The Least Blind Group Will Win

[Galloism]

Hell, even the wikipedia article points out that allocative efficiency may not be pareto-efficient.

Suppose our social planner tried to choose an efficient allocation of resources on his own, instead of relying on market forces. To do so, he would need to know the value of a particular good to every potential consumer in the market and the cost of every potential producer. And he would need this information not only for this market but for every one of the many thousands of markets in the economy. The task is practically impossible, which explains why centrally planned economies never work very well. - Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Macroeconomics

No government planner knows how much you value combating global warming.

It doesn't matter how much I value combating global warming. There's a certain amount needed to combat global warming completely independent of my feelings.

This is why we can be 99.99% certain that the amount of resources currently allocated to combating global warming is inefficient.

No, we can be certain it's inefficient because it's less than the scientific consensus.

But what if we eliminated the government entirely? Would the amount of money that you spent on combating global warming accurately reflect your valuation? If so, then you would probably be the exception rather than the rule.

Of course not, but it wouldn't matter if it would. My valuation of it is irrelevant to the fact of need.

The premise of compulsory taxation is that people will voluntarily pay less than their valuation of public goods. This means that in an entirely voluntary society, we can be around 70% certain that the amount of resources allocated to combating global warming would be inefficient.

We can be certain of that, yes. But even if we followed everyone's preferences exactly and entirely via mind reading device, it may still be inefficient if it doesn't match the amount needed according to science.

So what if we simply allowed taxpayers to choose where their taxes go?

Then the government would either become stupid inefficient or collapse entirely.

Would the amount of money that you spent on combating global warming accurately reflect your valuation?

No. Of course not. What a silly question.

Why not?

Because, as a tax professional, it's most rational for me to entirely fund the IRS with every bit of tax money I pay, because that puts food on my table and money in my wallet. Meanwhile, I use the roads, environment, etc, that YOU pay for even though I don't pay for it.

You have to pay taxes anyways.

Yes, but that doesn't matter. My true valuation won't be reflected - I'm a rational actor. I will fund that which loops back the most money into my pocket, not what I truly value.

As a result, the amount of resources allocated to combating global warming would be far more efficient compared to the alternatives.

Not even by your gross definition of efficient where runaway greenhouse global warming extinguishing all life on earth is efficient.

We should use scientific study to determine what needs to be done and do it.

In order to have scientific study you first need to have scientists. How many scientists should study global warming? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many scientists? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many?

As many as it takes to understand the problem and solution to a high degree of accuracy.

Right now a small group of elected non-scientists determines how many scientists should study global warming. You're certain that a few elected non-scientists will come up with a better answer than all the taxpayers combined. Do you have any scientific studies to prove this? Nope.

No, but it still makes more logical sense than your system.

[Neanderthaland]

Well then the answer to the first question is obviously false. Society should allocate only as many resources to an endeavor as are required for the endeavor's success, no matter how greatly it is valued.

Doing otherwise is simply inefficient.

Society should allocate only as many resources to building a giant wall as are required for the endeavor's success, no matter how greatly it is valued? But what's your basis for allocating any resources to building a wall in the first place? Like lots of endeavors... a wall can be a small cheap endeavor (1' tall cardboard) all the way to a massive expensive endeavor (100' tall 10' thick steel). Same thing with space colonization and environmental protection and gene research and AI development. In all these endeavors it's less a matter of success and more a matter of progress. To say that we've successfully colonized space is to say nothing very specific. Do you mean that we've successfully colonized our solar system... our galaxy... 100 galaxies... 1000 galaxies... our universe... 100 universes? How you define success might be very different from how I define success.

Try to focus, nobody mentioned giant walls.

My argument is that the amount of resources allocated to any endeavor should reflect how strongly society cares about it.

And I'm saying that's wrong. I care an awful lot about staying warm in winter, as do most people in cold climates, but if gas is cheep, why would I want to pay more for heating then is necessary to stay warm?

Basic necessities are things that I care for tremendously, but don't want to spend a majority of my income on.

