[hellojesus]

You still need constraints. The law should exist to protect private property. The government should collect taxes to fund the legal system and public goods.

But I absolutely agree that the government shouldn't do much, if anything, more than that. Incentives to shape behavior should be extremely limited, because the government is the only entity that is allowed to force involuntarily transactions.

Voluntary transactions ensure that the transacting parties have a pareto optimal outcome. This is what should be maximized, even at the detriment of the longevity of society itself.

[immibis]

Why should the government do exactly the things that benefit society, benefit you, and don't benefit Debbie, but not the things that benefit society, benefit Debbie and don't benefit you? This is just disguised selfishness.

I'm not deep enough in the theory to know whether "voluntary transactions create a Pareto-optimal outcome" is a true statement. I suspect not, because of information asymmetry and so on.

Pareto-optimal is also kind of an arbitrary stopping point - you chose it because it supports your argument, not because it's actually a good one. If it was possible to make everyone 1000 times richer (in physical resources) but at the cost of making Elon Musk just another average person, that wouldn't be a Pareto move because it would decrease Elon's status, but it would still be extremely good. Why shouldn't we aim for that?

[hellojesus]

> Why should the government do exactly the things that benefit society, benefit you, and don't benefit Debbie, but not the things that benefit society, benefit Debbie and don't benefit you? This is just disguised selfishness

I want the government to provide the things that benefit Debbie and me equally, and only those things that benefit us equally.

> If it was possible to make everyone 1000 times richer (in physical resources) but at the cost of making Elon Musk just another average person, that wouldn't be a Pareto move because it would decrease Elon's status, but it would still be extremely good. Why shouldn't we aim for that?

How are you defining good? The same resources may be more equitably distributed, but ultimately the same fixed resources exist, and now poor Elon is far worse off. My point of search for pareto optimality is exactly that we should avoid this outcome because it's not better. Following it to it's logical conclusion, redistributing all wealth until it was exactly equally divided amongst the population would produce the most good outcome.

[immibis]

There's also an extremely wide variety of possible Pareto-optimal outcomes and I should have said this sooner.

Communism is Pareto-optimal (both the utopian kind and the USSR kind). Authoritarian dictatorship is Pareto-optimal. Hitler's Germany was Pareto-optimal. Democracy is Pareto-optimal. Whatever America's doing right now is Pareto-optimal. Pretty much everything that ever arises in practice is Pareto-optimal.

Imagine a society with only two people - me and you - where I am constantly stomping my boot on your face and enjoying it. This would be Pareto-optimal, because in order for you to stop having your face stomped on, you'd have to make me stop enjoying it and that wouldn't be a Pareto improvement. Would you really argue that in this situation, it's immoral for you to stop me from stomping on your face, because it's not a Pareto improvement?

> I want the government to provide the things that benefit Debbie and me equally, and only those things that benefit us equally.

So literally nothing. You want no government. Please acknowledge that. Property rights don't benefit you and Debbie equally, so you don't want those either.

> How are you defining good? The same resources may be more equitably distributed, but ultimately the same fixed resources exist

No, I'm talking about everyone having 1000 times more resources except for Elon. The total amount of resources would increase about 999.999 times or so, since everyone would have 1000 times more except for Elon who would have the same amount as everyone else (less than he does now). With regards to Pareto-optimality, this would be very much a "stop stomping your boot on my face" scenario.

[hellojesus]

> Would you really argue that in this situation, it's immoral for you to stop me from stomping on your face, because it's not a Pareto improvement?

My comments were with regards to a system that enforces private property. To that end, having one's face stomped on involuntarily would be a violation of private property.

We could consider a system whereby one person has 100% of the fixed resources while the other has 0%. It's pareto optimal and maximally inequitable. My point is that it is wrong to take from the person with 100% to redistribute it to the person with 0%. But it would be pareto optimal if a voluntary trade occurs, and I also accept trades of duress to be voluntary (e.g., the person with 0% sells their body for a meal).

> You want no government. Please acknowledge that. Property rights don't benefit you and Debbie equally, so you don't want those either.

Public goods are defined as nonrivalous and nonexcludable. I want these (national defense). Enforcement of private property does violate the nonrivalous condition, but that service is still necessary to provide a system whereby private property exists.

> The total amount of resources would increase about 999.999 times or so, since everyone would have 1000 times more except for Elon who would have the same amount as everyone else (less than he does now).

The move to redistribute Elon's wealth breaks pareto optimality. All this does is move the gini coefficient to 0, but the total resources in the system are constant.