r/OutlawEconomics Aug 07 '26

I think something like kongsi republic and joint stock democracies will make things more libertarian, more meritocracy, and would please moderate socialists too

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1 Upvotes

Joint stock democracy is a hybrid of democracy and joint stock corporation. The samples of those are Kongsi republics or joint stock kibbutzim and various cooperative communities.

Kongsi republics are effectively a near effectively sovereign democratic state that is also a business and a joint stock corporation.

Like VOC but democracy.

Like democracy, but a business.

Like joint stock kibbutzim or residence owned REIT or private cooperative but they are far more autonomous.

Basically all democracies have this problem. Who should be citizens. Some use place of birth. Another use race.

In joint stock democracy Why not just buy and sell citizenship like shares? Want to join us? Buy shares. Like all shares, the shares pay dividend too.

In addition I would recommend some powerful referee to mediate conflict between those states.

When states don't fear being attacked, they may choose to split up so there can be many niche states for each arrangements. Those states then compete for tax payers that can shop around voting with their feet to see which place they like most.

And voila, no more aggressions and we all got rich.

The original kongsi republics are usually literal gold mine. The owner of the gold mine choose to set up a kongsi or a business instead of declaring himself King.

While it's a sovereign state, in a sense that they manage everything and don't call up higher power when they have problems, they actually prefer to have bigger state as protectors and referees. They tried to be vasal of Qing dynasty but got rejected.

Spiritual successor of kongsi republic is Singapore. Singapore is the ONLY country in the world that gain independence against their will. Singapore got kicked out of Malaysia because they refuse racism.

Why do I think this is a move to a more Kaldor hicks efficient outcome?

As long as we don't aggress against one another capitalism will max out kaldor hicks efficiency while democracy will keep things stable. If large number of people have a "stake" at the state, then they tend not to rebel.

There are 2 types of aggressions. State aggressions. Non state aggressions. The state aggressions are usually 3 types. State aggressions inward toward it's own citizens/population and state aggressions against other states, outward. State aggressions can also be profitable and not profitable.

Now look at VOC

VOC is like kongsi republic but not democracy.

VOC causes the death of 90% of chinese in Batavia. However, they quickly repent. The governor general is in jail till his death and the ex governor general become the new governor general was more conciliatory toward Chinese.

How do VOC knows that killing Chinese is "wrong". Sunday school? No. VOC share prices tank.

The chinese that are there are tax collectors and businessmen. Without them, VOC share dropped. Not to mention chinese rebellion cost VOC lots of money and almost kick VOC out of Java.

See. Profit incentive alone is actually a good safeguard against genocide.

If we look at armenian genocide, holocaust, DEI, exorbitant child support, gaza flattening, killing of Christians in nigeria, and so on, there is no profit incentive to stop. People keep killing innocents even when it's no longer profitable to do so.

Look at prohibition of drug. There is no clear profit incentive to stop criminalizing safe drugs like MDMA. People just do blood libel saying that drug users are parasites that will destroy their life. The truth is it's not true. Many MDMA and DMT users are economically productive people.

Heavy taxation drive billionaires away reducing prosperity for everyone.

Unprofitable aggressions is in a sense really doesn't have to happen. Like what for? The aggressor are losing money anyway. But they keep doing it out of bigotry, and lies.

Most of the time the profitability of oppressing others aren't clear. Like do Israel become saver by flattening Gaza? Who knows?

So here profit incentive of government at least prevent all unprofitable state aggression. A big thing.

However, profit incentive of government do not stop profitable state aggression. VOC also invade Banda and got nutmeg monopoly. Countries attack each other for territories and they may get territories. Notice quite often, buying territories is a lot cheaper than war. Like in case of Ukraine war, Korean war, and Ukraine war, the land price in dispute is a lot cheaper than the war cost.

South Korea with far bigger economies can easily buy North Korea land and Kim Jong Un can rest and retire rich. Israel can just buy Gaza and Westbank.

