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Fri, 28 Jan 2011

Why I want to be your Dictator

The most interesting parts of economics are the coordination problems. They come up whenever a problem can only be solved by coordinating with other people. To a very large extent, coordination problems can be solved by the combination of private property and price signals. Unfortunately, some problems don't get solved using only those two mechanisms.

We need a dictator. A constitutional dictatorship. One in which the dictator is strictly limited in power. One whose power can be taken away by a vote of a super-majority of the people. While I don't actually want to be a dictator, I want to get the coordination problems solved. From serious problems like the over-extension of copyright law, to the War on Drugs, to defending our national borders, all the way down to why we don't have any standard sizes for Li-Ion batteries? There are AAA, AA, C, and D sized cells for carbon-manganese (remember them?), alkaline, Ni-Cad, Ni-MH, and Lithium. Why not Li-Ion or Li-FePo? It's a coordination problem; nobody wants to make their device dependent on somebody else's batteries.

So, Vote Nelson for Dictator! I promise not to do anything for you that you can do for yourself!

Further topics in this category will list the things that I promise, as your dictator, not to do.

posted at: 20:55 | path: /dictator | permanent link to this entry

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