Public Goodness Survey

[stromboli]

Now THESE guys know where their taxes should go. I'll try to convince them that the rainforest is important to them. Nope.

[ Image ]

these guys are from West Virginia. They were in my boot camp company. They both got kicked out because they couldn't count to 2 and never figured out left and right. I believe they went on to be Pentecostal preachers.

That is my contribution to this thread.

[Xerographica]

There is the problem of knowledge.  Most people do not really know the proportions of the budget.

Do you know the proportions of funding in the private sector?  Do you know what percentage of money gets spent on milk?  No.  Would you go to the store to buy milk if you already had enough milk in your fridge?  No.

If people were to choose to which department their taxes go, it would be a fascinating chaos.

If you go to Home Depot and ask a random shopper why there are there...then chances are good that they will give you a reason.  Wouldn't you be surprised if somebody told you that they had absolutely no idea why they were there?  Wouldn't you also be surprised if Home Depot sold a product that nobody purchased?  

Why would shopping in the public sector be any different?  If it's truly a good idea to allow 500 government planners to be our personal shoppers...then taxpayers will choose to give their money to congress rather than endure the chaos of shopping for themselves.  And maybe we'll decide that we want those same 500 government planners to be our personal shoppers in the private sector as well.  I just don't see that happening though.

If government planners can't accurately represent my interests in music, movies and food...then there's absolutely no economic logic for them being able to accurately represent my interest in national defense, public healthcare and environmental protection.  If we can't input our preferences via shopping then why in the world would we suspect that the output (supply) accurately matches our preferences?  LOL.

If you exclude data from an equation...then why would you think that the answer will reflect the data that has been excluded?  

If you exclude women from voting...then why do you think that the outcome will reflect their opinions?  Maybe because their husbands will accurately represent their opinions?  If you exclude women from shopping...then why do you think that the outcome will reflect their preferences?  Maybe because their husbands will accurately represent their preferences?

Sure, your significant other might be a great personal shopper...but that's because nobody knows your preferences better than they do.

[Xerographica]

Now THESE guys know where their taxes should go. I'll try to convince them that the rainforest is important to them. Nope.

[ Image ]

Do you give your money to these guys?  Tell me who you give your money to and why.  And then we'll determine whether you're the exception or the rule.

[Jmpty]

Now THESE guys know where their taxes should go. I'll try to convince them that the rainforest is important to them. Nope.

[ Image ]

Do you give your money to these guys?  Tell me who you give your money to and why.  And then we'll determine whether you're the exception or the rule.

You are totally missing the point. It's not about who I give my money to,it's about what the dipshit population of this country would deem "worthy" of their tax dollars.

[Xerographica]

One concern is that the wealthy will have too much influence.  They will spend their taxes on public goods that screw the middle class and poor.  This concern is ridiculous though because if a "public good" harms most of the public...then it really isn't a public good.  A public good is something that is largely beneficial.  And once people can shop for themselves in the public sector...then we'll clearly see the demand depth/breadth for each and every public good.  Therefore, if a public good only benefits the wealthy...this will become readily apparent...and the public good would be removed from the public sector.  The point of this survey is to determine where that "removal" threshold might be.  

The problem with your whole system is this bit here. If people decided that a "public good" was actually hurting most of the public, they'd get rid of it. This means people aren't really allowed to put their tax money wherever they want, they can only put it into programs that benefits society as a whole (not that this is a bad thing, it's just a lot more...socialist than most Americans would allow)

There isn't a single public good that every single citizen would choose to spend their taxes on.  So where's the threshold?  Does 80% of the population need to spend their taxes on a public good in order for it to be considered a public good?  

Also, what happens if no one donates money to important, but often neglected public goods? Such as healthcare, education and roads? Do we re-route funds to pay for those? or do we just start closing schools and hospitals?

Should we close a business that nobody shops at?  Or should we subsidize it?  Subsidies have to be taken from somewhere.  It doesn't make sense for resources to flow in less valuable directions.  

The reason people don't get to choose where their tax money goes is because people are dumb. We make terrible decisions. I would much rather let some guy who (supposedly) knows what he's doing sort out the taxes, rather than Jimbob from down the road.

We don't intentionally give our money to people who make terrible decisions with society's limited resources.  You don't spend your life at work just to have somebody flush your money down the toilet.  The market is a vetting process.  Whenever you give somebody your money...you vouch for how they are using society's resources.

[Damarcus]

Also, what happens if no one donates money to important, but often neglected public goods? Such as healthcare, education and roads? Do we re-route funds to pay for those? or do we just start closing schools and hospitals?

Should we close a business that nobody shops at?  Or should we subsidize it?  Subsidies have to be taken from somewhere.  It doesn't make sense for resources to flow in less valuable directions.  

The reason people don't get to choose where their tax money goes is because people are dumb. We make terrible decisions. I would much rather let some guy who (supposedly) knows what he's doing sort out the taxes, rather than Jimbob from down the road.

We don't intentionally give our money to people who make terrible decisions with society's limited resources.  You don't spend your life at work just to have somebody flush your money down the toilet.  The market is a vetting process.  Whenever you give somebody your money...you vouch for how they are using society's resources.

So you don't want to support goods that have little to no value. That makes sense. How do you define value? Is it simply profit? Is it the health and well-being of the populace? I know the idea is to let the population decide, but what happens if they choose poorly? Does the whole country just have to go down the drain?

[Xerographica]

Also, what happens if no one donates money to important, but often neglected public goods? Such as healthcare, education and roads? Do we re-route funds to pay for those? or do we just start closing schools and hospitals?

