[pdonis]

As I commented in another subthread, the root problem is not that we need a better mechanism for determining what policy will best improve national welfare as voters have defined it; the root problem is the very concept of "national welfare as voters have defined it".

We do not have a single concept of "national welfare". We have a multitude of things that various people think are part of national welfare, but different people pick different sets of things, and they often conflict with each other. Many of these conflicts are fundamentally irreconcilable.

In our current system, we force people who do not agree with a certain policy goal to abide by laws aimed at achieving that goal, if there is a sufficient majority to pass such laws. That is bad. Futarchy would not change that. Imposing private law anarchy on everybody because the betting market says it would best achieve national welfare is just as bad as imposing, say, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act on everybody because a particular Congress passed it into law.

But futarchy adds another bad thing to this already bad system: now not just individual policies, but the measure of success for any policy, the definition of "national welfare", gets decided by majority vote, and that measure of national welfare gets imposed on everybody, whether they agree with it or not. So futarchy imposes more things on everybody against their will than the current system does. That makes it worse than the current system, not better.

[baddox]

In Friedman's system, it's not "everyone votes on each issue, and only the winning issues get implemented," but rather "everyone pays for each issue they personally want, and therefore gets it" (limited by their means, general marketability of issues, etc.). It's the difference between "everyone votes on which car should get made, and only the winning car gets made" and "everyone pays for whatever car they want." Most economists and people agree that the latter works better for cars, and I don't think that the production and enforcement of law is an easier task than automobile production.

> Imposing private law anarchy on everybody because the betting market says it would best achieve national welfare is just as bad as...

It sounds like you're defining literally any society as "imposing" its traits on its members. I suppose that's true in a way, but I don't see it as a very useful definition, since there's no way to simply not have society (apart from something like transhumanism).

[pdonis]

It sounds like you're defining literally any society as "imposing" its traits on its members.

In a sense I am, but I should first clarify the comment of mine that you were responding to. I wasn't saying that private law anarchy imposes things on people per se; I was saying that it imposes things on people if they are forced to adopt it because the national betting market said that would be the best way to improve national welfare. The whole point of private law anarchy is that people choose it voluntarily.

With regard to the more general point, yes, living in a society at all imposes certain restraints on people, but there are different ways that can be done. One way is for people to rationally understand the benefits of living in a society as opposed to living as Robinson Crusoe individuals, and to be willing to accept restraints that are necessary parts of getting the benefits. The other way is for society to impose the restraints regardless of whether the people being imposed on agree with the need for them. In any real society, there will be some element of the second way; but I think all of our current societies are far too quick to adopt the second way instead of letting the first way work.

[pdonis]

In Friedman's system, it's not "everyone votes on each issue, and only the winning issues get implemented"

Yes, I agree, and I didn't say anything that contradicts this. My comments were about futarchy, not about Friedman's anarcho-capitalism.

It's the difference between "everyone votes on which car should get made, and only the winning car gets made" and "everyone pays for whatever car they want." Most economists and people agree that the latter works better for cars, and I don't think that the production and enforcement of law is an easier task than automobile production.

You should direct these comments at Hanson, not at me. These are criticisms of futarchy as well as of the democracy we have now, and I agree with them. In fact I am arguing that futarchy is worse than the democracy we have now, because it requires "everyone votes on what the measure of national welfare should be adopted, and only the winning measure gets adopted" in addition to "everyone votes on what laws should get made, and only the winning law gets made".

[RobinHanson]

It sounds like you think that while you like private law and anarchy, you don't think that it would actually achieve the ends that most ordinary people want to achieve. And you think speculators will agree with you, and in a futarchy would therefore reject anarchy proposals.

[pdonis]

you think that while you like private law and anarchy, you don't think that it would actually achieve the ends that most ordinary people want to achieve

Not quite. I think that a private law/anarchy system would achieve the ends that most ordinary people want to achieve, better than any system that exists now, if people actually understood how it worked and were able to act accordingly. But that's a big "if".

And you think speculators will agree with you, and in a futarchy would therefore reject anarchy proposals.

I think this is probably true; I don't think there would be a significant number of people who would be willing to bet in favor of a private law/anarchy system. But, as above, that's not because it wouldn't actually achieve the ends people want to achieve; it's because too few people actually understand how it works.

However, I'm not sure how this is relevant to my criticisms of futarchy. I'm not criticizing it because I don't think it will lead to a private law/anarchy system; in fact I'm not criticizing it on the basis of any particular outcome I expect it to lead to. I'm criticizing it on the grounds that it requires a particular definition of "national welfare" (the one that gets the majority vote) to be imposed on everyone. I don't think "the ends that most ordinary people want to achieve" can be captured in any such definition. More precisely, as soon as you settle on one particular definition, someone will come up with a way to game it, by finding states of affairs that look good in terms of the definition, but do not actually achieve the ends that most ordinary people want to achieve (although they do achieve ends that the particular parties who are gaming the system want to achieve).

I don't think it's possible to come up with a definition that isn't vulnerable to this failure mode. The only way to avoid it is to discard the whole idea of "national welfare", which of course also means discarding the idea that there are policies, single policies that can be imposed on everyone, that will improve "national welfare", if only we can find them.

[RobinHanson]

So it seems that you think that while anarchy would better achieve a true national welfare, it would not do so for any concrete concept of national welfare that one could define and measure. True welfare somehow is intrinsically unmeasurable.

[pdonis]

it seems that you think that while anarchy would better achieve a true national welfare

No; I don't think there's any such thing as "true national welfare".

True welfare somehow is intrinsically unmeasurable.

No, that's not what I said. "Welfare" is a much broader term than "national welfare". I only said "national welfare" was unmeasurable, not "welfare".