This provides the basis for determining how many resources to allocate to any endeavor. So far you haven't provided a better basis. You haven't even provided any basis.

How childish.

[The Two Jerseys]

Society should allocate only as many resources to building a giant wall as are required for the endeavor's success, no matter how greatly it is valued? But what's your basis for allocating any resources to building a wall in the first place? Like lots of endeavors... a wall can be a small cheap endeavor (1' tall cardboard) all the way to a massive expensive endeavor (100' tall 10' thick steel). Same thing with space colonization and environmental protection and gene research and AI development. In all these endeavors it's less a matter of success and more a matter of progress. To say that we've successfully colonized space is to say nothing very specific. Do you mean that we've successfully colonized our solar system... our galaxy... 100 galaxies... 1000 galaxies... our universe... 100 universes? How you define success might be very different from how I define success.

Try to focus, nobody mentioned giant walls.

You expect Xero to focus? 18 hours after I last posted, I'm still waiting for an explanation on how using the price of a pack of Marlboros to decide that we need to allocate more farmland to growing tobacco than to growing corn is efficient...

[Xerographica]

Society should allocate only as many resources to building a giant wall as are required for the endeavor's success, no matter how greatly it is valued? But what's your basis for allocating any resources to building a wall in the first place? Like lots of endeavors... a wall can be a small cheap endeavor (1' tall cardboard) all the way to a massive expensive endeavor (100' tall 10' thick steel). Same thing with space colonization and environmental protection and gene research and AI development. In all these endeavors it's less a matter of success and more a matter of progress. To say that we've successfully colonized space is to say nothing very specific. Do you mean that we've successfully colonized our solar system... our galaxy... 100 galaxies... 1000 galaxies... our universe... 100 universes? How you define success might be very different from how I define success.

Try to focus, nobody mentioned giant walls.

We mentioned endeavors... a giant wall is an endeavor.... so is a giant pyramid. It's a long list.

My argument is that the amount of resources allocated to any endeavor should reflect how strongly society cares about it.

And I'm saying that's wrong. I care an awful lot about staying warm in winter, as do most people in cold climates, but if gas is cheep, why would I want to pay more for heating then is necessary to stay warm?

Whenever the Sarah McLaughlin commercial about the abused animals played on TV, my ex would go *sniff* *sniff* *sniff*. But not once did she reach for her purse and call the number on the screen. How much did she care about helping abused animals? It's hard to say because the free-rider problem is probably a real problem.

You say that you care a lot about staying warm in winter. But then you also say that you don't pay a lot to stay warm. My guess is that staying warm isn't truly a big concern of yours.

The other day my friend was super tired/lazy on the couch. She said that she was dying of thirst and wanted me to get her a bottle of water. I said fine and grabbed an empty bottle and filled it up with tap water. Then I put it on the table right in front of her. She didn't want to drink it because it was tap water. So I replied, "guess you're not really dying of thirst". If you can turn your nose up at tap water, then you don't care very strongly about drinking water. Same thing if you're not willing to get off the couch and walk a few feet to grab a bottle of water.

Basic necessities are things that I care for tremendously, but don't want to spend a majority of my income on.

Most basic necessities aren't very scarce. But in no case are they equally abundant. What you pay for them should communicate your own individual perception of their relative scarcity. Of course it would only make sense to do so in a pragmatarian market.

I'm pretty sure that we've been over this before. Let's pretend that Bill Gates goes to the grocery store. He sees some mangosteens. Mangosteens are relatively scarce and their price reflects this. Gates loves mangosteens so he buys all of them. He's filthy rich so the steep price obviously doesn't faze him. The problem is that the amount he paid is a lot less than his perception of their relative scarcity. As a result, he provides producers with a lot less incentive to supply them. Therefore, it takes a lot longer for mangosteens to be relatively abundant.

Point A: scarcity
Point B: abundance

The distance between these two points depends on honesty. The more honest that consumers are, the shorter the distance. With a pragmatarian market, consumers would be completely honest.

This provides the basis for determining how many resources to allocate to any endeavor. So far you haven't provided a better basis. You haven't even provided any basis.

