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You want the government to decide what arts get funded? I'll take the world where I can direct my funds to the projects I like, thanks. The price mechanism str

You want the government to decide what arts get funded? I'll take the world where I can direct my funds to the projects I like, thanks. The price mechanism strictly dominates central planning in terms of welfare generation. This has been proven over and over again.

incompatible 7y ago
That's where the funding would come from, how it would be allocated is also a big question. If you want to apply the price mechanism to information, then you also accept copyright, artificial scarcity, and the enforcement mechanisms that go with it.
- creddit 7y ago
  I'm more than willing to accept that until someone comes up with a better solution. I think it extremely unlikely that a centrally planned solution will ever be superior.
anoncake 7y ago
> I'll take the world where I can direct my funds to the projects I like, thanks. Sure. And the government decides how many funds you direct to them to prevent freeloading. Basically Flattr, but mandatory. > The price mechanism strictly dominates central planning in terms of welfare generation. This has been proven over and over again. Interesting. Can you direct me to that proof? I'd love to see the math. I do know that there is empirical evidence that a dictatorship making 4 year plans does not generate much welfare if it has, at best, 1980s computing power available that is not sufficient to finish even a simplified plan within 4 years. So you really shouldn't put people in charge whose ideology revolves around creating a planned economy as opposed to something reasonable like freedom, solidarity and democracy (including public ownership of the means of production).
- creddit 7y ago
  > Sure. And the government decides how many funds you direct to them to prevent freeloading. Basically Flattr, but mandatory. Uhhh got it, so the government decides how much of my money I need to direct to arts/digital goods? I have no choice in that? You want to replace a world where I can freely allocate my capital to goods that are artificially scarce (presumably you are morally opposed to this enforcement) with one where I'm forced to allocate my capital goods to $0 marginal cost goods (you aren't opposed to this enforcement, though?). I'll take the one where I have fuller choice if in either circumstance I lose some freedom. This also doesn't address issues that would certainly arise from the cost of enforcement, the likelihood of fraud, etc. and the relative cost between that and what we have today. You should take a basic economics class if you want to fully understand how markets succeed vs centrally planned mechanisms. However, the basics would be the following: 1) Every individual is unique and has unique preferences. 2) These preferences are private and non-discoverable by external parties but are well-known, to a point, to the individual. (Proof: see the INCREDIBLY NARROW worlds of recommendation systems where even though Netflix or Amazon or Google have massive amounts of information about your historical preferences in VERY NARROW circumstances, they still fail to provide truly great recommendations) 3) Since a central planning entity cannot know every individual's preferences but every individual can (think of market economies as distributed systems), overall welfare is maximized by individuals autonomously and freely allocating their personal capital to the goods/services/etc. that they see fit. 4) As more and more individuals bid with their capital, up to the point of negative returns for them, for goods/services/etc., producers react to produce more of these, and ideally at lower costs and higher quantities to maximize their gains and demand, in order to capture more capital for them to purchase their preferences with. This is the price mechanism and it CANNOT be replicated centrally given the unknowability of a central entity to understand preferences. NO AMOUNT of today's computing power could possibly come close. Think about how much compute goes into the shitty recommendations you get from Google/NFLX/et al. and for how narrow that realm is. You want production to be based on something like that? Now, there are failures of market mechanisms. What happens when there are external social costs (ie C02 production from fossil fuels), or the tragedies of the commons, etc. that require central intervention to the best of its ability. Hence IP/Copyright where in a world where without it, creators have no reasonable means of capturing returns on their efforts, we must implement property rights. There is of course a great argument for much better refinement of IP laws, but they are not arguments against them.

incompatible 7y ago

That's where the funding would come from, how it would be allocated is also a big question. If you want to apply the price mechanism to information, then you also accept copyright, artificial scarcity, and the enforcement mechanisms that go with it.

creddit 7y ago
I'm more than willing to accept that until someone comes up with a better solution. I think it extremely unlikely that a centrally planned solution will ever be superior.

anoncake 7y ago

> I'll take the world where I can direct my funds to the projects I like, thanks. Sure. And the government decides how many funds you direct to them to prevent freeloading. Basically Flattr, but mandatory. > The price mechanism strictly dominates central planning in terms of welfare generation. This has been proven over and over again. Interesting. Can you direct me to that proof? I'd love to see the math. I do know that there is empirical evidence that a dictatorship making 4 year plans does not generate much welfare if it has, at best, 1980s computing power available that is not sufficient to finish even a simplified plan within 4 years. So you really shouldn't put people in charge whose ideology revolves around creating a planned economy as opposed to something reasonable like freedom, solidarity and democracy (including public ownership of the means of production).

creddit 7y ago
> Sure. And the government decides how many funds you direct to them to prevent freeloading. Basically Flattr, but mandatory. Uhhh got it, so the government decides how much of my money I need to direct to arts/digital goods? I have no choice in that? You want to replace a world where I can freely allocate my capital to goods that are artificially scarce (presumably you are morally opposed to this enforcement) with one where I'm forced to allocate my capital goods to $0 marginal cost goods (you aren't opposed to this enforcement, though?). I'll take the one where I have fuller choice if in either circumstance I lose some freedom. This also doesn't address issues that would certainly arise from the cost of enforcement, the likelihood of fraud, etc. and the relative cost between that and what we have today. You should take a basic economics class if you want to fully understand how markets succeed vs centrally planned mechanisms. However, the basics would be the following: 1) Every individual is unique and has unique preferences. 2) These preferences are private and non-discoverable by external parties but are well-known, to a point, to the individual. (Proof: see the INCREDIBLY NARROW worlds of recommendation systems where even though Netflix or Amazon or Google have massive amounts of information about your historical preferences in VERY NARROW circumstances, they still fail to provide truly great recommendations) 3) Since a central planning entity cannot know every individual's preferences but every individual can (think of market economies as distributed systems), overall welfare is maximized by individuals autonomously and freely allocating their personal capital to the goods/services/etc. that they see fit. 4) As more and more individuals bid with their capital, up to the point of negative returns for them, for goods/services/etc., producers react to produce more of these, and ideally at lower costs and higher quantities to maximize their gains and demand, in order to capture more capital for them to purchase their preferences with. This is the price mechanism and it CANNOT be replicated centrally given the unknowability of a central entity to understand preferences. NO AMOUNT of today's computing power could possibly come close. Think about how much compute goes into the shitty recommendations you get from Google/NFLX/et al. and for how narrow that realm is. You want production to be based on something like that? Now, there are failures of market mechanisms. What happens when there are external social costs (ie C02 production from fossil fuels), or the tragedies of the commons, etc. that require central intervention to the best of its ability. Hence IP/Copyright where in a world where without it, creators have no reasonable means of capturing returns on their efforts, we must implement property rights. There is of course a great argument for much better refinement of IP laws, but they are not arguments against them.