The Logical Absurdity of Libertarianism: Partial Omniscience

[Xerographica]

I honestly just see the problem of organisations and etc that are essential, or of importance, being underfunded and/or shut down because the masses don't "value" it as much as something else, or even know it exists. How is Average Joe going to figure out what he wants to give to? Will he have to pore through lists and lists of entries that have little short biographies and a star rating for how essential they are?

How did you figure out that you wanted to give your time to this forum...to this thread...to me?  How will you figure out exactly how much of your time you'll give to this forum...to this thread...to me?  

Before you joined this forum...I had no idea that you even existed.  Now I know that you exist and that you value this one particular use of your limited resource (your time).  You are a puzzle...and now I have one piece of your puzzle.  How many pieces are there?  Who has the rest of the pieces?  Every single person you give your time/money to has a different piece of your puzzle.  

When you go to the bakery...you give the owner of the bakery one piece of your puzzle.  This piece reveals that your circumstances are improved by his particular use of society's limited resources.  Same thing when you go bowling or have your car repaired.  Society's resources are directed by your circumstances.  

What if, say, the Forestry Commission in the UK didn't get enough funding to operate properly, would the UK government just go "welp, nobody cares about our forests I guess" and shut it down, ceasing all of the forestry/environmental operations that the FC performs (and if that happens, where does the budget that the FC previously had go?  Does the public have to go through another big tax-direction campaign?)

The Forestry Commission exists to improve people's circumstances.  If people have to pay taxes anyways, but they choose to give their taxes to other government organizations...then either they are missing important information about how the Forestry Commission is improving their lives...or other government organizations are improving their lives more than the Forestry Commission is.  If the Forestry Commission wants to stay in business (so to speak) it would behoove them to ensure that taxpayers know exactly how they are improving their lives.  It shouldn't be a novel concept that if people want your money that they should have to persuade you of the benefits of giving it to them.  

How about the council that governs some small area in the countryside, where only the people who live there give to the council directly? Do they just have to deal with it?

The council would still be there...if taxpayers are happy with how the council is spending their money then they could continue to give them their money.  If not, then they could directly allocate their taxes themselves.  There's nothing wrong with having personal shoppers...as long as you have the freedom to fire your personal shoppers and shop for yourself.  

You talk about people sharing information with each other to make sure that things aren't underfunded, do you seriously expect everyone in the country to be sufficiently clued-in? Or even care?

While sitting in traffic today I saw a guy standing on the freeway overpass.  He was holding a giant drawing of the bible and pointing to heaven.  Do you think he pays a lot of taxes?  Not all information is equally valuable.  People aren't equally effective at discerning which information is more valuable.  

What information does the owner of your local bakery need to successfully operate his business?  Does he benefit from the successful operation of his bakery?  Does he have an incentive to ensure he knows as much as he can about the inputs he needs in order to supply the output that you're willing to pay for?  

You say that the government officials aren't omniscient. Well, neither are we. But I would hazard a guess that the politicians know a bit more about the finances of the country than Martha & Billy-Joe.

Like I said, I know shit about your circumstances.  All I have is one tiny piece of your huge puzzle.  If I was omniscient...then I would know what every single one of your puzzle pieces looked like.  I'd know the kind of music you listened to, I'd know exactly how much time you spent picking your nose, I'd know your favorite dreams and biggest nightmares.  But I'm not omniscient...I only know one tiny thing about your values.  

Now clearly there's one person who knows your values better than anybody else does.  This is the one person that you'd give all your money to if you absolutely had to pick a personal shopper in the private sector.  Who is this person?  Your mother?  Your girlfriend?  Your bff?  But as well as this person knows you...I highly doubt you'd give them all of your money in order for them to be your personal shopper for everything you want/need/value in the private sector.  Yet, you give all your taxes to your personal shoppers in the public sector...despite the fact that none of them comes even remotely close to knowing your circumstances/values as well as the person who knows you better than anybody else does.  

If politicians knew anything about public finance...they'd know that the optimal provision of public goods depends on the actual demand for public goods.  If you knew anything about public finance you'd know that what I'm telling you is true.  You wouldn't have to take my word for it because you already would have read Buchanan, Musgrave, Wicksell and other people who have dedicated their lives to the topic.  

How did you go from being a believer to being an atheist?  Personally, I did a ton of reading before I seriously doubted God's existence.  Right now you're a believer in our current system.  But I'm not...for the same reason that I'm no longer a Christian.  I've seriously studied public finance and now I understand that the correct quantities of public goods can only be determined by the true values of taxpayers.  And nobody knows your values better than you do.  Therefore, you should have the freedom to shop for yourself in the public sector.  

It might help to read the pragmatarianism FAQ.  Also, here's a decent overview of public finance.  I tried to share the relevant concepts both in simple terms and in economic terms.

[Plu]

Like I said; Xero doesn't see problems, only solutions that create more problems. Note how he repeated to a letter the exact same things he already said, without at any point adressing any of your points even vaguely. That's all you can continue to expect from him. Trust me; I've seen his post count from nearly 0 to where it is now and he's never said anything new between post 1 and where-ever he is now.  

[Rin]

sigh

[Xerographica]

Like I said; Xero doesn't see problems, only solutions that create more problems. Note how he repeated to a letter the exact same things he already said, without at any point adressing any of your points even vaguely. That's all you can continue to expect from him. Trust me; I've seen his post count from nearly 0 to where it is now and he's never said anything new between post 1 and where-ever he is now.  

What I'm saying isn't valuable?  Therefore...people should be forced to give me their time despite the fact that I'm not giving them any bang for their buck?  Is that what you're arguing?  Or are you arguing that people should be free to stop giving me their time?

[Rin]

Somebody check the record player, I'm hearing the same 5 seconds on repeat.

Is it your life goal to baffle as many people as possible?

[Xerographica]

Somebody check the record player, I'm hearing the same 5 seconds on repeat.

Is it your life goal to baffle as many people as possible?

Are you baffled by the concept of rational ignorance?

[Rin]

No, I'm baffled by your "pragmatism" concept. It doesn't make any sense.

[Xerographica]

No, I'm baffled by your "pragmatism" concept. It doesn't make any sense.

You're not baffled by the concept of rational ignorance...but you're baffled by pragmatarianism.  This baffles me because if the concept of rational ignorance makes sense to you...then pragmatarianism should as well.  

Does the following passage make sense to you?  

This greater complexity of political choice is compounded by an inability to gain from any investment in knowledge. In a market setting, a person can gain by storing food during the boom periods; it is a simple task to profit directly from knowledge. In a political setting, however, even if a person has acquired knowledge about the more complex question of "why," there is no way that he can profit from his knowledge because a change in policy will take place only after a majority of people have come to the same conclusion. Consequently, it is rational to be considerably more ignorant about general policy matters than about matters of market choice. - James M. Buchanan, The Theory of Public Choice: II