Anyway, reading Jonathan Wolff on the cost of getting an undergraduate degree (thanks to Brian Leiter), this caught my eye:
Thomas Carlyle famously called economics "the dismal science". I saw this in action when on a panel, interviewing health economists. We decided to ask all candidates an amusing "unexpected" question at the end: "Which concept from economics should be better known by the general public?"
Any economist reading this will already know how they all answered: "opportunity cost". In judging whether it is right to spend money in a particular way, you should first think what else you could be doing with it. Could you squeeze out a little more value or enjoyment? Health economics is dominated by considerations of opportunity cost. When the government created a new fund for cancer treatments, for example, economists immediately asked what we would have to give up to pay for it.
Worrying about alternatives foregone is fair enough, but also pretty joyless. Imagine living your life under the shadow of opportunity cost. Any time you want to go to the cinema, you'd have to ask whether there is some other way of getting more out of your time and money. If there is, then you'll make a net loss, even if you'd really enjoy your evening out.It seems to me that Anscombe's views on numbers go completely against this. Her view, as I recall, is that we should do good and not bad (OK so far), and that as long as we are doing good we should not be criticized. This means that if I choose to save three orphans from a fire instead of fifteen orphans from a sinking ship then I have done nothing wrong. Wolff's economists would presumably say that the cost of my action was twelve orphan lives. This makes me sound like a murderer. (I'm assuming that the two actions were equally possible for me, and that neither was more risky than the other, and so on.)
Now, Anscombe's view is not obviously correct, but it is not irrational or obviously false either. This appears to be a case of the dismal science being dismal but not really a science in the sense to which it aspires. That is, it is not purely positive but in fact takes a debatable normative stance. But perhaps I've misunderstood, or failed to make clear the connection I see between what Wolff says and what Anscombe says.
About.com says that the opportunity cost is just what you would have done if you had not done what you did. So if I can choose to have my cake or eat it, but not both, and I eat it, then the cost is having it. This seems just like the case where I could save three or fifteen and choose to save the three. The cost is that I don't save the fifteen, so the fifteen die.
Anscombe might reject this partly because she rejects consequentialism. But there's also something funny, I think, about the idea that what I would have done instead could be a cost. Costs are real, not hypothetical. If I choose to have the cake instead of eating it, I don't lose the eating of the cake. I just don't eat it. Similarly, if I gamble $100 on a horse race and lose, then I have lost $100. But if I simply don't go to collect a $100-bill from someone who is giving them away then I lose nothing. I am worse off than I would have been otherwise but not worse off than I was. What I would or could have done is not some thing that I can lose. The idea of opportunity costs, in short, seems to me to be metaphysically confused, as well as dubious morally.
Maybe my economist friend will explain to me why I'm wrong.
I don't know if the confusion is metaphysical, but there is a practical question about the opportunity cost of calculating opportunity costs. We may not know what all of our options are. But given the paradox of choice (that too many options can confuse us and make us less happy with what we actually choose), there is going to be a limit on how much time a person can spend in opportunity cost calculations (and research) before that activity itself has an insupportable cost. At some point we just have to go for it.
ReplyDelete(I think part of the confusion in your last paragraph might be about whether the issue is whether I am better or worse off vs whether the world is better or worse off, depending upon whom and how many I save.)
Yes, I'm not distinguishing very much between the metaphysical and the practical, which perhaps I should. If I save 3 rather than 15 then the world is less well off than it would have been if I had chosen otherwise, and this is worth noting, but it isn't less well off than it was or is, as if I had killed those 15. They drowned, and would have drowned whether I could have saved them or not (unless I actually did save them). So saving 3 does not make the world worse off. I think this is the kind of point that Anscombe would want to stress.
ReplyDeleteTalk of opportunity costs seems a bit like talk of possible worlds. I have no objection to it if the practical benefits justifies it. But to talk of an opportunity foregone as if it were an actual loss seems like a very bad idea to me, and possibly a confused one. If the road not taken leads to a pot of gold then I have not lost that gold by not going that way. I think we risk losing the sense of loss and gain if we insist on calling unchosen benefits 'losses' or 'costs'.
And, of course, you are quite right about the paradox of choice.
I don't think you need to apologise for any lack of blogging. So far this year, you've written 0.538 posts every single day. And many blogs of a comparable quality can only maintain the level of quality by posting something just once every week or two. You're more than entitled to cut your Selbstbewusstsein some slack.
