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Who defines 'social good'? You assume an elite that can determine efficiency! This is the socialist conceit. Milton Friedman: “There are four ways in which yo

by vixen99 11y ago

Who defines 'social good'? You assume an elite that can determine efficiency! This is the socialist conceit. Milton Friedman: “There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. ”

gjm11 11y ago
Spending somebody else's money on somebody else describes a large fraction of what many employees of a business do. It looks to me as if those employees generally do a decent enough job of buying useful things at a reasonable price. How can that be, given what Milton Friedman says? Two reasons. First: there are incentives in place to encourage them to do it. If they buy useless things or spend too much money, someone may notice and they may lose their job. If they find a particularly good bargain, they may be rewarded. Second: most people are not perfectly selfish utility-maximizing homo economicus, and even when spending "somebody else's money on somebody else" they do in fact prefer to do so in a way that benefits the second somebody-else at not too much cost to the first one. Guess what? Much the same applies in government. Suppose you're a doctor in a nationally-run health system like the UK's. You examine a patient and prescribe a drug. Does the fact that you're spending "somebody else's money on somebody else" really mean that you won't prefer to prescribe a drug that actually helps the patient's problem? Does it mean you won't prefer a cheaper drug over a more expensive one that performs no better? Of course not. And if in fact you are the way Milton Friedman professes to be -- if you prescribe with blithe indifference to whether your patients live or die and to whether your national health service goes bankrupt -- then there's a real risk that someone will notice and you'll be out of a job, or pilloried in the newspapers, or something similarly undesirable.
- gjm11 11y ago
  At least one person downvoted the above. If someone who did is reading this: I would be very interested to know why. (I don't at all object to being downvoted. But if I'm thinking incompetently or writing badly or being obnoxious or something, I'd like to know what's wrong so that I can fix it. And I haven't been able to figure out what's downvote-worthy in the parent of this comment.)
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  The problem with government is that the bar to fire people is too high for it to work the way you describe. And it's that way for a reason. The system used to be that, when a party won an election, they'd fire the existing government employees, and replace them with members of their party. "To the victor go the spoils", and this was called the "spoils system". But that meant that the knowledge of how the day-to-day government functioned got lost after every election, which was non-optimal. So laws were passed to eliminate that practice, but at the price of making it hard to fire government employees. (Add in public sector unions, and it gets even harder.)
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    At least in a democracy, you can vote people out, so in theory, the general public has a say in what 'public good' billions are spent on. The problem with relying on philanthropy to fund the public good is: How do I, as a member of the public, influence what the Koch brothers consider to be 'public good'?
  - phyrne 11y ago
    Great point,never realised thats the reason,may i say it has a very negative effect when you have tolitarian type admin with no,age limit on appointments,cant admins be obliged to shift people to other sections or sack people after 12 years if results of department had a lacklustre performance ,when opposition wins? On the VC thing i think it stifles compatition and tax paying and i dont want to have any taxes diverted for somebody to go into space its not making my life any easier .id prefer all companies pay full taxes in 1)the countries where the raw materials are sourced ,2) the credit card payment,end user country ,rather than keepng money in convinient little tax places ,charity setups and all that stuff ,its getting very unrealistic feeding of other peoples hunger and poverty and thinking your doing good!
marklgr 11y ago
> Who defines 'social good'? You assume an elite that can determine efficiency! This is the socialist conceit. Er, no, democracy defines it.
- chrisco255 11y ago
  What if the democracy is roughly split 50/50 on the issues of what defines social good?
wfo 11y ago
People voting define social good, obviously. That is the conceit of any 'proponent of Democracy'. Whoever has power decides where resources are spent. You're suggesting whoever currently happens to have money should have power (how convenient). I'm suggesting the people in a country should have power, which is incidentally not a new concept no matter how much you treat it as such. If you don't let the voting populace define and work towards social good, wealthy and powerful elites define social good, or more likely, pretend the concept doesn't exist or that they don't understand it as you have.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Our shared brain architecture, and universal moral basics that come from it, are what defines both individual and social good. Whether you have a benevolent dictator or an utopian democracy, it doesn't matter - both can figure out and achieve social good perfectly well. Of couse we don't live in a perfect world, and so the elite can be counted on to be and stay benevolent. But neither you can count on voters not being stupid, or entrepreneurs not being greedy. It's not that we can't figure out what problems are to be solved. It's that we let huge amounts of bullshit take precedence.
ryandrake 11y ago
Assuming a central elite of politicians is uniquely qualified to define and fund 'social good' through legislation is just like assuming a central elite of billionaires is uniquely qualified to define and fund 'social good' through philanthropy.

