Libertarian Pudding Tastes Good!!

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by Xerographica, Mar 21, 2012.

  1. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    All pictures are not worth a thousand words. Take, for example, these tax choice pictures that I created using MS PowerPoint...

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    [​IMG]

    They're two versions of the same picture. Which one do you like better? Yeah yeah...I won't give up my day job! If anybody thinks they can illustrate the concept better than I did...well...they are probably right. But, I'd definitely like to see some proof! Because, after all, the proof is in the pudding. Feel free to post these images around and modify them however you like.

    For a while now I've thought about trying to illustrate this concept...but what finally motivated me to do so was this epic debate between liberals and libertarians... Does The Libertarian Movement Embody The Worst of Human Traits?

    As usual...the debate centered around the proper scope of government. Why invest so much time and energy into debating the proper scope of government? I get that liberals might want to argue over the proper scope of government...but what excuse do libertarians have? It seems pretty clear that the large majority of libertarians do not understand that if an individual or a committee can truly know the proper scope of government then socialism is a viable concept.

    Why isn't socialism a viable concept? Because it's impossible for a king...or a committee...to determine the optimal level of funding for an organization. This is because funding can only be determined by demand. And what is demand? Demand is the aggregate of priorities. For some reason people think that voting reveals their priorities. The truth of the matter is that priorities can only be revealed when people spend their own time/money.

    Therefore, in order to determine the proper scope of government (taste the pudding) we should just allow taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...aka pragmatarianism. For example, at anytime throughout the year you could visit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website and submit a payment. The EPA would then notify the IRS that you had submitted a payment.

    Consider tax choice from the perspective of Frédéric Bastiat...

    A useful function for one person might be a useless function for another person. Which is why it's useless to debate the proper scope of government.

    One thing that libertarians tend to ask is how the tax rate would be determined. Congress would still determine the tax rate but it seems reasonable to say that the tax rate would reflect the scope of government. If taxpayers only decided to fund congress, the IRS and Dept of Defense...then it wouldn't make any sense for congress to set the tax rate at 50% or 75% or 100%. So...the tax allocation decisions of millions and millions of utility maximing taxpayers would determine the scope of government...and the scope of government would determine the tax rate. The more things the government does...the greater the justification for raising taxes. The less things the government does...the greater the justification for lowering taxes.

    This is all painfully obvious to me...but, unfortunately, I fail miserably at conveying this concept to others. For example...consider this exchange that I had with a libertarian.
     
  2. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    This doesn't make sense. Economic planning is the norm in all viable economic paradigms. Capitalism is certainly reliant on it, with the invisible hand often deliberately avoided.
     
  3. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Companies change their plan with conditions, government try to force the condition to fit their plan.

    Companies often reduce spending, and terminate products that are no longer viable. Government rarely reduces spending, and rarely only terminates program spending.

    Over time, companies provide more value for the same, or less cost, or go out of business. The cost of government has little to do with it's value.
     
  4. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    But they actively avoid the market. The visible hand is just as prone to error from distributed knowledge, with the price mechanism no longer directly used for allocative purposes. That ensures his comment was nonsensical. Note I'm not defending government planning at all (especially as government planning is not needed within socialism, except with the usual need to take into account market failure in social investments)
     
  5. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    It's only nonsensical if you're unfamiliar with the opportunity cost concept...

    To familiarize yourself with this concept take a look at the following...

    If a pragmatarian system were implemented...would you guess that the scope of government would narrow or broaden? In other words...would the result be anarcho-capitalism, pragma-socialism or somewhere in between?
     
  6. parcus

    parcus New Member

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    Xerographica, it does not matter, if people had freedom to allocate taxes, they would be living under a libertarian regime already, since they could just give the taxes back to themselves (a voluntary tax system would allow people to avoid allocating resourses to the "tax collector", thus trully allowing choice). Therefore, your logic requires rules, and rules directly conflict with citzens allocating their taxes. The whole idea is just a meaningless variant of the system we live in today.
     
  7. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Opportunity costs ensure a distinction between economics and accountancy. It doesn't provide any counter to my comment. Try again:

    The visible hand is just as prone to error from distributed knowledge, with the price mechanism no longer directly used for allocative purposes. That ensures his comment was nonsensical. Note I'm not defending government planning at all (especially as government planning is not needed within socialism, except with the usual need to take into account market failure in social investments)

    I'm not interested in your petty advertising of your blog. Defend your argument with something that makes sense!
     
  8. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Companies actively avoid the market? Where do they make their money? What to their competitor do in response?

    Utter nonsense!

    Companies are incentivized in getting as much distributed knowledge as possible, if they don't they fail.

    Price is the primarily the condensation of distributed knowledge.
     
  9. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Indeed. What on earth do you think the 'visible hand' is? Its a clear replacement of the invisible hand with internal economic planning.

