We don't just punt money into Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc -- we exchange it for oil which we then use productively. By definition, if we didn't want the oil more than the money (or anything else we could get for that money) we wouldn't make the deal. How does it increase the total efficiency to coerce people into spending money on X instead of Y if when they have their druthers they clearly prefer Y?
You can make the argument that we are in a sort of local maximum and that in the long run, tolerating this inefficiency is worthwhile because it would lead to the changing of the surface such that we can find an even better maximum. Could be. All I'm saying is that it's complex and monolithic technocratic solutions are doomed.
We don't just punt money into Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc -- we exchange it for oil which we then use productively. By definition, if we didn't want the oil more than the money (or anything else we could get for that money) we wouldn't make the deal. How does it increase the total efficiency to coerce people into spending money on X instead of Y if when they have their druthers they clearly prefer Y?
You can make the argument that we are in a sort of local maximum and that in the long run, tolerating this inefficiency is worthwhile because it would lead to the changing of the surface such that we can find an even better maximum. Could be. All I'm saying is that it's complex and monolithic technocratic solutions are doomed.