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If there were only some way to allocate resources based on their most productive means. Imagine if you could attach a number to a resource, like energy, that a
by bko 5y ago
If there were only some way to allocate resources based on their most productive means.
Imagine if you could attach a number to a resource, like energy, that accounts for its various possible usages. If the resource becomes more available, this number will go down and if it becomes more scarce, the number would go up.
If you wanted to use the resource, you would have to pay this number. So naturally, you wouldn't pay to use the resource for something silly. Similarly, if it's important, you'd pay as much as you had to to use the resource. This would discourage people from using the resource foolishly.
The beautiful thing about this system is that you don't have to have moral judgements about what is or isn't worthy. It wouldn't be up to any one individual to say you should use resource for X and not Y. The number would be self adjusting as more or less resources become made available or more or less uses for the resources are discovered. And as the number went up, it would incentivize people to create more of that resource or create a resource to replace it.
If only such a number existed...
- bfdm 5y agoYea this doesn't really work when the resource is also necessary to live and in parallel has massive externalities not being properly accounted for. This is some praise the market reductive lunacy. Obviously energy production, pricing and consumption needs to be heavily regulated in any sensible society.
- thinkloop 5y agoIf only it were possible to adjust that number to better reflect these market failings through a shared elected body of some sort...
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago> If there were only some way to allocate resources based on their most productive means. If that were the case, we'd have optimal formulas to allocate goods throughout the economy and market economics would be completely obsolete. Whatever your position on markets, the reason they exist is because we don't know how to most efficiently allocate goods a priori. Markets and prices offer us a mechanism, however imperfect and prone to externalities, to allocate resources efficiently. You'd also probably be able to solve the Knapsack problem and the Multi-Armed Bandit problem. I'd love something like this also, but I'm not holding my breath.