How childish.

It's not childish, it's a fact.

Here's a relevant passage that I recently read...

Furthermore, even if the procedure were not literal unanimity but merely dollar contributions for a commonly consumed good, there would be the problem of lying. A taxpayer paying voluntarily (supposedly in accord with this marginal valuation of the commonly consumed good) has an incentive like anyone in a bargaining situation to lie about that marginal valuation, putting it too high when the pollster comes to the door and too low when the tax collector comes to the door. The bargainer in the market stall does not tell you that he would actually be willing to sell the antique picture for $10, he tells you instead that if he sells it for anything less than $50 his poor mother will go without bread.

Competition between sellers to gain customers - that is, the prospect of losing your dollars if he does not sell for the low price - is what in the end forces him to admit his true willingness to accept the low payment and brings society to the correct amount of paintings sold. Likewise, the householder overstates how much she would be willing to accept to allow her house to be demolished for a road and the taxpayer understates how much he would be willing to pay for national defense. In these cases, however, there is no competition driving the householder or taxpayer to tell the truth. On the contrary, if the householder overstates the value of her house, she gets the large amount, if the taxpayer understates the value of national defense, other taxpayers nonetheless pay and he gets a free ride on the backs of his fellows. There ought to be some system to induce people to reveal truthfully their valuation of commonly consumed goods in the way that ordinary markets induce them to reveal truthfully their valuation of private goods. - Deirdre McCloskey, The Applied Theory Of Price

[Maqo]

Here's a relevant passage that I recently read...

Furthermore, even if the procedure were not literal unanimity but merely dollar contributions for a commonly consumed good, there would be the problem of lying. A taxpayer paying voluntarily (supposedly in accord with this marginal valuation of the commonly consumed good) has an incentive like anyone in a bargaining situation to lie about that marginal valuation, putting it too high when the pollster comes to the door and too low when the tax collector comes to the door. The bargainer in the market stall does not tell you that he would actually be willing to sell the antique picture for $10, he tells you instead that if he sells it for anything less than $50 his poor mother will go without bread.

Competition between sellers to gain customers - that is, the prospect of losing your dollars if he does not sell for the low price - is what in the end forces him to admit his true willingness to accept the low payment and brings society to the correct amount of paintings sold. Likewise, the householder overstates how much she would be willing to accept to allow her house to be demolished for a road and the taxpayer understates how much he would be willing to pay for national defense. In these cases, however, there is no competition driving the householder or taxpayer to tell the truth. On the contrary, if the householder overstates the value of her house, she gets the large amount, if the taxpayer understates the value of national defense, other taxpayers nonetheless pay and he gets a free ride on the backs of his fellows. There ought to be some system to induce people to reveal truthfully their valuation of commonly consumed goods in the way that ordinary markets induce them to reveal truthfully their valuation of private goods. - Deirdre McCloskey, The Applied Theory Of Price

There ought to be some system that does that. Sure, I can agree with that sentiment.

Your system does not do that. Your system amounts to little more than saying "hey guys we really should do that please", but has no "inducing" component to it. Your ideal system seems to go completely the opposite direction and remove the ability to bargain from everything, rather than adding it to the goods that lack it.

If you take note of the rest of the paragraph by McCloskey, she mentions competition as the chief driver of people to the truth. The correct number of paintings sold is when the price is as low as possible, not when people pay as much as possible. Her version

[Xerographica]

Here's a relevant passage that I recently read...

There ought to be some system that does that. Sure, I can agree with that sentiment.

Your system does not do that. Your system amounts to little more than saying "hey guys we really should do that please", but has no "inducing" component to it.

In a pragmatarian system what, exactly, would induce taxpayers to be dishonest? Let's keep it simple and consider this example from her book...

Geoffrey Hellman wrote for the New Yorker magazine for a long time and had incessant quarrels with its editor, Harold Ross, about how little Ross paid a man of Hellman's seniority. Ross insisted that he paid what each piece of writing was worth:

You say that you have been here eighteen years and are not treated better than a good writer a couple of years out of college would be, so far as pay for individual articles is concerned... My firm viewpoint is that we ought to pay what a piece is worth, regardless of age, race, color, creed, financial status or any other consideration. I don't know how, in an enterprise of this sort, one in my position can take into consideration anything beyond the actual value of the things.