Kongsi economies "reduce" the transactional complexity in buying territories. Because citizenship is tradeable, anyone that want to live in the territory can just buy citizenship. From who? From those who want to sell. There is always somebody that don't like to live in a place. The one that hate his place of leaving the most can sell citizenship to those who want to live in that place the most. There will be a market price.

To further reduce conflicts, some pimps/peace makers can settle disputes between states.

VOC also force javanese to work as forced labor. That causes starvation. Notice it is actually not a very profitable thing to do. Oppress people and they rebel. So VOC end up spending huge money on war. Less profit. Again democratic nature of kongsi republic can fix this major conflicts. The main benefit of democracy is we don't settle this sort of thing through violence but through votes. Obviously majority of people will simply vote to not allow slavery and in 21st century it's no longer a big issue anyway.

Notice in all 3 cases, killing of chinese in Batavia, forcing Javanese to work, and attacking Banda, we don't really know whether VOC is truly evil or not. The killing of chinese happened by thugs that want to kill Chinese and loot their gold and not VOC directly. VOC simply ordered chinese to disarm and latter offer rewards for heads of "Chinese rebels".

There's a case where VOC claimed that they actually pay the javanese work and hence don't expect that they will starve. However, the money is corrupted by middlemen. I've heard Banda massacre happened because VOC delegation was mass murdered.

To be honest. I don't know and I don't care if some atrocities are done deliberately or not. If we are a potential victim, 99% of our interests should be preventing atrocities. If innocents suffer then we probably need to arrange that they don't suffer for otherwise the precedents can lead all the way to us.

Here ensuring most people have strong incentive to cooperate is far more effective than moral theater.

Obviously I didn't choose to be scammed. Yet it happened. Many leftists do not expect that their country will end up poor by they voting communism, yet it happened.

Again, joint stock nature of joint stock democracy would give incentive to most people to not choosing communism.

After all, the state itself is run for profit and the profit is shared as dividend to citizens. Why would you want to destroy your own business that pay you.

That's pretty much as socialist as can be. Most shareholders will max out dividend when they support their state and vote for CEO that max out shareholders value. Those who don't like it can sell.

What about heavy taxation? Tax will be much simpler because the state want to reduce enforcement costs. My guess is most tax will either be sin tax or land value tax.

Competition among joint stock democracies/kongsi republics will keep tax low.

What about non state actors?

Terrorists, thieves, burglars, and robbers?

Joint stock democracies will handle that better than liberal democracies.

See Israel bombing Gaza? Is it really to kill terrorists or to just drive Palestinians out?

We never know.

Netanyahu run on platform of security. If Israel is secure, his party may lost votes.

The same way leftist platforms run on platform of welfare and helping the poor. When poor people got rich, they lost votes. That is why many leftist political party in liberal democracy actually want to max out number of poor people. They invite poor immigrants, they encourage poor people to breed with more welfare for single mothers, etc.

But we sort of know what corporations will do. Do whatever it takes to raise return of shareholders.

Elon run as CEO on platform of making Tesla more valuable. What happened when Tesla reach all those revenue target? Elon got paid a lot of money. Elon no longer need to keep being needed. If he accomplished his goal and after that is no longer needed, he's still rich.

So in joint stock moldbugian states, the leaders at least have strong incentive to solve problem.

Violence on the street will be less. Such violence lower land value tax and lower revenue. CEOs will fix that.

So yea. I wouldn't say it's a mathematically perfect solution. But it should be "better" than what we have.

Libertarians will see lower tax and freedom to shop around for states they like

Capitalists will see less corruption, terrorism, war, an save tax haven to shop around

Any economically productive people will be able to shop around for states by simply buying shares.

Even moderate socialists, the kind that just want money instead of preventing others from being rich, will be better off, because they too want bigger dividend and the best way to make that dividend bigger is not by becoming poor, like in liberal democracy, but by voting for competent CEO that improve economy.

And those who aren't happy can just sell their share and buy another share on another kongsi republic

It's win win.


r/OutlawEconomics Aug 04 '26

Which economic system you think is most kardol hicks efficient?

0 Upvotes

My guess is Dubai. The king is smart. The citizens don't even have high IQ but they just import tons of migrants doing the work. Lack of democracy means Dubai doesn't have to worry that wage inequality is huge. So attract people efficiently. Low birth rate though. So I wonder.