Should we close a business that nobody shops at?  Or should we subsidize it?  Subsidies have to be taken from somewhere.  It doesn't make sense for resources to flow in less valuable directions.  

The reason people don't get to choose where their tax money goes is because people are dumb. We make terrible decisions. I would much rather let some guy who (supposedly) knows what he's doing sort out the taxes, rather than Jimbob from down the road.

We don't intentionally give our money to people who make terrible decisions with society's limited resources.  You don't spend your life at work just to have somebody flush your money down the toilet.  The market is a vetting process.  Whenever you give somebody your money...you vouch for how they are using society's resources.

So you don't want to support goods that have little to no value. That makes sense. How do you define value? Is it simply profit? Is it the health and well-being of the populace?

Value is first and foremost entirely subjective.  There wouldn't be "profit" in the public sector given that all government organizations would be non-profit organizations.  But there would be revenue.  Revenue reflects the size of society's sacrifice.  And consumers only make sacrifices to organizations that provide them with value.  

I know the idea is to let the population decide, but what happens if they choose poorly? Does the whole country just have to go down the drain?

The best analogy that I can think of is an Easter Egg hunt.  The Easter Eggs represent better uses of society's limited resources.  They represent valuable inventions/innovations.  They are the source of progress.  Being able to create fire was an Easter Egg.  The wheel was an Easter Egg.  The cure for cancer is an Easter Egg.

In reality, adults hide the Easter Eggs and so they know where they are located.  But for our intents and purposes we'll imagine that it was the Easter Bunny who actually hid the eggs.  And there's no way that the Easter Bunny will reveal where the eggs are.  

Socialism is a defective approach because the kids are all tied together and directed by an adult who thinks he knows exactly where the Easter Eggs are located.  This is a centralized, top down, visible hand, homogeneous activity approach.  It's the epitome of conceit...because nobody can truly know exactly where the Easter Eggs are located.  Nobody is omniscient.

Markets are effective because the kids can run any which way.  As a result, they cover more ground and find more Easter Eggs.  It's a decentralized, bottom up, invisible hand, heterogeneous activity approach.  It requires embracing fallibilism to allow people to go a way that you believe to be wrong.  

Noah's Ark is a good, but fictitious, example of why markets work.  Noah engaged in activity x (building an ark) and other people engaged in different activities (y).  They weren't all forced to engage in the same activity...so we see heterogeneous activity rather than homogeneous activity.  In retrospect we know which activity represents the Easter Egg.  But because nobody can see the future...it's essential we hedge our bets by facilitating heterogeneous activity.  

The potato famine was an example of the dangers of homogeneous activity.  Same thing with the pyramids.  In the absence of a visible hand puppet master, people would have engaged in the creation of goods (pottery, clothing, jewelry, artwork, tools, etc) that they could have traded with other countries for food during times of famine.  Instead, they were  marionettes...all working on the creation of one thing that couldn't be traded for food during famine.  

People become marionettes when there's belief in omniscience.  There's really no difference between the pharaohs of ages past and our congress.  People like putting their lives in the hands of superior entities.  They like to sustain faith in divinity.  It provides them with false comfort.  So god isn't dead, he simply transformed into the government.  Atheists that believe in the supremacy of government planners are pseudo-atheists.  They no longer believe in creationism when it comes to biology...but they believe in it when it comes to government.  They understand evolution but they fail to understand economics.  Failing to understand economics is like failing to understand evolution.  If you can't see the mechanism for progress then you assume the existence of the divine.

[Damarcus]

You seem to be only focused on the positives of your idea and don't seem to see any negatives...

Let use that easter egg example:

say all the children go running off looking for easter eggs, and a few find them. Most of the children however, find that the eggs are out their reach. Only the biggest and strongest kids can get these eggs. Once the eggs run low, the kids start to fight over the eggs, once again, only the strongest kids come out on top.

In case my (terrible) metaphor confused you, I'm saying that in a situation like this, only those who are naturally more suited to the system will thrive in it. A sort of economic natural selection, which may be what you have in mind. The only problem is, once people (or corporations) end up on top, they want to keep it that way, and with a huge amount of resources, are able to eliminate competition. I think your system will end up giving far to much power to the already rich and powerful and will probably end up making the lower and middle class worse off.

[Xerographica]

Damarcus, ok, now we've made it to the very point of this thread.  Except, if you understood my first and second posts in this thread then you wouldn't have argued that corporations would use tax choice to eliminate competition.  

As I failed to explain in my first and second posts...in a tax choice system we'll see just how many people give their taxes to a government organization.  This information will make it impossible for there to be public goods that only benefit special interests.  For example...

"There are multitudes with an interest in peace, but they have no lobby to match those of the 'special interests' that may on occasion have an interest in war." - Mancur Olson

If there are a multitude with an interest in peace...then they are not going to give money to the DoD if it has an interest in attacking other countries.  Therefore, the shape of the demand for the DoD would be deep and narrow.  It would have depth but very little breadth.  Breadth requires multitudes.  

Imagine there's a government organization that finds a way to eliminate war.  If there are multitudes with an interest in peace...then the shape of the demand for this government organization would be deep and wide.

The more general the interest, the wider the demand shape.  The more special the interest, the narrower the demand shape.

With the current system, we have no idea what the demand shapes look like for each and every public good.  I refer to this as demand opacity.  The current system creates demand opacity which facilitates exactly the kind of problem you described.  Tax choice would eliminate demand opacity by allowing us to truly see the actual demand for each and every public good.