ReplyDelete(I'm assuming that the two actions were equally possible for me, and that neither was more risky than the other, and so on.) [...] But there's also something funny, I think, about the idea that what I would have done instead could be a cost.
There's something funny, I think, about the idea that someone could not only save fewer lives, but save fewer lives ceteris paribus, and still expect this to pass without comment. Wasn't Anscombe's objection here - in "Does Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupt Youth?" anyhow - simply that trolley cases are unrealistic enough (that parentheses like yours are unrealistic enough) for them to render ludicrous any position that philosophers attempt to bolster by their use? I thought this was one of the things where I had agreed with Anscombe, and a thing where one can agree with Anscombe is always something to treasure. But you're making it sound like I don't agree with her at all on the matter at hand.
But if I simply don't go to collect a $100-bill from someone who is giving them away then I lose nothing. I am worse off than I would have been otherwise but not worse off than I was.
That is not something the notion of opportunity costs means to deny. The language of losses and gains needn't enter into the definition of opportunity costs at all, and the fact that it does so enter is certainly regrettable if it leads people to take an unnecessarily unfavourable view of the concept.
The opportunity-cost analysis of the $100 bill case can be rephrased to say simply that if you "don't go to collect a $100 bill from someone who is giving them away", this shows that not going to collect your $100 is worth $100 to you. Similarly, your eating the cake instead of having it is worth the cake to you, etc.
In economics-speak, when I eat the cake, sell my car, or whatnot, I don't "lose the cake" or "lose the car" but liquidate the cake or the car. I may lose a physical object, but not the value of the physical object, and the value is the only thing economics is either interested in or indeed even competent to pronounce on. In fact, economics would say that, unless I'm forced to do so by external circumstances, the fact that I (say) sell something I own shows precisely that selling it is not a loss for me. If it were a loss, I wouldn't be willing to sell it! Similarly, what economics says about your not going to collect the $100 is that it very obviously isn't a loss for you, or otherwise you'd go to collect it.
Thanks, Tommi. I thought I must be missing something, and now, perhaps, I see what it is. But I don't like the idea of calling something a cost if it isn't something I lose when I pay it. Maybe I just need to think about this some more. I think I smell a rat, but the problem might lie in my nose.
ReplyDeleteAs for Anscombe, she didn't like trolley-type problems, it's true, but I think she also argues that it is not wrong to do a good deed just because you could have done a better one. We don't have to maximize the good, just do good. This is a questionable view, I agree, but I don't think it's crazy or so wrong as to need no debating.
But I don't like the idea of calling something a cost if it isn't something I lose when I pay it.
ReplyDeleteBut even in ordinary language uncontaminated by economics, cost is by no means limited to paying something and losing it in the process. Dictionaries give such usage examples as "To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe" (Paradise Lost) and "I am for you, though it cost me ten nights watchings" (Much Ado about Nothing). Long before modern economics even evolved, "cost" was thus being commonly used to refer to what would become known in modern economics as opportunity cost. Opportunity cost was already a part of the original, initial meaning of the concept.
In fact, etymologically speaking, cost evolved out of consist: what something cost was simply what acquiring or achieving it involved for the one who acquired or achieved it. This is visible in the now obsolete synonym for to cost, to stand (one) in: the "stand" is the stare which is the root of the Latin constare. "Saving those three orphans stood me in not saving fifteen others" = 'What my saving those three orphans involved was (in part) the fact of my not saving fifteen others (and make of that what you will morally or otherwise)'. Similarly with opportunity costs: my doing X instead of Y - my doing what "costs me woe" - consists in part in my not doing Y (my not avoiding woe), whether we view this as some kind of expenditure or not.
I certainly sympathise completely with your dislike of economics giving itself the license to busybody about in areas where it has no special competence or insight, such as moral philosophy. But this particular one just isn't one of the many cases where it does so.
We don't have to maximize the good, just do good. This is a questionable view, I agree, but I don't think it's crazy or so wrong as to need no debating.
It is a view worth debating, but not one I've associated specifically with Anscombe until now. I already got your Anscombe book quite some time ago, but it's still in the pile of books waiting to be read when I can give them the attention they clearly deserve. I think I'll have to withhold further comment on this until I've read it.
