It's really fine if you want to predict that pragmatarianism would cause great social upheaval. But you really have to appreciate that this prediction of yours is a double edged sword. You're essentially arguing that there's a huge disparity between the current supply of public goods and the actual demand for public goods. If you can convince me that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this disparity that you're predicting exists... then you completely take the wind from my sails.
Unlike yourself, I'm not extremely confident that this disparity does indeed exist. For all I know the guesses of congresspeople, for whatever reasons, are extremely good. If they are extremely good then there wouldn't be any great social upheaval if taxpayers could choose where their taxes go. Public education and public healthcare and defense would all receive pretty much the same amount of funding that they are currently receiving. No harm no foul. There wouldn't be millions and millions of public employees trying to learn how to do whichever public jobs were in greater demand.
Based on my research though... I really wouldn't be surprised if your prediction was correct. So let's predict that you're truly omniscient! You correctly foresee great social upheaval that would be caused by the correction of the massive disparity between public demand and supply. Are you really going to argue that this correction isn't worth it?
Fortunately, we aren't without precedent here. It's 1977 and I'm Deng Xiaoping and you're my biggest opponent. I'm arguing that we should create a market in China and you're arguing that doing so would cause great social upheaval. Well.... it turns out that we were both correct. Millions and millions and millions and millions of people migrated from their farming villages to the cities in order to work in a multitude of new factories that were started thanks to a massive inflow of foreign investment. As a result, millions and millions and millions and millions of people were lifted out of poverty and China quickly caught up to the US. For the extended version of this story please see... builderism.
To put it somewhat less scholarly... imagine that the government is paying somebody to kick you in the balls. If you derive benefit from this person's productivity... then, if we transitioned to a pragmatarian system, you'd allocate your taxes accordingly. If you want to predict that this guy who's kicking you in the balls would lose his job if we implemented pragmatarianism... then... you're arguing that he's doing something that nobody in their right mind would pay him to do.
Command economies misallocate resources... that's just what they do. Our government, with its hordes of lobbyists who represent diverse interests, isn't a perfect command economy but, given that taxpayers can't choose where their taxes go, it's close enough for me to strongly suspect that significant amounts of society's limited resources are being misallocated.
If your prediction is correct that pragmatarianism would cause a massive correction to the allocation of society's limited resources... then for sure it's terrible that so many people would lose their jobs... and I should hope that taxpayers would help support the smoothest possible reallocation... but you're going to have to come up with a pretty good argument to convince me that we're better off allowing massive amounts of society's limited resources to be majorly misallocated.
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.