Sorry, I’m 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, it’s 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 “philanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spending” usually works because we agree with the philanthropist’s values more so than “government’s values”. But I wouldn’t expect that “public’s values” would be better than “government’s values”, and I do expect that “government’s competence” would be better than “public’s competence”.
Ah, got it, thanks. My follow-up post describes one important reason to think this isn’t “weird”, namely, decentralized spending is truly decided/influenced 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 public’s values *as expressed by allocating a fixed sum of vouchers* could diverge importantly from the values they express when voting. (How many ppl would’ve funded the war in Iraq over their kids’ schools, had the tradeoff been made so explicit?) And public choice theory gives us reasons to expect government “values” to differ from voters’.
I agree the “competence” objection is the big one. Of course, voters aren’t directly *implementing* projects here, so the question is whether they can identify other agencies/organizations 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 ppl’s choices. Obviously it would be preferable for expert endorsements/advice to get more public attention, if possible...)
Sorry, I’m 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, it’s 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 “philanthropic spending can do more good than typical government spending” usually works because we agree with the philanthropist’s values more so than “government’s values”. But I wouldn’t expect that “public’s values” would be better than “government’s values”, and I do expect that “government’s competence” would be better than “public’s competence”.
Ah, got it, thanks. My follow-up post describes one important reason to think this isn’t “weird”, namely, decentralized spending is truly decided/influenced 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 public’s values *as expressed by allocating a fixed sum of vouchers* could diverge importantly from the values they express when voting. (How many ppl would’ve funded the war in Iraq over their kids’ schools, had the tradeoff been made so explicit?) And public choice theory gives us reasons to expect government “values” to differ from voters’.
I agree the “competence” objection is the big one. Of course, voters aren’t directly *implementing* projects here, so the question is whether they can identify other agencies/organizations 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 ppl’s choices. Obviously it would be preferable for expert endorsements/advice to get more public attention, if possible...)