Hard disagree on this one. It is precisely because voting aggregates preferences in a different way than markets that we should keep voting. Markets weigh people’s preferences on how much they are willing and able to spend. There are several contexts where people unable or unwilling to spend should still have their preferences kept into account. Markets satisfy the wants of people (as long as they can pay) and disregard their needs. Voicing needs through politics (not necessarily confined to voting) is complementary to markets. People can understand that their neighborhood needs a public library even if they are, individually, unable or unwilling to pay directly for one. Hence taxation takes money from people who can pay but may not want to, bypassing the relevant coordination problems, and delivers the needed public good.
you could make big lump sum transfers at birth or age 18 and if you dont trust people to use them wisely you could put them in a trust fund and make them illegal to use as collateral
Sure, but my point is that you need to ensure the stability of the transfer mechanism *arbitrarily far in the future* for this to work. If you had a magical way to enforce contracts forever, this would be viable. I believe this is a general issue of libertarianism. Limiting the number of taxi licenses is an inefficient way of artificially transferring money to the incumbent taxi drivers, as it destroys utility on top of what they “unfairly” earn with respect to unregulated market prices. So you could simply bribe them by giving them a lump sum payment and then giving out unlimited licenses right? This would work for those who are taxi drivers now (assuming the lump sum cannot be clawed back) but not for the category of taxi drivers as a whole. Same for citizens now: let them sell their right to vote, so markets can take political decisions in their place. This may satisfy current citizens, at least those who take the deal (and for a large enough sum, presumably all of them would). But who guarantees that in the new political reality future citizens will have the right to either vote or to sell their voting rights? What prevents the markets from disenfranchising future citizens?
Of course some externalities are easer to estimate than others such a economic and public health harm of CO2 emissions and other form of air and water position.
Hard disagree on this one. It is precisely because voting aggregates preferences in a different way than markets that we should keep voting. Markets weigh people’s preferences on how much they are willing and able to spend. There are several contexts where people unable or unwilling to spend should still have their preferences kept into account. Markets satisfy the wants of people (as long as they can pay) and disregard their needs. Voicing needs through politics (not necessarily confined to voting) is complementary to markets. People can understand that their neighborhood needs a public library even if they are, individually, unable or unwilling to pay directly for one. Hence taxation takes money from people who can pay but may not want to, bypassing the relevant coordination problems, and delivers the needed public good.
simply transfer money to people so that the market will account for their preferences too
If you do this you need to make sure the transfers cannot be cancelled at a later moment.
you could make big lump sum transfers at birth or age 18 and if you dont trust people to use them wisely you could put them in a trust fund and make them illegal to use as collateral
Sure, but my point is that you need to ensure the stability of the transfer mechanism *arbitrarily far in the future* for this to work. If you had a magical way to enforce contracts forever, this would be viable. I believe this is a general issue of libertarianism. Limiting the number of taxi licenses is an inefficient way of artificially transferring money to the incumbent taxi drivers, as it destroys utility on top of what they “unfairly” earn with respect to unregulated market prices. So you could simply bribe them by giving them a lump sum payment and then giving out unlimited licenses right? This would work for those who are taxi drivers now (assuming the lump sum cannot be clawed back) but not for the category of taxi drivers as a whole. Same for citizens now: let them sell their right to vote, so markets can take political decisions in their place. This may satisfy current citizens, at least those who take the deal (and for a large enough sum, presumably all of them would). But who guarantees that in the new political reality future citizens will have the right to either vote or to sell their voting rights? What prevents the markets from disenfranchising future citizens?
i don't see how selling the right to vote comes into it at all. maybe im not understanding?
Of course some externalities are easer to estimate than others such a economic and public health harm of CO2 emissions and other form of air and water position.