How to Defeat a Liberal in a Debate

You don't understand what coercion means.

 

We get two types here. First, those that are utopian and honestly believe that capitalism can be understood with a supply and demand diagram. Second, those that don't understand economic outcome at all. Pick your poison!

 

You're the only utopian here as far as I can tell. You've demonstrated a poor understanding of contract law, property rights, and ethics.

You still don't know what coercion means.

 

In what way? I've essentially referred to the imperfections in capitalism that aren't merely restricted to hidden action and information. We can't understand labour market outcome without reference to economic rents (which are generated by coercive relations)

 

There's no such thing as perfect knowledge...economics operates on the basis of partial knowledge.

Regarding the free-rider problem...as I mentioned...people would have to pay taxes anyways. So why wouldn't they address shortages of the public goods that they valued? If there wasn't a shortage of a public good that they valued...then why would they spend any of their taxes on it? Do you buy a loaf of bread if you already have a loaf of bread? Do you buy a carton of milk if you already have a carton of milk? If you're lactose intolerant should I force you to buy milk anyways because there are positive externalities associated with subsidizing American dairy farmers?

How much money should be spent on milk or bread or environmental protection? All the environmentalists would give their taxes to the EPA...would they want non-environmentalists to give their taxes to the EPA as well? Sure. Are you saying that non-environmentalists should be forced to forgo their own priorities (defense, healthcare, education, etc) in order to fund the priorities of environmentalists?

Taxation itself forces people to forgo other priorities. Fine. But that's the only step that needs to be taken. Any additional step beyond that is a fatal conceit.

 

Liberals don't use deontological arguments to defend the state so why respond to them using deontological arguments?

Do you think taxpayers should have the freedom to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to?

 

We already know that the franchise has impacted on public good provision (see, for example, the retrenchment hypothesis and the consequences of widening the vote). You're asking for individuals, motivated by self-interest but constrained by bounded rationality, to somehow achieve appropriate public good provision. That is a nonsense!

This is also nonsense. These goods are, by definition, completely alien to standard goods and the nature of the individual utility maximisation decision.

 

How would allowing taxpayers to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to accentuate market failure?

 

Are you arguing that there isn't a demand for public goods? Or are you arguing that the demand for public goods is somehow wrong?

 

The individual, unless they are altruistic, (at best) adopts a position consistent with their individual utility maximisation decision. Its that position which generates the market failure! You're assuming that somehow we can aggregate the individual's decisions such that an appropriate public good provision is achieved. That doesn't make sense

 

You don't seem to have any understanding of public goods. Go back to Coase's lighthouse example. Can that be used to show that the private sector, given individual demand, will generate public goods? Certainly! However, the whole point of the example is to show that the government's role becomes about social welfare provision (which cannot be achieved through standard invisible hand splurge)

 

It doesn't make any sense how you could come up with an appropriate public goods provision WITHOUT the aggregate of individual's utility maximizing decisions. How would the grocery store know what to stock their shelves with? How would the public sector know which public goods to produce?

Taxpayers would have to pay taxes anyways...that forces them to be altruistic. But once you force them to be altruistic it should be up to their superior grasp of local knowledge to determine whether we need more public education...or public healthcare...or national defense and so on.

 

Again, you only show that you haven’t got a clue what a public good is. You seem to think it’s the same as a private good, just provided by the public sector. It isn’t. It exhibits non-excludability and non-rivalry characteristics, making the standard individual utility maximization analysis redundant.

 

Nobody wants to slave their life away for a company just to have their earnings wasted. Taxpayers would not want their hard-earned taxes to be wasted in the public sector. What is the invisible hand? It's where million and millions of taxpayers would strive to ensure that government organizations do not waste their taxes. The most wasteful government organizations would lose funding while the most productive government organizations would gain funding.

You want social welfare? Fine. Great. Awesome. But I want you to directly spend your own taxes in the public sector because I know that you are going to disagree with plenty of other people that also want social welfare. That makes me happy. You know why? Because there's more than one way to skin a cat. May the least costly and most effective way win.

 

Again you make basic error. The invisible hand informs us how, through selfish motivations, we can assume that the price mechanism will avoid the problems generated by distributed knowledge. With public good provision we’re referring to economic planning, by definition. We’re therefore referring to the visible hand. Your whole approach is based on a completely bogus definition of public goods

 

I don't have a clue what public goods are? Yet your argument completely ignores the fact that the non-profit sector also supplies public goods. If donor's individual utility maximization works just fine in the non-profit sector...then taxpayer's individual utility maximization would work just fine in the public sector.

Individual utility maximization = everybody wants the most bang for their buck. What matters is that it's THEIR buck. They slaved away to earn THEIR money so it's a guarantee that they would strive to ensure that THEIR money is not wasted. This is an economic fact. It doesn't matter whether taxpayers spent THEIR buck in the for-profit sector or the non-profit sector or the public sector...they would not want their sacrifices to be in vain.

The bottom line, which you can never escape, is that resources cannot be efficiently allocated unless people are forced to give up something that they value...in exchange for something that they value even more. Votes do not force people to give up something that they value. Therefore, our current system guarantees that resources will be substantially misallocated. Nobody benefits from the unproductive use of scarce resources. To argue otherwise is to disregard everything we know about economics.

 

I haven’t ignored anything. I’ve even admitted that the private sector will provide public goods. The important point is that underprovision is almost always guaranteed. We’re therefore referring to the means to minimise the market failure. Your bogus attempt to integrate private and public good analysis is essentially asking for greater underprovision.

We’ve already seen, with the retrenchment hypothesis, that individual preferences (essentially impacting on the median voter) increased underprovision. There is no valid economics in your argument.

 

If I'm not arguing that we should lower the tax rate...then why in the world are you saying that I'm asking for greater underprovision of public goods? That's just ridiculous. My argument is that the provision of public goods should reflect the demand for public goods as determined by 150 million taxpayers. Your argument, on the other hand, is that the provision of public goods should reflect the demand for public goods as determined by 538 congresspeople.

You're saying that 538 congresspeople know better than 150 million taxpayers. Did you ask 538 congresspeople if you could spend your time contributing over 20,000 posts to this forum?

 

Technically you've just confused yourself (by not understanding at all the nature of public goods). The consequent argument, however, certainly will accentuate underprovision.

 

Something tells me that you didn't ask congress whether you could spend your time contributing 20,000 posts to this forum. Therefore, your actions speak louder than your words. You do not genuinely believe that congress knows better than you do. You did not make the effort to consult the oracles of Washington DC because you're the only one that can know whether something is worth your sacrifice. Which public goods are worth your sacrifice? Only you can answer that question. How can you answer that question? With your own taxes...which you sacrificed your own time to earn.

 

I'm not consuming a public good, nor am I producing one. You again make silly remark based on hiding from one simple point: your whole argument is based on not understanding public goods

 

You're not producing a public good with your 20,000 posts?

 

Of course not. Asking stupid questions isn't a public good either!

 

So the 20,000 posts that you produced are a public bad?

 

Again, you're only showing you don't understand what a public good is. It isn't a good on public display either!