Comment by Eisenstein

Comment by Eisenstein a day ago

> It's far easier to be humane when operating in an efficient system than an inefficient one.

Why no reverse it though? First, look out for people, then figure out efficiency.

> If unstable market prices result in temporary, unacceptably inhumane conditions for other people, then the most efficient solution is certainly going to be to work within the market-based system to help those people

Why are you so obsessed with efficiency? What is wrong with being a little inefficient if it means that people aren't even 'temporarily' in inhumane conditions. And if they were 'unacceptable' you wouldn't accept them.

> People are freely choosing to exchange their money in return for a service.

As stated in the wikipedia entry for Congestion pricing in New York City:

"This Pigovian tax, intended to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution, was first proposed in 2007 and included in the 2019 New York State government budget by the New York State Legislature."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax

> Markets are based on the collective decisions of millions of people taking billions of factors into account to create the most efficient outcome for everyone.

So what?

Ajedi32 21 hours ago

> Why no reverse it though? First, look out for people, then figure out efficiency.

Because the empirical result of that sort of thinking every time it's been tried on a national scale is widespread poverty where nobody is able to help anyone because everyone is starving. You need to have wealth in the first place in order to give it out to the needy.

> What is wrong with being a little inefficient if it means that people aren't even 'temporarily' in inhumane conditions.

You're misinterpreting my comment. You'd obviously step in to help people before conditions become temporarily inhumane. All else being equal, the more efficient (read: less wasteful) solution is the better one.

> This Pigovian tax

Taxes and markets aren't mutually exclusive. Carbon credits, for example, are another type of market-based tax.

> > Markets are based on the collective decisions of millions of people taking billions of factors into account to create the most efficient outcome for everyone.

> So what?

So read the rest of the paragraph after that sentence.

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Eisenstein 13 hours ago

> Because the empirical result of that sort of thinking every time it's been tried on a national scale is widespread poverty where nobody is able to help anyone because everyone is starving.
You think that keeping corporations from buying local resources needed for citizens has consistently resulted in everyone starving? I'd love to see that empirical data.

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- Ajedi32 30 minutes ago
  
  No, I'm saying that "that sort of thinking", where you naively design your economic systems around "First, look out for people, then figure out efficiency." rather than "efficient systems first, then work within those systems to help people" when taken to its logical conclusion and "tried on a national scale", is communism. Communism always sounds like such a great idea to people who think they know better than markets, but it consistently results in everyone starving, or at least being in abject poverty, every time it's tried at scale.
  "keeping corporations from buying local resources" is a much weaker application of the same philosophy which will cause significant harm on a smaller scale for exactly the same reasons, but probably not enough to impoverish a whole country unless combined with too many other policies based on that same sort of thinking.
  
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