Roy’s argument about omniscient or semi-omniscient planners proves too much. It basically rebuts the need for or utility of any government activity at all, which I know is not Roy?s real position. For example, because it is impossible to know the precisely optimum amount of taxpayer expenditures on the court system, law enforcement, or unlimited-access streets ? spend too little and you underproduce the valuable good but spend too much and you get diminishing returns and waste of tax dollars ? government shouldn’t do any of these things.
No. That’s quite silly. Elected officials employing constitutional powers and checked by other officials and the voters grope their way to the most expedient choice, sometimes falling short in providing the service, sometimes spending too much, sometimes finding ways to deliver better service at the same price, etc.
Similarly, since it is impossible for either regulators or judges to come up with a divinely perfect point of tradeoff between individual freedom and economic growth on the one side and degradation of commonly owned resources such as air and water on the other, efforts to ensure environmental quality also would seem to be pointless. Except that they clearly aren’t. It’s better to yield a result based on the best available scientific evidence and prices, even if it turns out to be a little too restrictive or not restrictive enough. The darts land around the bullseye, not necessarily on it.