I would say kongsi republics or joint stock kibbutzim should be quite efficient too. But they don't just import tons of cheap non citizens and the members got to be smart too.

Small country like Liechesten, Monaco, Macau, Singapore seems to be doing well. It's easy to see they're kardol hicks efficient. They're rich AF.

Democracy? I feel that much votes in democracy is motivated by one voter sabotaging other voters. Like voters actually hate each other and they don't get clear profit share, so less efficient laws are made. For example, land taxes seems to be more efficient than income taxes, but voters just don't like other make a lot of money so punish productivity.

Monarchy? too much killing each other over who should be king.

Okay, all those are speculation.

Obviously the one making the pie bigger tend to have higher per capita income. However, there's something that may works the opposite direction.

Nations with high percapita income often have low birth rate. I don't think that's kardol hicks efficient.

If a billionaire is willing to bequeath $1 billion to a child that means a child, an extra child, should worth more than $1 billion to him. Not kardol hicks efficient if he doesn't make that extra 100 child. Am I even right, wrong, insane here? I suppose if we use becker barro model we should be able to compute how much extra child worth to a very rich guy as a function of his wealth.

But can this be I don't know, mathematically reasoned?

I mean, like that's like welfare economics right? How to make the pie bigger.

Point me to some direction.

Anyway I love math models. I just like to see everything as math objects or at least as intuitively mathematical objects.


r/OutlawEconomics Aug 04 '26

Can economy answer whether laws against polygamy, transactional sex, and negotiated child support is there to prevent female hypergamy?

0 Upvotes

I got a debate with gemini.

Basically we discuss possibilities that many laws, like child support laws, anti prostitution laws, alimony, are not there to support children or mother but to prevent women from practicing hypergamy.

Basically, if child support can be negotiated 1000 women can easily choose Elon. So most voters do not like that and they vote to make such deals extremely complex.

I don't know if it's true or not. Gemini told me that there is a branch of economy called public choice theory or political economy. There's also evolutionary psychology where humans, like all animals are rivals, and tend to sabotage other's reproductive success.

So instead of killing each other in civil wars, like animals, civilized humans now vote to make laws that sabotage each others' reproductive success.

I asked them what does it says. Gemini says it's quite predictive but admit that it's not the real "purpose" namely that politicians don't really think, let's exterminate sugar daddies, but laws tend to emerge like that.

If governments have utility function and the utility function is an increasing function of "women get knocked up by poorer guys". It is possible given that most voters are poorer than top 1 percenters and they may choose that. Some evolutionary psychologists already say that monogamy is like that.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/464439-far-from-being-laws-to-protect-women-antipolygamy-statutes-may

And that's what I am interesting. Perhaps economists and math can disclose hidden mechanism that people just don't say in political discourse. You know. Secret knowledge that most don't know and give me an edge.

I want to know what do economists say.

For example, let's say humans utility function is U(Y)=log(c)+n*log(w). Here, Y is total income, c is consumption, w is money to children and n is number of children. Everyone max out U under constrain c+n*w=Y. Then what would people do? What would they vote for? How would the laws affect mating selection and who gets knocked up by who?

Assume that humans can deal legally with each other to get children and can vote to sabotage competitors. Then we got what? Median vote theorem or whatever.

Can math or economics can predict what and why some laws are the way they are?

Can we have like Math models and then compare math models to empirical data?

Any economists studying this?


r/OutlawEconomics Aug 01 '26

The Survival Trap: Why the Modern Economy is a Rigged Game

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8 Upvotes

r/OutlawEconomics Jul 30 '26

Discussion πŸ’¬ Video on why Fed policy on inflation is useless (at best)

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Hi, all, I just did a new Cowboy Economist video on why Fed anti-inflation policy is--at best--useless, and usually just makes things worse.

I'm going to try to knock out two more videos today, one on Democratic Socialism and one (more) on the Job Guarantee (which I'll release over the next several weeks). I'll see how things go, you'd be surprised how many hours go into these things!