If I might hop in here on "maximizing the good": does Anscombe explicitly say that "we don't have to maximize the good, just do good"? (DR, you know her work better than I do.)
ReplyDeleteOne might think what counts as the "greater good" is the thing that's up for debate in various dilemmas and thought experiments that seem to pit consequentialist and deontological intuitions (as it were) against each other. Gaita points this out in his Philosophy Bites interview about torture, that those who oppose torture aren't necessarily against "the greater good" but are against a particular consequentialist understanding of this that would make torture ok (or even obligatory).
Tommi: thanks again. I might be coming around to your point of view, but I still think that 'cost' implies something bad, either something lost or a burden borne. And if I eat the second-best dessert available, thereby foregoing the very best dessert, to say that this is a cost of my choice is to take an unnecessarily dismal view of what is actually a good thing, it seems to me. I lose nothing and bear no burden. Plus, I get a (let us assume) delicious dessert.
ReplyDeleteBut having said all that, it's possible that I dislike the sound of opportunity costs more than the concept itself, properly applied. (I might be motivated partly by a suspicion that it is not always properly used.)
Matt (and Tommi): I think the relevant paper here is the very short "Who is Wronged?: Philippa Foot on Double Effect: One Point." Here are what seem to be the key paragraphs:
Similarly if there are a lot of people stranded on a rock, and one person on another, and someone goes with a boat to rescue the single one, what cause, so far, have any of the others for complaint? They are not injured unless help that was owing to them was withheld. There was the boat that could have helped them; but it was not left idle; no, it went to save that other one. What is the accusation that each of them can make? What wrong can he claim has been done him? None whatever: unless the preference signalizes some ignoble contempt.
I do not mean that 'because they are more' isn't a good reason for helping these and not that one, or these rather than those. It is a perfectly intelligible reason. But it doesn't follow from that that a man acts badly if he doesn't make it his reason. He acts badly if a human need for what is in his power to give doesn't work in him as a reason. He acts badly if he chooses to rescue rich people rather than poor ones, having ill regard for the poor ones because they are poor. But he doesn't act badly if he uses his resources to save X, or X, Y and Z, for no bad reason, and is not affected by the consideration that he could save a larger number of people. For, once more: who can say he is wronged? And if no one is wronged, how does the rescuer commit any wrong?
In this connexion, the following observation is of some importance, as the contrary may be taken for granted by some: when I do action A for reasons R, it is not necessary or even usual for me to have any special reason for doing-action-A-rather-than-action-B, which may also be possible.
And if I eat the second-best dessert available, thereby foregoing the very best dessert, to say that this is a cost of my choice is to take an unnecessarily dismal view of what is actually a good thing, it seems to me. I lose nothing and bear no burden. Plus, I get a (let us assume) delicious dessert.
ReplyDeleteTrue, true. But in economics - as I already kind of tried to point out yesterday in my first comment - everyone gets to judge for themselves whether any particular opportunity cost is high, or low, or something in between, for them. Your forsaking the best dessert is the opportunity cost here, but this particular opportunity cost just happens to be vanishingly low to you. But not everyone will take the same view of the matter as you. Whether their view is wrong is perfectly debatable, but that is a debate economics will happily leave to other fields, including moral philosophy.
But having said all that, it's possible that I dislike the sound of opportunity costs more than the concept itself, properly applied. (I might be motivated partly by a suspicion that it is not always properly used.)
I'm practically sure that is the case. And I agree myself that the concept is not always properly used. But then again, as can be seen from the last paragraph of the Wolff quote, worrying about opportunity costs and not worrying about them that much are themselves opportunity costs of each other. An economist's complaint that the concept is not getting the attention it deserves needn't necessarily be any kind of tacit demand that the concept be allowed to dominate all discussions to which it can conceivably be introduced. It might even be the case that the concept is getting roughly the quantity of attention it deserves, but that the attention is just largely misplaced.
The Anscombe quote is very thought-provoking, and was completely new to me. I will find myself thinking about it for sure.
I'm practically sure that is the case. And I agree myself that the concept is not always properly used.
ReplyDeleteMe too. The root (or a root) of my problem might be this: when you explain what opportunity costs are the concept sounds reasonable but also, because of this, not especially interesting (no offence intended!). But when I read that economists think the concept is much under-appreciated in everyday life then I think it must have some counterintuitive implications, at least in their minds. And then I start to smell a rat again.