Imagine that subscribers had the option to spend their fees on their favorite articles. What, exactly, would induce subscribers to be dishonest?

[Galloism]

There ought to be some system that does that. Sure, I can agree with that sentiment.

Your system does not do that. Your system amounts to little more than saying "hey guys we really should do that please", but has no "inducing" component to it.

In a pragmatarian system what, exactly, would induce taxpayers to be dishonest? Let's keep it simple and consider this example from her book...

Ignoring things doesn't make them go away, Xero.

Would the amount of money that you spent on combating global warming accurately reflect your valuation?

No. Of course not. What a silly question.

Why not?

Because, as a tax professional, it's most rational for me to entirely fund the IRS with every bit of tax money I pay, because that puts food on my table and money in my wallet. Meanwhile, I use the roads, environment, etc, that YOU pay for even though I don't pay for it.

You have to pay taxes anyways.

Yes, but that doesn't matter. My true valuation won't be reflected - I'm a rational actor. I will fund that which loops back the most money into my pocket, not what I truly value.

As a result, the amount of resources allocated to combating global warming would be far more efficient compared to the alternatives.

Not even by your gross definition of efficient where runaway greenhouse global warming extinguishing all life on earth is efficient.

[Xerographica]

Ignoring things doesn't make them go away, Xero.

We should use scientific study to determine what needs to be done and do it.

In order to have scientific study you first need to have scientists. How many scientists should study global warming? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many scientists? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many?

As many as it takes to understand the problem and solution to a high degree of accuracy.

You didn't ignore the question. But your answer was so useless that I decided to ignore it.

[Galloism]

Ignoring things doesn't make them go away, Xero.

We should use scientific study to determine what needs to be done and do it.

In order to have scientific study you first need to have scientists. How many scientists should study global warming? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many scientists? Are you going to use scientists to answer this question? If so, how many?

As many as it takes to understand the problem and solution to a high degree of accuracy.

You didn't ignore the question. But your answer was so useless that I decided to ignore it.

That's not what I'm talking about.

So what if we simply allowed taxpayers to choose where their taxes go?

Then the government would either become stupid inefficient or collapse entirely.

Would the amount of money that you spent on combating global warming accurately reflect your valuation?

No. Of course not. What a silly question.

Why not?

Because, as a tax professional, it's most rational for me to entirely fund the IRS with every bit of tax money I pay, because that puts food on my table and money in my wallet. Meanwhile, I use the roads, environment, etc, that YOU pay for even though I don't pay for it.

You have to pay taxes anyways.

Yes, but that doesn't matter. My true valuation won't be reflected - I'm a rational actor. I will fund that which loops back the most money into my pocket, not what I truly value.

[The Two Jerseys]

Still waiting for an explanation of why paying $10 for a pack of smokes makes it efficient for every farmer to plow up the cornfields and plant tobacco instead...

[Uiiop]

Just for the record "I'm That libertarian" won.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/31/im-th ... al-candida

[Xerographica]

Jason Kuznicki from the Cato institute recently published a defense of democracy. In the comment section I attacked his defense. He replied and then I replied. Here's the last paragraph in my reply...

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Invisible Hand, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the Invisible Hand which determines the order (relative importance) of clothes, computers and cars, or the Visible Hand which has determined the order (relative importance) of the drug war, the terror war and the poverty war, or the Democratic Hand which has determined the order (relative importance) of Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: but as for me… I will serve the Invisible Hand. I will serve and protect and fight for people’s freedom to use their own money to signal the importance of things.

After posting my reply I searched Google for "naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock" and found this paper by Manuel Couret Branco "Economics Against Democracy" (PDF). Found some bits worth sharing...