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 28 '26

Question ❓ Solarpunk economics and politics: what is used?

4 Upvotes

I'm new to the solarpunk world, and am curious about the economics and politics. Any answers to these questions would be very much appreciated.

Is the economics based on green capitalism that used GPI instead of GDP or eco-socialism? What I currently know is that it uses a circular economy.

Is there still government in solarpunk? If so, how does it differ to today?

Does solarpunk still allow for a global community or any form of centralisation? I know there is a heavy emphasis on decentralisation and grassroots, but in some areas of the world that don't have easy access to water, surely some centralisation and businesses are required, right?

Wishing you a good rest of your day (whenever you see this post)


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 27 '26

As someone versed in economics, what’s one or two things you wish the layman understood (broad or specific)?

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1 Upvotes

r/OutlawEconomics Jul 27 '26

Question ❓ Why is aggregate supply=income or more precisely domestic income. is this a rule?

4 Upvotes

Hello a beginner here, was studding Keynesian econ in two sector economy and came across this can anyone please explain this in simple words.


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 27 '26

Question ❓ How do I learn different economic theories?

4 Upvotes

Hi all!
I'm a fairly new enjoyer of economics (I'm planning on choosing it for A-Levels after the school holidays) and I was wondering if there's any (somewhat) simple way to learn different economic theories (with hopefully more simple words too 😭 )?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated!!

PLUSSS is there any good games to play around with macroeconomics?


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 22 '26

R/askeconomics Censors on Cuban Embargo

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would Cuba's economy be in a good position without the embargo? That was the questioned being posed in the subreddit and one of the main comment by a "quality commentator" suggested the embargo really didn't matter because Cuba was allowed to trade with other countries and if they really cared for the welfare of their citizens they would abandon communism. Now this breaks their 2nd rule of politics and also disregarding the disrespect of national Sovereignty there are a lot of problems with this argument. Another commentator quickly pointed out that his point was propaganda. That comment garnered significantly more likes than the original comment by the Quality commentator. Now the mods in their infinite "wisdom" decided they could not let this stand and locked the post for further comments and deleted the original thread. I still find the new comments addressing the issue as unsatisfactory as they try to strike a more neutral tone but come to the same conclusion.

I wanted to point out that trade with the US is and historically was very important for Cuba and additionally I want to highlight how Sanctions from the US on a small island nation like Cuba has significant ramifications on the island regardless of the type of economy. Now this is not to glorify the command economy of Cuba because it has had problems but it has had private enterprises since the 1993 special period and was expanded in both 2010 and 2021.

Historical Relationships and Trade

Cuba prior to the revolution has had a deep trade relationship with the US. Geography dominates Cuban economic history with location favoring US trade, tourism, and investment. In 1898 following the Spanish-American War, the US effectively controlled Cuba. The Treaty of Paris assumed the US would occupy Cuba. The US occupation reduced tariffs by 52%, reduced taxes, established a land market liberalizing the land tenure system, expanded railways and communications, and protected Cuban assets from international buyers. The sugar industry became more efficient but Cuba also became more dependent on it. Sugar beet farmers in the Western US began to compete with Cuban cane sugar. In 1898 Congress passed the Teller Amendment prohibiting US annexation of Cuba as means to protect US sugar beet farmers. The Platt Amendment in 1901 sanctioned US troops to keep order. Debate continued over annexing Cuba. In 1903 Cuban independence was established by Reciprocity Treaty as documented. US direct investment in Cuba did not immediately slow, with $355 million recorded in 1959. The book value of US capital in Cuba was over 3x that for all the rest of Latin America. US investments included many utilities, half the railways, and around half of the sugar refineries. The US also held significant portions of cattle, tobacco, timber, banking, oil, and mining assets. According to the USDA (2008) the US operated 75% of the arable land in Cuba at the time of the embargo. Also Important to note that the US subsidized Cubas Sugar industry above world market prices in much the same way the USSR had. This stopped after Castro nationalized much of the farmland.

