The market is remarkably good at allocating resources efficiently. The only problem is that the market magic doesn’t work on criteria of efficiency that aren’t dollar-weighted. I suppose it’s one of those normative vs. positive things. Since (1) it doesn’t seem possible to harness the market mechanism for solving person-weighted optimization problems and (2) I’m not ready to surrender some of my normative commitments (specifically, negative utilitarianism), it appears to me that an effort at intentional economic calculation is necessary, even though it will probably be inherently inferior to the market as an optimization algorithm.
Leave a Reply