Well, if the markets have taken control of the real power to decide, they are not accountable before the citizens, at the most they are indirectly accountable before corporations’ shareholders. Indeed, according to the logic of corporate governance, decisions are not taken by all those affected by their decisions, but by those who own the capital. Therefore, in best, democratic control becomes dependent on each shareholder’s financial weight; in the worst, citizens will be governed by an unaccountable entity. In any of these hypotheses one is facing a flagrant erosion of the democratic idea which has instituted the requirement of giving accounts of decisions that affect third parties and has granted each adult citizen one vote regardless of his condition.

The loss of power by the State, in itself, shouldn’t be forcibly considered antidemocratic.
If this loss had corresponded to a transfer of power from the State, usually taken as the bad guy in human rights discourse, to individuals, in other words if it had corresponded to the empowerment of citizens, democracy would not have suffered in the least. But, that is not what happened. In reality, one has been witnessing a transfer of power from an accountable entity, since those who exert power within the democratic State are both elected and known, to an unaccountable entity, the market, which, by definition, is anonymous. This unaccountability of the market constitutes a serious menace to democracy on the grounds that concentration of power in unaccountable institutions has usually given rise to the abuse of power, as David Korten (1996: 190) stresses.

On this matter, the example of the concentration of power in the hands of an unaccountable totalitarian State in the old eastern European popular democracies should alert all those in favour of a new concentration of power in the hands of another unaccountable entity such as the market. Not only the concentration of power in the hands of an unaccountable entity in those years of scientific socialism was undemocratic, but it also produced an unsustainable economic inefficiency. In this process, according to David Korten, capitalism would be revealing its proverbial self-destructive tendency, not so much for the reasons pointed out by the Marxian critique, but ironically, for the same reasons that led scientific socialism to collapse (Korten, 1996: 190).

An entirely democratic society must, therefore, be based upon a certain amount of social solidarity, of concern regarding the other; in democracy one must vote for what one believes to be correct more or less independently from the consequences of our choice for our personal well-being. There is, indeed, an ethical dimension of democracy that can certainly accommodate to personal interest but cannot rest exclusively on it. Furthermore, if exclusively individualistic, democracy not only risks losing its raison d’être, but also compromises its existence since there are probably more efficient ways to satisfy personal interest than political involvement. On this subject, Bernard Perret sustains that, through the supply of a growing diversity of goods and services, the global market allows the democratic individual to satisfy his desire for freedom in a safer and straighter manner, without actively involving himself in the democratic process (Perret, 1999: 14). Nevertheless, this extraordinary profusion of goods tasting like liberty and perfumed with just the right amount of escapist exoticism, can distract citizens from what is essential, which is to remain master of one’s fate, as Alexis de Tocqueville had already warned in the nineteenth century (Tocqueville, 1986).

Once again, one of the conditions demanded by a democratic regime is the right of the people to participate in the process of making a decision that will affect them. Such participation is obtained mainly through free and competitive elections involving every citizen of age. The only true problem here is to decide who is a citizen and who is not. This a very important question because a decision can only be democratically legitimate if it is sufficiently independent of influences and interactions originated outside the Demos (Collin, 1997; Dahl, 1997). The democratic system is, thereby, confined to the political geography of a given community.

[Xerographica]

Is this relevant?

Instead of being a £20,000 play it became a £55,000 play and the burden on raising money then falls on us. We were trying to think up some ideas, just bouncing around what would be good, and someone came up with the idea of letting people be crucified for £750. - Alexander Stewart-Clark, Manchester ‘crucifixion’ fundraiser cancelled as clergy condemn it

[Galloism]

Is this relevant?

Instead of being a £20,000 play it became a £55,000 play and the burden on raising money then falls on us. We were trying to think up some ideas, just bouncing around what would be good, and someone came up with the idea of letting people be crucified for £750. - Alexander Stewart-Clark, Manchester ‘crucifixion’ fundraiser cancelled as clergy condemn it

Only if this is a joke thread intended to be absurd and provoke laughter.

[Camicon]

Is this relevant?

Only if this is a joke thread intended to be absurd and provoke laughter.

Well then, it's a perfect fit.