Asymmetrical Information

It is not my policy to gainsay others on matters of taste.

MMM...well Jane, I can't say if he's brilliant, but you're definately right about him being handsome :-) Very nice eye candy!

I, for one, would happily part with 2% of my payroll in order to fund a "massive monthly fireworks display." How soon can we can get this through legislature?

I don't see any brilliance on display here. What Mr. Wilkinson describes is enormous government. He points out that in his hypo., there are only two departments of government, but neglects to tell us how big these departments are in terms of employees, regulations, etc. In theory, a government can have only one dept., yet be enormous, it terms of its control, reach and size. In his example, the government is huge if we look at it in terms of control. By his example, 100% of all taxpayers income is taken from them. Most of it is given back, but the mere fact that the taxpayers must rely on the good faith of their government to give it back makes it big government in terms of power.

Most of it is given back, but the mere fact that the taxpayers must rely on the good faith of their government to give it back makes it big government in terms of power.

Not necessarily. The government in the hypo isn't spending one particle of income on law enforcement or defense, so I think we can safely assume that either this is a small commune operating on mutual good-faith, or else the citizenry is heavily armed...

If you're going to hypothesize a government that would give away 98% of its revenue with no strings attached, you might as well hypothesize a government whose officials are all angels (supernatural beings free from sin, temptation, stupidity, or any other human weakness), which gets it's necessary operating funds from voluntary donations...

An economic measure of the Size of Government = (the greater of government revenues and spending) + all nongovernmental spending that has been affected by governmental policies.

Of course, this still doesn't include the full size of government - there are also noneconomic effects of regulation. E.g., a medieval king might have revenues and spending less than 10% of the economy with negligible impact on other economic activities, but still massively impact his subjects' freedom by spending his time spying on randomly-selected subjects and having them drawn and quartered every time he spots something he disapproves of, such as a married couple having oral sex in their own bedroom. Taliban-like regimes might still do the same in the 21st century. OTOH, for any modern 1st world country (that is, some mix of capitalism and socialism), I think my formula understates the total governmental impact a little but is quite good for comparing different jurisdictions.

Comments are Closed.