5 ms·

Who would allocate resources better?

• chillwaves 6y ago
  The government, controlled by the people.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • ajmadesc 6y ago
    The problem is finding a way to implement a government controlled by the people. I respect the optimism though
    • chillwaves 6y ago
      It's a lot more difficult to do with billionaires around, especially the ones appointed to cabinet level positions in government.
  • themacguffinman 6y ago
    If the government or any similar bureaucracy could actually allocate resources better, we wouldn't have so many failed planned economies and not a single successful example compared to capitalist economies.
    • jrsala 6y ago
      This is a false dichotomy. GP did not suggest a planned economy as a solution, and more generally a planned economy is not the only alternative to wanton capitalism where government rather has more control over resources.
• oblio 6y ago
  Better than not trying to reallocate them at all? Anything, really :-) Even a crappy government, which is widely known to be one of the least efficient ways to manage anything. What's the percentage of multi millionaires or billionaires that are involved in effective, life changing philanthropy for large swaths of people?
• claudeganon 6y ago
  The Chinese government is a horrible, authoritarian nightmare, but still somehow does better at managing the country's resources than the American ruling class. The pandemic, now over in China, while our nurses tape garbage bags to themselves as thousands die daily, has proven that definitively.
  • api 6y ago
    The pandemic happened to hit while we had a particularly idiotic populist demagogue in the White House, but even if we'd had someone more competent I still agree that China would have done better. Assuming you believe their numbers, China seems to be doing better than most of the world. I chalk up China's governmental competence to the number of scientists and engineers involved in their government. It may be authoritarian and a bit of a nightmare, but unlike the majority of other governments in the world you have a few decision makers in there who have some clue how the world actually works. Most other government are run by lawyers, career bureaucrats, delusional ideologues, or leaders who inherited their position either officially via some line of succession or de-facto via institutional nepotism. There are some of all those categories in China's government, but there are also apparently enough people who actually know how to do things in the real world.
    • claudeganon 6y ago
      Right, I was just responding to the question, whose posing is often used to suggest that the US is the best of all possible resource allocation worlds. I don't want to live under a regime like the CCP, but we did just run this experiment and the U.S. system of resource allocation failed miserably.
      • api 6y ago
        I don't think it's the best of all possible worlds, but it is better than some. Only a small percentage of billionaires do incredibly valuable things, but those who do are doing things that I can't imagine the US government of today ever doing. The US government would be having meetings to schedule the meeting to discuss the meeting schedule, or fighting over culture war issues.
• ajmadesc 6y ago
  Well, maybe you could have an extremely large group of people independently allocate that capital to firms who they believe could provide them with utility immediately, rather than having it inflate the cost of capital?
• 8note 6y ago
  What do you mean by better?