    That's the trouble with you fake libertarian fellows. You have no understanding of institutionalism and therefore the firm's behaviour is quite beyond you
     
  10. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    Reiver, the bottom line is that either your perspective matters...or it doesn't. For the intents and purposes of this discussion I'm defining "perspective" as all your values, desires, wants, needs, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, tastes, preferences, priorities and partial knowledge.

    Does your perspective matter? If not, then I'll just spend all your money for you. Will you be able to complain about how I spend your money? Of course not. You know why? Because you perspective doesn't matter.
     
  11. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    So a company that plans, is avoiding the market? ROTFL.

    I want to see the book of definitions you use.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The visible hand is, by definition, avoiding the market. Internal management is used instead of the price mechanism. This is basic stuff and described in-depth in the theory of the firm. See, for example, the New Institutionalism spawned by Coase. Once we appreciate that market transactions are not costless we can appreciate how the boundaries of the firm are necessarily enlarged.
     
  13. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    No, it is recognizing large corporations must coordinate administration, because the lack of coordination was creating more trouble than the market.

    You don't realize that is not instead of, but in addition to.

    Only to academics, those that actually do this for a living find it amusing.
     
  14. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    There's no debate in this: the visible hand is economic planning. Its clearly avoidance of the market.

    I "do this for a living". Not surprisingly (as it would be illogical not to), I've bothered to consider the likes of Coasian theory of the firm. Its logic is straight forward, the firm (and the hierarchical choice adopted) is about minimising transaction costs. Economic planning, despite distributed knowledge and therefore the increased probability of error, is often superior to the use of the market.
     
  15. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    Maybe you missed my question. Here it is again...

    Reiver, the bottom line is that either your perspective matters...or it doesn't. For the intents and purposes of this discussion I'm defining "perspective" as all your values, desires, wants, needs, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, tastes, preferences, priorities and partial knowledge.

    Does your perspective matter? If not, then I'll just spend all your money for you. Will you be able to complain about how I spend your money? Of course not. You know why? Because you perspective doesn't matter.

    So does your perspective matter? Is this a difficult question for you?
     
  16. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that you have made economic comment that is certainly invalid. Clearly you also cannot (at least attempt to) suggest otherwise.
     
  17. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    Why are you avoiding the question? Let me ask again. Does your perspective matter?
     
  18. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    If you want to improve your comments and achieve some validity? Certainly! So far I haven't seen a valid economic comment from you. Your attempt to reply with a reference to opportunity costs, for example, was laughable
     
  19. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    So your perspective matters! But only in terms of me improving my comments and achieving some validity? Your perspective only matters in this ridiculously limited regard? You exist solely to improve my comments? Are you sure your perspective doesn't also matter in other areas as well?
     
  20. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Your dodge really isn't imaginative or entertaining. Except for your petty attempt at advertising your blog, care to actually try to respond 'with economics'?
     
  21. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    LOL...I'm asking you if your perspective matters. How did I define "perspective"? I defined it as all your values, desires, wants, needs, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, tastes, preferences, priorities and partial knowledge.

    Economics, in case you missed it, is the study of scarcity. For some reason you believe that your perspective...your values, desires, wants, needs, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, tastes, preferences, priorities and partial knowledge...has nothing to do with with study of scarcity.

    *awkward*

    Hmmm...maybe you should read my blog and then try again.
     
  22. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Ignore your customers, they will go away.

    I know. You may actually want to work in a company to see what is going on. It would fix your ignorance of reality.

    If my transaction costs are too high, I can't compete in the market.

    When I do economic planning, it is trying to understand the market, and where to position myself to best provide value for less than cost. If I succeed, I survive.

    I would have expected you to understand "The Market" is the result of billions of transactions (inside and outside a company), not a specific customer need.
     
  23. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You're not going to impress me with reference to ECon 101 textbooks. Let's see if we can coax you towards economic comment, just for the crack:

    The socialist calculation debate has effectively been won. Rather than referring to the theoretical reproduction of neoclassical perfect competition, we can refer to the use of market socialism and how- with a more stable market supported by the defence of property rights (including the worker right to receive the value of their labour)- it actually reduces the need for economic planning

    Try and critique the comment. Don't go back to the insipid dodging!
     
  24. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You're just rambling. Institutionalism has been so vital for economic discourse because of the risk of the managerial class and the relaxing of the boundaries of the firm (e.g. 'make versus buy' and how its significantly affected by the threats posed by asymmetric information, such as the 'hold-up' phenomena). That we are referring to avoidance of the market is matter of fact!
     
  25. Xerographica

    Xerographica Member

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    Insipid dodging? My "insipid dodging" definitively proved that you don't know the first thing about economics. You can't even answer the question of whether your perspective matters. If people's perspectives do not matter then what's the point of discussing scarcity? One use of a limited resource is as good as any.
     

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