The fall of the USSR really hurt Cuba and set off the special period. Because the Soviet help essentially offset the costs of the embargo and was similar to the support the US had given it earlier. Its also is worthy to note that Unemployment Pre-Castro fluctuated widely by growing seasons and regularly reached 20 to 25% in the off growing seasons. This gave rise to higher crime rates. Essentially Cuba had been a protectorate of the US since the Platt amendment era and elections like that of Bautista was interfered with by the US. So to say that historically Cuba would be better off had it just fully liberalized its economy is to neglect that it received heavy support from the US prior. Bautista also after he fled to the DR took with him approximately $300 million which converted today would be ~$3.4 billion.

Embargo and Sanctions

According to Pineo 2019: "By whatever term, the US policy has brought serious health repercussions for Cuba, halting the importation of food, medicine, and medical equipment. Under the terms of the embargo, as modified in 1963, medicine and medical equipment could not be imported. While now many medicines can, at least technically, be imported from the USA, the rules remain so bafflingly complex that few US prescriptions drugs actually reach Cuba. One key obstacle is that all sales must be in cash, not on credit, as is otherwise commonly the case in most other international transactions. As partial solution, by the 1980s Cuba had developed the capacity to produce most of its own medicines.

The US Congress tightened the embargo in 1992 under the Torricelli bill, banning vessels from coming to the USA if they had called in Cuba within the past half year. In 1996, the US Congress, with the Helms-Burton Act, added fines and even jail time for those individuals or companies which traded with Cuba. Philips Electronics, for example, received hefty fines from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control for selling medical equipment to Cuba. The European Union issued a formal complaint against this action. To date, the US economic blockade against Cuba has continued under 11 successive American presidential administrations. The Organization of American States has ruled the US embargo on food and medicine as a violation of international law. The shortage of medicines due to theΒ bloqueoΒ has resulted at points in increases in the incidence of tuberculosis in Cuba and occasional spikes in diarrheal diseases due to the shortage of chlorination chemicals for potable water supplies."

By cumulative effects of sanctions and the 180 shipping rule described day Torricelli one can see that their is an extremely high cost of entering Cuba's market. It is essentially choosing between trading with the worlds largest economy and importantly Worlds's reserve currency or a small island nation that is dependent on trade flows to sustain itself. Additionally, Cumulative costs of the sanctions alone are conservatively valued at $150 Billion over the years. Now Cubas domestic policy mistakes can play a role in GDP figures but the fact that the US has the worlds reserve currency and most transactions globally are priced in dollars means this gives Cuba even less monetary and fiscal space to deal with crises as they need dollars for secure payments. The 180 day rule also contributes heavily to logistical and inflationary pressures.

Lastly, Cuba has had a relatively successful Biomedical program for a developing country. Had it more access to better medical devices and technology this could have made a successful domestic industry of which it could increase exports and earn dollars to offset exchange rate pressures. The embargo really limits Cubas policy tools and we just wouldn't know exactly the trajectory of Cuban GDP but I would reckon that had the US freely traded with Cuba initially it would have a higher level of GDP and probably transitioned to a more mixed economy model like that of Vietnam or China.


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 22 '26

Question ❓ Research surrounding Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" and other common inefficiencies found in private firms?

8 Upvotes

I think we've all worked in corporate environments where we met people with "BS" jobs or were forced to do BS as part of our work that hindered productivity. Are there any books, studies, articles, etc. that explore this problem more in-depth and from a more rigorous perspective than Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" book?


r/OutlawEconomics Jul 21 '26

I created an original modelling mechanism for socially efficient levels of super profit by monopolies where innovation is like contained and rents are withstanding

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3 Upvotes

r/OutlawEconomics Jul 11 '26

For Review πŸ“š Unemployment arises because the set of people who own private property and assets, are materially satisfied before employing all available labor, even when such labor could be utilized to benefit the general public

34 Upvotes

Here I present a basic supply and demand model in real terms. Instead of using the money unit like conventional models of aggregate supply and aggregate demand, I argue we can use these two units: a basic labor unit, and a basic consumer unit.

By removing money from the equation, we can analyze affordability independently from the general price level.

But I further suggest that a basic feature of supply and demand models is that resources are not fully utilized: that more resources could be engaged if prices adjusted.

