So, you’re suggesting that the public should get to choose where their tax dollars go out of a list of preselected options. Who selects the options that go onto the list?
Voters? Would they want a department of books to be added to the list? It stands to reason that if the list gets longer… congress would probably receive more positive feedback (money) if it raised the tax rate.
Initially I thought that, in a pragmatarian system, the government would be the perfect embodiment of unmet demand. But now I’m not sure whether the public sector would grow larger. This is because the public sector market would be different from the private sector market.
In the private sector market there would be prices and profits but in the public sector market there wouldn’t be. But in both markets there would be consumer sovereignty. I don’t think that both types of markets can be equally effective though. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around.
Imagine that every vegetarian lied about their preferences. This would result in the destruction of value. They’d order steak that they really wouldn’t want to eat! As a result of this increase in demand, more meat would be supplied and society’s limited resources would be shifted accordingly. The supply would less accurately reflect the true demand. The lies of the vegetarians would create a distortion.
So the basic rule here is that more honesty equals more value. Getting back to my blog example… if people don’t communicate (via money) the amount of value they derive from blogs… well… clearly this will result in less blogs being supplied and less value being created for consumers. Markets work because people have the opportunity to communicate what they value… and this helps guide production. But, as we can see from blogs, music and numerous other example… it’s quite possible for people to not communicate their values.
So if the public sector market facilitates better communication of values… then it will create more value and expand accordingly.
So, you’re suggesting that the public should get to choose where their tax dollars go out of a list of preselected options. Who selects the options that go onto the list?
Voters? Would they want a department of books to be added to the list? It stands to reason that if the list gets longer… congress would probably receive more positive feedback (money) if it raised the tax rate.
Initially I thought that, in a pragmatarian system, the government would be the perfect embodiment of unmet demand. But now I’m not sure whether the public sector would grow larger. This is because the public sector market would be different from the private sector market.
In the private sector market there would be prices and profits but in the public sector market there wouldn’t be. But in both markets there would be consumer sovereignty. I don’t think that both types of markets can be equally effective though. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around.
Imagine that every vegetarian lied about their preferences. This would result in the destruction of value. They’d order steak that they really wouldn’t want to eat! As a result of this increase in demand, more meat would be supplied and society’s limited resources would be shifted accordingly. The supply would less accurately reflect the true demand. The lies of the vegetarians would create a distortion.
So the basic rule here is that more honesty equals more value. Getting back to my blog example… if people don’t communicate (via money) the amount of value they derive from blogs… well… clearly this will result in less blogs being supplied and less value being created for consumers. Markets work because people have the opportunity to communicate what they value… and this helps guide production. But, as we can see from blogs, music and numerous other example… it’s quite possible for people to not communicate their values.
So if the public sector market facilitates better communication of values… then it will create more value and expand accordingly.