Hi Rohin, thanks for your comment. Can you clarify where you thought I was assuming that claim? I didnât intend to make any claims about what government is *supposed* to do. Rather, I claimed that (1) philanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spending, which gives us reason to want to incentivize philanthropic spending, but that (2) many people worry about the anti-democratic /â inegalitarian effects of such incentives, which we can avoid by having the incentives take the form of philanthropic *vouchers* (that empower everyone equally) rather than tax deductions (which mostly empower the wealthy).
Sorry, Iâm claiming government is supposed to spend money to achieve outcomes the public wants. (That felt self-evident to me, but maybe you disagree with it?) Given that, itâs weird to say that it is better to give the money to the public than to let the government spend it.
I think the claim âphilanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spendingâ usually works because we agree with the philanthropistâs values more so than âgovernmentâs valuesâ. But I wouldnât expect that âpublicâs valuesâ would be better than âgovernmentâs valuesâ, and I do expect that âgovernmentâs competenceâ would be better than âpublicâs competenceâ.
Ah, got it, thanks. My follow-up post describes one important reason to think this isnât âweirdâ, namely, decentralized spending is truly decided/âinfluenced by everyone, whereas government spending is effectively just decided by the winning party, who may not have any interest in representing the entire public.
I think there is some reason to expect that the publicâs values *as expressed by allocating a fixed sum of vouchers* could diverge importantly from the values they express when voting. (How many ppl wouldâve funded the war in Iraq over their kidsâ schools, had the tradeoff been made so explicit?) And public choice theory gives us reasons to expect government âvaluesâ to differ from votersâ.
I agree the âcompetenceâ objection is the big one. Of course, voters arenât directly *implementing* projects here, so the question is whether they can identify other agencies/âorganizations that are more competent (on average) than government. A lot would depend upon what sort of media infrastructure developed alongside the policy. (One can imagine celebrity or church endorsements etc. having a lot of influence on pplâs choices. Obviously it would be preferable for expert endorsements/âadvice to get more public attention, if possible...)
Hi Rohin, thanks for your comment. Can you clarify where you thought I was assuming that claim? I didnât intend to make any claims about what government is *supposed* to do. Rather, I claimed that (1) philanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spending, which gives us reason to want to incentivize philanthropic spending, but that (2) many people worry about the anti-democratic /â inegalitarian effects of such incentives, which we can avoid by having the incentives take the form of philanthropic *vouchers* (that empower everyone equally) rather than tax deductions (which mostly empower the wealthy).
Sorry, Iâm claiming government is supposed to spend money to achieve outcomes the public wants. (That felt self-evident to me, but maybe you disagree with it?) Given that, itâs weird to say that it is better to give the money to the public than to let the government spend it.
I think the claim âphilanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spendingâ usually works because we agree with the philanthropistâs values more so than âgovernmentâs valuesâ. But I wouldnât expect that âpublicâs valuesâ would be better than âgovernmentâs valuesâ, and I do expect that âgovernmentâs competenceâ would be better than âpublicâs competenceâ.
Ah, got it, thanks. My follow-up post describes one important reason to think this isnât âweirdâ, namely, decentralized spending is truly decided/âinfluenced by everyone, whereas government spending is effectively just decided by the winning party, who may not have any interest in representing the entire public.
I think there is some reason to expect that the publicâs values *as expressed by allocating a fixed sum of vouchers* could diverge importantly from the values they express when voting. (How many ppl wouldâve funded the war in Iraq over their kidsâ schools, had the tradeoff been made so explicit?) And public choice theory gives us reasons to expect government âvaluesâ to differ from votersâ.
I agree the âcompetenceâ objection is the big one. Of course, voters arenât directly *implementing* projects here, so the question is whether they can identify other agencies/âorganizations that are more competent (on average) than government. A lot would depend upon what sort of media infrastructure developed alongside the policy. (One can imagine celebrity or church endorsements etc. having a lot of influence on pplâs choices. Obviously it would be preferable for expert endorsements/âadvice to get more public attention, if possible...)