[743] in libertarians
Re: Ok, YOU Balance the Budget!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Travis Corcoran)
Thu Feb 23 23:00:16 1995
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 22:58:52 EST
From: tjic@ICD.Teradyne.COM (Travis Corcoran)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <9502240341.AA21161@adam.mit.edu> (message from Scott N Carpenter on Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:41:53 -0500)
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> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:41:53 -0500
> From: Scott N Carpenter <scottcar@MIT.EDU>
>
> Vernon,
>
> Does your program account for the beneficial effect of tax cuts on the economy,
> which affects the tax revenue for the next year? After all, the federal budget
> is something like 20% of the economy. I think Libertarians would find it even
> easier to balance the budget if you took this into account, and also the effect
> of eliminating regulation. Of course, I'm probably asking for too much.
During the year I took off from college I worked for a sociology prof
who was leading a project that tried to simulate the entire US, down
to the level of individuals smoking, going to college, having kids,
etc.
The fiercest fighting I saw on the project came from discussions over
secondary effects of government policy. No one will question you if
you say that raising taxes raises revenue, or lowering taxes lowers
revenue, but as soon as someone suggests putting a feedback loop in,
wherein decreased taxes lead to more investment, which leads to great
corporate earnings, which leads to greater revenue from corporate
taxes, everyone starts yelling about underlying assumptions, and the
original point of the excercise is hidden beneath the political and
scholastic flame-wars.
While it would be a cool thing to simulate; (1) those who are not
either libertarians or conservatives would raise a ruckus about
"hidden" assumptions; and (2) it would be a shitload of work.
On a tangent, I was inspired once by a combination two different
ideas: the SimCity game, and a short SF story by Philip K. Dick in
which rebelious space colonies launch a very subtle guerilla attack on
the economy of Earth by exporting a board game like monopoly, but with
the goal of getting rid of all one's money (the idea being to subtly
influence the children on the enemy planet).
The new idea I had was a SimCity like game wherein one plays dictator
of a small nation. However, hidden with in the programming of the
game would be libertarian assumptions, so that the more the player
tried to control the economy for greater productivity, regulate
factories for a better environment, or institute racial quotas for
domestic harmony, the more the undesired effects would occur (as we
often see in real life). Newspaper reports/status updates would be
issued regularly on the responses of citizens and companies to
government policy, or on their independent actions. Players would
gradually be led to the realization that the best environment,
economy, etc. could be achieved through laisez-faire (sp?) policies.
I'm almost tempted to spend the next n years of my life writing such a
program, then distribute it as free ware to as many US elementary
schools as possible...
- --
TJIC (Travis J.I. Corcoran) TJIC@icd.teradyne.com
Member NRA, GOAL
opinions(TJIC) != opinions(employer(TJIC))
"Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!"
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