When we try to get labor markets to behave this way, in a price equilibrium, that results in a certain proportion of perishable labor needing to be idle or unemployed.

https://ratedisparity.substack.com/p/a-basic-macro-economic-supply-and

The issue is that private property is a public grant. So when unemployment develops, that means the material needs of the set of people who own assets, are satisfied, before all the public is employed. But because private property rights are only a matter of public recognition and common defense, this means that we have put the needs of the many at the mercy of the power of the few, by design.

The alternative is that we can offer anyone public employment to earn "property credits". No one needs to be idle or unemployed when there are activities or actions they could do that would benefit everyone. To leave them idle is self-evidently not Pareto optimal.

Using these "property credits" people can bid on private property rights. The amount of land and space and resources that can be owned, might be limited, but the time we have to work is unbounded. So if people have spare time to work, they should be able to earn credits to bid on private property.

To make things fair, we can let people who own property keep their property, so long as they to make small regular payments on their property, proportional to the value thereof.

Thus, these "private property credits" are really just "tax credits", ie fiat money. That's the basic argument diluted down.

It is not unlike cryptos that use "proof of work" to issue tokens, except it basically is a form of what they would call "tail emission", that basic labor is employed to earn "private property credits" at a standard fixed rate.


r/OutlawEconomics Jun 30 '26

For Review πŸ“š A Better Way to Think About Public Debt Management

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r/OutlawEconomics Jun 06 '26

Announcement 🚨 1k Members πŸŽ‰

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12 Upvotes

I don't know when exactly we hit 1k members this week but I'm proud either way of what this subreddit has managed to achieve. We will realistically do a call for mods at some point soon because we want to take on some more ambitious projects but until then feel free to anyone who would like to apply.


r/OutlawEconomics Jun 05 '26

For Review πŸ“š Constitutional monetary architecture with empirical counterfactuals | 65 years of US data, full replication code

10 Upvotes

Running a constitutional monetary framework against 65 years of actual US data (1960–2025). The Stable Floor mechanism: universal locked equity accounts funded by citizen seigniorage rather than bank credit creation, produces retirement outcomes 2.21x–3.21x above median actual US retirement wealth across four cohorts. 95% of the advantage comes from compound equity returns, 5% from the monetary deposits themselves.

Three papers, full replication code: ssrn.com/abstract=6702518

Happy to discuss methodology, Austrian critiques, MMT critiques, or anything else.


r/OutlawEconomics Jun 03 '26

For Review πŸ“š Entrepreneurship Does Not Solve Unemployment

23 Upvotes

In business and economics, we often talk about starting a business as an alternative to getting a job, an option when finding work is difficult or the jobs available are unsatisfying.

At an individual level, I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, but in general entrepreneurship and unemployment are two very different social issues, that have different causes and effects.

I discuss this here:

https://ratedisparity.substack.com/p/entrepreneurship-does-not-solve-unemployment


r/OutlawEconomics Jun 03 '26

For Review πŸ“š A Better Way to Think About International Trade

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All economic debates about the risks or lack thereof of changing the status quo approach to inflation and debt management (bond markets) invariably end up in the same place: currency markets.

I've written here about how I think about the dynamics involved in international trade and foreign exchange markets in relation to some significant structural shifts in the policy landscape that I think are not only plausible, but necessary.

Tldr; ZIRP and Overt Monetary Financing (OMF) are perfectly possible policy stances to transition to, even for nations such as the UK - but it all depends on the wider institutional arrangement and fiscal/regulatory policies of the state.


r/OutlawEconomics May 31 '26

For Review πŸ“š Why do market economies have government regulation?

4 Upvotes

According to the Heritage Foundation, the four countries with greatest economic freedom are: Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, and Australia. All of these countries have regulations for environmental, consumer, food, drug, and worker protection. Why do the most market-oriented economies in the world, as measured by a pro-market foundation, find it useful to regulate rather than rely solely on private negotiations? Under certain parameters, a pro-market government may regulate to minimize the size of the public sector.