by vixen99 11y ago

gjm11 11y ago

Spending somebody else's money on somebody else describes a large fraction of what many employees of a business do. It looks to me as if those employees generally do a decent enough job of buying useful things at a reasonable price. How can that be, given what Milton Friedman says? Two reasons. First: there are incentives in place to encourage them to do it. If they buy useless things or spend too much money, someone may notice and they may lose their job. If they find a particularly good bargain, they may be rewarded. Second: most people are not perfectly selfish utility-maximizing homo economicus, and even when spending "somebody else's money on somebody else" they do in fact prefer to do so in a way that benefits the second somebody-else at not too much cost to the first one. Guess what? Much the same applies in government. Suppose you're a doctor in a nationally-run health system like the UK's. You examine a patient and prescribe a drug. Does the fact that you're spending "somebody else's money on somebody else" really mean that you won't prefer to prescribe a drug that actually helps the patient's problem? Does it mean you won't prefer a cheaper drug over a more expensive one that performs no better? Of course not. And if in fact you are the way Milton Friedman professes to be -- if you prescribe with blithe indifference to whether your patients live or die and to whether your national health service goes bankrupt -- then there's a real risk that someone will notice and you'll be out of a job, or pilloried in the newspapers, or something similarly undesirable.

gjm11 11y ago
At least one person downvoted the above. If someone who did is reading this: I would be very interested to know why. (I don't at all object to being downvoted. But if I'm thinking incompetently or writing badly or being obnoxious or something, I'd like to know what's wrong so that I can fix it. And I haven't been able to figure out what's downvote-worthy in the parent of this comment.)
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
The problem with government is that the bar to fire people is too high for it to work the way you describe. And it's that way for a reason. The system used to be that, when a party won an election, they'd fire the existing government employees, and replace them with members of their party. "To the victor go the spoils", and this was called the "spoils system". But that meant that the knowledge of how the day-to-day government functioned got lost after every election, which was non-optimal. So laws were passed to eliminate that practice, but at the price of making it hard to fire government employees. (Add in public sector unions, and it gets even harder.)
- ryandrake 11y ago
  At least in a democracy, you can vote people out, so in theory, the general public has a say in what 'public good' billions are spent on. The problem with relying on philanthropy to fund the public good is: How do I, as a member of the public, influence what the Koch brothers consider to be 'public good'?
- phyrne 11y ago
  Great point,never realised thats the reason,may i say it has a very negative effect when you have tolitarian type admin with no,age limit on appointments,cant admins be obliged to shift people to other sections or sack people after 12 years if results of department had a lacklustre performance ,when opposition wins? On the VC thing i think it stifles compatition and tax paying and i dont want to have any taxes diverted for somebody to go into space its not making my life any easier .id prefer all companies pay full taxes in 1)the countries where the raw materials are sourced ,2) the credit card payment,end user country ,rather than keepng money in convinient little tax places ,charity setups and all that stuff ,its getting very unrealistic feeding of other peoples hunger and poverty and thinking your doing good!

marklgr 11y ago

> Who defines 'social good'? You assume an elite that can determine efficiency! This is the socialist conceit. Er, no, democracy defines it.

chrisco255 11y ago
What if the democracy is roughly split 50/50 on the issues of what defines social good?

wfo 11y ago

People voting define social good, obviously. That is the conceit of any 'proponent of Democracy'. Whoever has power decides where resources are spent. You're suggesting whoever currently happens to have money should have power (how convenient). I'm suggesting the people in a country should have power, which is incidentally not a new concept no matter how much you treat it as such. If you don't let the voting populace define and work towards social good, wealthy and powerful elites define social good, or more likely, pretend the concept doesn't exist or that they don't understand it as you have.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Our shared brain architecture, and universal moral basics that come from it, are what defines both individual and social good. Whether you have a benevolent dictator or an utopian democracy, it doesn't matter - both can figure out and achieve social good perfectly well. Of couse we don't live in a perfect world, and so the elite can be counted on to be and stay benevolent. But neither you can count on voters not being stupid, or entrepreneurs not being greedy. It's not that we can't figure out what problems are to be solved. It's that we let huge amounts of bullshit take precedence.

ryandrake 11y ago

Assuming a central elite of politicians is uniquely qualified to define and fund 'social good' through legislation is just like assuming a central elite of billionaires is uniquely qualified to define and fund 'social good' through philanthropy.