Opportunity cost is an awesome concept. It "plays a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently." - Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I don't understand...
"When the government created a new fund for cancer treatments, for example, economists immediately asked what we would have to give up to pay for it."
Why would economists ask that question? I just don't get it.
1. Economists clearly understand the crucial part that opportunity cost plays in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently.
2. Economists obviously know that taxpayers were not forced to consider the opportunity costs of their individual taxes.
3. Yet, the economists asked if congress is certain whether a new fund for cancer treatment was the best possible use of limited resources.
Lobbyist: Cancer research is underfunded!
Congressperson: Really? Hmmm...these statistics do indicate that there is a problem. Let me consult my Magic Eight Ball real quick...*shake shake*...and the answer is...yes!...we should create a cancer fund.
Economist: Well...even though I just saw you consult your Magic Eight Ball...and even though I realize that the Magic Eight Ball has nothing to do with the invisible hand...my only comment is just to question whether the money might have been put to better use elsewhere.
The economists' question simultaneously proves and disproves that they understand the concept of opportunity cost.
Ouch, my most of me. Trying to resolve this paradox is really harmful to one's mental health.
In order to avoid this paradox entirely, economists only have one possible response to congress's resource allocation decisions. Their response should simply be that donations to government organizations should be 100% tax deductible...aka pragmatarianism.
Yes, what we might have to give up in order to pay for something seems like a policy question rather than one that calls for expertise in economics. It's not as if only economists realize that money can be spent in various ways, and that a good way to spend it might not be the best way.
ReplyDeleteDR...exactly. It's bizarre that the candidates would want the general public to better understand the "opportunity cost" concept. The general public can certainly learn the term but they can't consider opportunity costs any more than they already do.
ReplyDeleteEvery time a consumer spends their money they are forced to consider the opportunity costs of their spending...every time a donor makes a donation they are forced to consider the opportunity costs of their donations...but taxpayers are not forced to consider the opportunity costs of their taxes.
If donations to government organizations were 100% tax deductible then taxpayers would be forced to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions. Of course, they could always just allocate all of their taxes to congress...but even that decision would require consideration of the opportunity costs.
Economists fully grasp that private resources are efficiently allocated exactly because people are forced to consider the opportunity costs of their spending decisions. So why would they want the general public to do something that they already do? Why don't the economists just advocate that the same process be applied to public resources?
It's almost as if they were in cahoots with politicians...but if that were the case why would they bother mentioning the opportunity costs of creating a cancer fund?
Yes, what we might have to give up in order to pay for something seems like a policy question rather than one that calls for expertise in economics.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand this - at all. Compare: "What we might have to give up in order to live longer seems like a policy question rather than one that calls for expertise in medicine." - "What we might have to give up to contain climate change seems like a policy question rather than one that calls for expertise in meteorology." - "What we might have to give up if the oil ever runs out seems like a policy question rather than one that calls for expertise in engineering."
If the collection and dissemination of banal empirical information about the costs of policy decisions is to be classified as itself "a policy question", then economics seems to be left with little or nothing to study, as its own traditional and well-established subject matter seems to have been allocated somewhere else.
What has to be done if outcome X is to be reached is a question of economics, medicine, etc. What is a policy question, on the other hand, is what actually can be done - an entirely separate and different question.
If donations to government organizations were 100% tax deductible then taxpayers would be forced to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions. [...] Economists fully grasp that private resources are efficiently allocated exactly because people are forced to consider the opportunity costs of their spending decisions. So why would they want the general public to do something that they already do? Why don't the economists just advocate that the same process be applied to public resources?
What distinguishes government from non-government is precisely that government exists to produce a public good, i.e. a good whose enjoyment is unrelated to one's own contribution towards paying for it and cannot be made related to it without altering the nature of the good in question. There is no such thing as "the same process be[ing] applied to public resources", as this would simply be a contradiction in terms. It is the distinguishing mark of private resources that the said process can be applied to them at all - and of public resources that it cannot.
It's almost as if they were in cahoots with politicians...but if that were the case why would they bother mentioning the opportunity costs of creating a cancer fund?
Because the opportunity costs are there and can be taken into account, just not by the payers themselves where a public good is concerned. Part of the economists' wish that opportunity costs were more widely understood - which I personally find instantly understandable and not in the least untoward - may be a wish that the public's dissatisfaction with the remoteness and unaccountability of decision makers might be partly alleviated if this particular feature of opportunity costs were more widely understood.
