Do us all a favor and come up with a decent explanation for why we should trust your words (votes) rather than your actions (spending).
It's simple. The representatives don't micromanage our daily life, they only work on laws within the confines of a constitution. Have you heard about the separation of powers? They can also make only minor, gradual changes to the existing system without risking a revolution.
On the other hand, a completely free-choice taxation system would bring a lot of instability into the system. How could your economy follow drastic changes in the tax allocation, which will inevitably happen as people's moods are changing. For example, the school system would get one year 150 billion $, the next year 17 billion $, the third year 200 billion $. How could you plan ahead in such a chaos?
Another question is, how would you introduce such a system, assuming it worked? Just come up one year with it, and when people get to fill their tax forms, they will be surprised by a long form where they will need to specify where they are allocating they taxes to? Do you really expect that it will be at least a little similar to how the allocation was last year? Because otherwise the system couldn't handle the large differences. Do you expect that everyone would know by heart how much the upkeep of certain institutions costs? Do you expect every citizen to become a financial expert and know what to allocate where to stop some essential services form completely collapsing because they received only a tiny percentage compared to what they got last year?
You came up with a lot of theory without any proof how it would work in practice, so please, show us a plausible scenario with concrete examples how you thing your ideas would be implemented.
You also didn't answer my original question: to what extent would the choice extend? Completely free? So if no one allocated to the police (because they hate receiving speeding tickets) then would the whole police just disband? The more I think about your proposal, the closer it looks to anarchy.
If not completely free, then what would be the limits?
The entire point of pragmatarianism is that the supply of public goods should be determined by the demand for public goods. If the demand for public education is $150 million then that's how much public education should be supplied. If, the next year, the demand for public education dropped to $17 million then why in the world would you think it's ok to continue supplying $150 million dollars worth of public education?
In a pragmatarian system... that difference of $133 million dollars wouldn't just vanish or go back into the taxpayers pockets. If they...
I sure think it is! But I could be wrong...
This is my first article/post? here and to be honest, I have this website open in another tab and I keep refreshing it to see if I still have enough points to post. I wish I would have taken a screenshot every time my karma changed. First it was 0, then it was -1, then it was back to 0, then I think it jumped up to 5. I thought I was safe but then this morning it was down to 0. So if this post seems "linky" then it might be because I'm trying to share as much information as I can while my window of opportunity is still open.
Pragmatarianism (tax choice) is the belief that taxpayers should be able to choose where their taxes go. Tax choice is the broad concept while pragmatarianism is my own personal spin on it... but sometimes I use "tax choice" when I mean pragmatarianism. Eh, at this point I don't think it's a big deal. Really the only thing nice about the word "pragmatarianism" is that it functions as a unique ID... which is extremely helpful when it comes to searches. Don't have to worry about wading through irrelevant results.
Here are some links from my blog which should help you decide whether pragmatarianism is more or less wrong...
Pragmatarianism FAQ - a good place to start. It's pretty short.
Key concepts - a work in progress. Some of the concepts are linked to entries which have PDF files with a bunch of relevant quotes and passages. If you like any of them then please share them in this thread... Quotes Repository. I shared a few but they didn't fare so well... so I'm guessing that most people here aren't fans of economics... or they aren't fans of my economics.
Progress as a Function of Freedom - hedging bets, the impossibility of hostile aliens, the problem with "rights".
What Do Coywolves, Mr. Nobody, Plants And Fungi All Have In Common? - the universal drive to choose the most valuable option, the carrying model as an explanation for our intelligence, a bit on rationality.
Builderism - where better options come from, globalization, debunking Piketty, eliminating poverty.
My Robin Hanson trilogy...
Is Robin Hanson's Path To Efficient Voting Pragmatic Or Brilliant Or Both? - maybe we should have a civic currency?
Rescuing Robin Hanson From Unmet Demand - how many other people are in the same boat?
Futarchy vs Pragmatarianism - is it logically inconsistent to support one but not the other?
/trilogy.
AI Box Experiment vs Xero's Rule - my first brainstorm attempt to wrap my mind around the idea of an AI box.
Is A Procreation License Consistent With Libertarianism? - would a procreation license be less wrong?
Why I Love Your Freedom - my critique of the best critique of libertarianism. A bit on rationality.
So what do you think? Am I in the right place?
What else? Of course I'm an atheist! And I love sci-fi... and for sure I want to live forever. The major obstacle is that too many people fail to grasp that progress depends on difference. I do my best to try and eliminate this obstacle. Unfortunately I suck at writing and my drawings are even worse. Oh well.
Let me know if you have any questions.