Who should decide how to spend public funds?

 Respect for civic duty should not require citizens to support that which offends their conscience.

Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear another news report about law enforcement officers (who are supposed-to-be public servants) violently assaulting the citizens who they are supposed to be protecting. (Until editors decide that the story is old and they move on to the next hot topic. Then we'll likely see those reports only if we look for them, or if an incident sparks an uprising.)

We need law enforcement agencies that the people can trust. Citizens must feel free to communicate with police officers and other public officials when they see problems, and they must feel that talking to law enforcement about criminal behavior will help bring positive results. This requires high levels of trust in the police. It requires that the people trust that the law is fair.

Hardly a day passes that does not bring new reports of corruption by elected and appointed officials somewhere in the world. Corruption anywhere is a threat to civil society everywhere because if we fail to create systems of government that are honest and responsive, we will suffer further erosion of trust in the integrity and value of our civil institutions. There will be some segment of the population that is more prone to being seduced by claims of a pure, perfect ideology, an alternative system, if the established order is in decline. Any fundamentalist, reactionary ideology that is prominently opposing the establishment will appear more attractive when contrasted with an unsustainable and corrupt system [even though the competing, reactionary ideology would bring its own (less visible to adherents) systemic defects.]

In order to thrive, our society requires healthy institutions that have the people's trust. We need to be confident that governments and public officials are operating in the public interest.

Would we be better-off with an alternative political paradigm that puts public funds directly into the hands of the people? Or, should we allow citizens the option of withholding funds from that which offends their conscience? Each of us might be allowed latitude to decide where we believe our tax money is being misused. We could withdraw funds from those uses and redirect them toward support of that which we think, and most other people think, will better-benefit society. If I spend my share of public funds on things that, say, 50% of citizens feel promote the public interest, we could be pretty sure that my choices, whatever they are, will, in fact, promote the public interest at least somewhat and probably quite a bit. We can use public random surveys to know what the people at large think regarding this or that public service (to find out to what extent people think particular services produce benefit for society and the environment).

We can create a paradigm that, in its very operation, directs people's attention to the question of how public funds are being and should be used. Imagine surveys that ask where more public funds should be directed, and where we should reduce public spending. Imagine random polls that show examples of people performing actions that aim to promote public interests. Shown in pairs, one randomly-selected example might be thought by most survey respondents to show a greater benefit than another. Spending can be directed primarily to providers of services that are most highly rated in this A/B testing.

The results of the A/B test surveys can inform our actions when we decide to withhold funding from something we think is offensive or counter-productive. What we shift the funds to would need to rate more highly in these tests.

We could allow an even greater role for taxpayers, beyond withholding and shifting funds. Citizens could decide the allocation of their entire contribution to public spending, if they choose to engage in the process in greater depth. For example, if I put a large fraction (say 80%) of my tax payments toward support of programs and projects that eight-out-of-ten citizens agree promote the public interest, I might be allowed more latitude in deciding how to use the remaining amount (in this example, 20%). The requirement could be that I use the remaining amount to support programs that 20% of citizens agree promote the public interest. 

This question of what might benefit the community is a really big question, and one about which  reasonable people will disagree. Within this paradigm, the most widely-supported programs would receive the bulk of the public dollars (or distributed-ledger crypto-currency), while other programs (more controversial or experimental programs, perhaps) would have access to reduced but still significant amounts of public funding.

If this idea of dispersing public policy decisions to all people is adopted more generally, we could manage environmental impacts in ways that are in accord with what most people think is acceptable. If we take a survey and learn that most people think we would be better-off and that our children would be better-off if we were to reduce carbon emissions by, say, 40% over the next ten years and 40% more in the decade after that, then we should have a policy that would bring about that reduction (about 5.5% per year). We can assume that some people would want a greater-than-40% reduction, while others would want less-rapid reduction or no reduction. Forty percent in ten years might reflect the median or average opinion about what is acceptable. The amount endorsed by average opinion would be the amount appropriate for a democratic society.

We could issue permits for fossil carbon emissions (or for extraction of carbon) and auction the permits in a free market. The number of permits offered would correspond to what most people think is acceptable. We can apply this idea to the management of all kinds of human impact on the environment.

When the decision of how to spend public funds is put into the hands of the people at large, no person will be forced to support a program with which they have a philosophical disagreement. With a sliding-scale criterion for eligibility, there would be no hard cut-off point for access to funds. No program manager would have reason to be overly-concerned about achieving a particular qualifying score (50%, for example). Instead, all managers and providers of public services would have an abiding interest in improving their service or efficiency, regardless of their current position on a public approval ratings scale.

Within such a paradigm, we might expect to see broad support for public sponsorship of secular (non-sectarian) schools, public parks, libraries, scientific research, public health services and responsible law enforcement.

Imagine a public school system that allows students access to a budget that they can use to 'purchase' time at hands-on activities vs. lecture/discussion vs. art/music, gardening, etc. There is no reason why schools cannot create more than one environment for students to participate in that will nurture their development. We might have some students attending some lectures, engaging in some hands-on learning, some art, every day, while others participate mostly in (lower cost) lecture/discussion for three weeks straight in order to save up funds to be able to go on a spectacular field trip.

One clear advantage of secular (non-religious) schools  is that we would be less likely or not-at-all likely to find the teaching of an 'us-vs-them' mentality. We would be more likely to see expressions of the idea that we are all Earthlings. We must work together to make a healthy global community and to effectively meet the great challenges that confront us.

Biological Model for Politics and Economics

@TallPhilosopher I'm not using Twitter so much, after learning that my replies were being relegated to the 'Offensive Tweets' backwater.

Discussion at Kialo: Discretionary taxation