Tommi, the "minor" detail that you're completely missing is the non-profit sector. You care about multiple causes but because you have limited funds you're forced to consider the opportunity costs of your donation decisions. Obviously you don't directly benefit from any of you charitable donations...well...other than the "warm glow" effect.
ReplyDeleteYou're forced to consider opportunity costs anytime you have to choose how to spend your own limited time and money. And we don't have to teach the concept of opportunity cost to anybody...we learn it from the get go. As a young kid I was always trying to collect rocks that I found on hikes but my ability to do so was limited by the size of my pockets. This forced me to prioritize which rocks I valued the most.
Imagine how absurd it would be if donors to the NRA and donors to PETA had to pool their donations together and elect representatives to decide how to split the money between the two organizations. The result would obviously be hyperpartisan obstructionism. We all have different values which can only be objectively determined by our opportunity cost decisions.
What's pretty amazing to me is that people somehow think that congress is uniquely qualified to allocate taxes. Liberals, conservatives and libertarians all seem to forget that congress only has that job because nearly 1000 years ago they fired the king and quickly filled the vacancy.
Even the most informed planners are a "few" puzzle pieces short of a perfect picture. The puzzle pieces that they are missing is every taxpayers' individual valuations...which adds up to 99.99% of the puzzle.
That's why planners can never say with any certainty whether their allocation decisions are the best possible use of limited public resources. The only way to be certain that our money is used efficiently is if the invisible hand determines the allocation.
Tommi, you're probably right, but let me try to explain what I was thinking. I was responding to this sentence: "When the government created a new fund for cancer treatments, for example, economists immediately asked what we would have to give up to pay for it."
ReplyDeleteI don't object to economists asking this question. But the idea that only economists, or especially economists, would or should ask this question seems odd to me. If the money to pay for cancer treatments comes out of a general health fund, for instance, then I would think people such as doctors or civil servants who work on the management of health care would be in a better position to decide what should be a priority than economists would. If the money to pay for cancer treatments comes not from a health fund but from the government's general budget then what should be prioritized seems to me to be a policy decision, not an economic one per se. Should we spend more on healthcare, or education, or defence, or infrastructure, or tax cuts, or what? These are political questions, not ones that require expertise in economics, surely (although expertise of one kind or another might help).
When you put your point your way it seems obviously true. But when I try to say what I mean it seems obviously true to me too. So I have the feeling that perhaps we are talking past each other.
Here's where I'm at after a bit more thought on the subject.
ReplyDeleteWe all intuitively understand that we can't have our cake and eat it too. Therefore, we all intuitively understand the opportunity cost concept.
What people do not intuitively understand is the value of millions and millions of consumers considering the opportunity costs of their spending decisions. Therefore, people do not intuitively understand the value of invisible hand.
If people understood the value of the invisible hand then they would understand the value of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their individual taxes among the various government organizations. Allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes would force them to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions.
The problem with this line of thinking is that economists who should understand the value of the invisible hand seem to have trouble understanding the value of allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes.
Here are a few blog entries that I've dedicated to the concept...The Opportunity Costs of Public Transportation, The Opportunity Costs of War and The Opportunity Costs of Public Goods.
Allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes would force them to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure. You can lead a taxpayer to a position of responsibility, but you can't make them take it. Surely people would tend to allocate their money to their own pet concerns (veterans giving to defence, teachers to education, environmentalists to environmental protection, etc.), with the result that nothing coherent or workable emerged. And then, if they saw that more was needed here or there, they would tend to expect others to make the needed adjustment. Markets are good things, but there isn't actually an invisible hand that makes things work out.
DR, what is the public sector if not the sum of everybody's pet concerns? Should something even be in the public sector if it's not somebody's pet concern? Why wouldn't a taxpayer division of labor produce an outcome more coherent than the current system? Don't we see a similar division of labor in the non-profit sector?
ReplyDeleteImagine if donors to PETA and donors to the NRA were forced to pool their donations and elect representatives to split the pool between the two organizations. Donors would be reluctant to contribute and the focus would be on hyperpartisan obstructionism rather than producing results.
We shouldn't be debating public healthcare. Taxpayers should be allowed to allocate as much of their taxes as they want to public healthcare. The total amount of revenue that public healthcare received would determine the percentage of the population that would qualify for coverage.
