity to make further tweaks - namely to push some democratization and devolution. That I could get behind. But "tax choice" seems to me like a dud.Heh, his first impression was "dumb" and his second impression was "dud". That's progress...isn't it?
What's funny is that I can imagine back in the day...the people who defended regular human sacrifice would say...we haven't had a drought in years, we've been winning all our battles, the volcano hasn't erupted, the sun hasn't fallen from the sky and the demons haven't stolen our children.
It's a total myth that 538 congresspeople can efficiently allocate the taxes of 150 million taxpayers. There's just no way that a committee of any sort can determine the optimal level of funding for any organization.
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