But when I work I get paid, so that I (and the people I share my income with) get most of the benefits from my work.
I sort of got lost at this point. Isn’t the point of work that I get more in money than I pay in effort, and others get more in value than they pay in money?
So the benefits are split between the workers and the buyers. If they’re not, no one will buy and I’ll be out of a job.
There’s no symetric incentive for me to provide at least the value I’m getting to taxpayers when they give me money.
I might incidentally provide that value because humans are pro-social, but it doesn’t feel like I can say “the amount of value I’ll provide with my unincentivized effort is so close to the value I’ll provide with my incentivized effort that it’s dwarfed by externalities” just on intuiton.
I sort of got lost at this point. Isn’t the point of work that I get more in money than I pay in effort, and others get more in value than they pay in money?
So the benefits are split between the workers and the buyers. If they’re not, no one will buy and I’ll be out of a job.
There’s no symetric incentive for me to provide at least the value I’m getting to taxpayers when they give me money.
I might incidentally provide that value because humans are pro-social, but it doesn’t feel like I can say “the amount of value I’ll provide with my unincentivized effort is so close to the value I’ll provide with my incentivized effort that it’s dwarfed by externalities” just on intuiton.