The ONLY reason we have the current system in place is because nearly 1000 years ago some Barons got together and stole control of taxes from the king. The king only had control of taxes in the first place because people believed he had "divine authority". Traditions die hard...especially if nobody questions them.
It defies everything we now know about economic theory to think that 535 congresspeople could allocate taxes more efficiently than 150 million plus taxpayers could. It also defies all the failed socialist experiments.
I think we just disagree about this.
ReplyDeleteShould something even be in the public sector if it's not somebody's pet concern?
I expect there are various unglamorous but important things.
The ONLY reason we have the current system in place is because nearly 1000 years ago some Barons got together and stole control of taxes from the king.
Well, maybe. Plus the fact that it has worked well enough to keep most people reasonably satisfied. You're proposing a radical change that might work, but might not. I'm too conservative to go for that kind of thing.
My grandmother was the queen of "unglamorous but important things"...aka "practical". One time when I was just a young kid I remember her putting a stake through a bird that had been mauled by a cat. Heck, I don't even think I could do that now.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush...but I can't help wonder how many wars would have been avoided if taxpayers had been allowed to directly allocate their taxes. That was the subject of my entry on the opportunity cost of war.
You could be right. As I say, I just don't know what would happen. We might have fewer wars and no genocide, or we might have more problems. Or both. It seems like an idealistic theory to me, with both the strengths and the weaknesses that go with idealism.
ReplyDeleteYour language went on holiday...Unglamorous but Important Things.
ReplyDeleteOk, here's my "proof". The next time you go shopping...completely disregard everything you know and value. Obviously that's not possible...but even if it were...why would you want to do that? Markets work because they do not disregard everything you know and value. Your opportunity cost decisions input everything you know and value into the impossibly complex formula that determines how our society's limited resources are used.
ReplyDeleteCommand economies...and representative economies...do not work because they DO disregard everything you know and value. Well...they don't completely disregard everything you know/value...but your vote does not convey even the tiniest fraction of information that is conveyed by the sum of your daily spending decisions.
So if it wouldn't make sense for everything you know/value to be disregarded in the private sector...then why would it make sense for everything you know/value to be disregarded in the public sector?
I think I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree that our economy does not work. Of course it has its faults, but I'm not convinced it would work better if we did things your way. The only way to find out might be to try it.
ReplyDeleteWell...I'm not saying our "economy" does not work...this is because we have a mixed economy. We have a market economy in the private sector and we have a command economy in the public sector. The market economy "works" because, unlike the command economy, it integrates everything you know/value.
ReplyDeleteHow much do you know/value? Would it fill one article? Would it fill one book? Would it fill a library's worth of books?
In a market economy...everything you know/value influences your spending (opportunity cost) decisions and your spending decisions influence how our society's limited resources are used. In a command economy...you're not the one making the spending decisions which is why everything you know/value does not influence how our society's limited resources are used.
Currently around half of our nation's revenue is spent in the public sector. This means that half of our nation's revenue is not distributed according to everything we know/value while the other half is.
Here you are saying that you're not convinced that you should "purchase" my "product". But you having the freedom to choose which products you purchase is exactly what I'm trying to sell to you. I'm trying to sell it to you because this is the key to abundance.
When you go shopping you have the freedom to reward the people who supply more for less. Do you want two artichokes for the price of one? Do you want to save two starving African children for the price of saving one? Do you want more public healthcare for less taxes?
Which taxpayers wouldn't want to give their taxes to the government organizations that offer more public goods for less taxes? It's the universal economic rule that we all want more for less. This is because, as Henry David Thoreau said, "the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."
Yes, I understand the idea. And you're right that public sector money is not spent as wisely as it might be. The question is whether doing things your way would actually work out better in practice. Perhaps it would, but few people seem willing to risk the experiment. I think I see both sides (i.e. I understand wanting to be cautious when such huge sums are involved, but I also see the logic of your argument), but I don't know how to pick a side without seeing both ideas tried in practice.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think the implications will be if the civic crowdfunding concept catches on?
DeleteHere's my analysis...
1. Civic Crowdfunding
2. An Economic Critique of Peer Progressivism
3. Civic Crowdfunding - Encouraging Participation
Interesting, but the answer to your question is that I simply have no idea. I'm an empiricist on matters like this, I guess.
Delete