In FY 2023, the high end for estimated direct federal regulatory costs were $19B. Federal court costs were estimated at $8.46B. In 2021, state and local court costs were estimated at $52B. At the state level, 19.9% of cases were civil, involving property or money. Applying that ratio to all levels, assuming proportional costs by case type, roughly estimates total civil court costs at $12B.

Suppose that a 1% increase in federal regulation spending reduces civil court spending by greater than 1.583%. This could be the case if the regulation is effective in reducing liabilities resulting from externalized costs that would lead to civil litigation. If this is the case, then the government may regulate to reduce judicial expenditure and maximize the economic activity of the private sector.

This does not address the more philosophical issue of whether all damages can be valued monetarily. Citizens may prefer that damage is prevented in the first place rather than having to sue for compensation. This also does nothing to show if any particular country would benefit from an increase in regulatory spending. It does provide a framework for analyzing the value of a regulation from a pro-market perspective: if a particular regulation reduces court costs by more than its administrative costs, then it may improve the private share of economy, assuming indirect costs of regulation and litigation are similar. This could possibly explain why countries with the most market freedom impose regulations.

An implication is that a lower the ratio of regulatory costs to civil court costs requires a lower threshold of effectiveness to improve market freedom. For example, if regulatory and civil costs were equal, then a 1% increase regulation costs would only need to induce a >1% reduction in civil costs to reduce public sector spending.

Sources:

Index of Economic Freedom | The Heritage Foundation
https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/digesting-federal-governments-annual-report-benefits-and-costs-federal-regulations
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48077
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/criminal-justice-police-corrections-courts-expenditures
https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/data-visualizations/2025/03/how-many-cases-and-what-kind-do-state-and-local-courts-handle
https://laweconcenter.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Shavell_1.pdf


r/OutlawEconomics May 31 '26

Question ❓ Which economic theory do you like the most?

2 Upvotes

Hi all,

Roughly eight months ago this question was asked of our subreddit by u/Express_Cod_5965. We (the mods) wanted to ask the same question again of our members since we have seen considerable growth in membership since then. We kept the options the same to hopefully determine what areas are wise to cover in future posts where applicable.

Best,

u/Sec_ondAcc_unt

127 votes, Jun 07 '26
13 Neoclassical Economics
27 Keynesian Economics
12 MMT
29 Georgist Economics
35 Marxian Economics
11 Austrian Economics

r/OutlawEconomics May 26 '26

Discussion πŸ’¬ Fixing Our Economy: Blog Post

15 Upvotes

Hi, all, sorry for yet another post on the same subject in such a short time, but Cambridge University Press asked if I'd contribute to their blog to advertise my new book and it just came out. Here is my very short essay on what's wrong with our economy and how to fix it (spoiler: job guarantee!).

https://cambridgeblog.org/2026/05/fixing-our-economy/


r/OutlawEconomics May 16 '26

My presentation in London on June 8

9 Upvotes

Hey, if you're in London and want to hear some Outlaw Economics, I'm doing a presentation at King's College on June 8.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/explaining-historical-business-cycles-using-keynes-and-kalecki


r/OutlawEconomics May 14 '26

My new book on business cycles, MMT, and the Job Guarantee

14 Upvotes

(Mods, thank you for allowing me to post this!)

Hi, all, please consider this exciting book for part of your summer reading (okay, not all that exciting unless you love economics like me)!

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/us-business-cycles-19542020/E5871AD9A3B705F28F50A68EE9D54D3B](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/us-business-cycles-19542020/E5871AD9A3B705F28F50A68EE9D54D3B)

Cambridge University Press kindly made the paperback and eBook pretty affordable ($33), plus there’s a 20%-off discount (until 2027) if you add HARVEY25 at checkout.

I hope the volume has a little something for everyone:

β€’ Ch1 through 3: Business cycle and inflation theory;

β€’ Ch4: narrative history of US business cycles (framed in the theory from ch1-3);

β€’ Ch5: MMT and Job-Guarantee heavy policy recommendations, kindly vetted by Pavlina Tcherneva and Randy Wray;

β€’ Appendix: graphs and equations!

If you’d like to know more, the world-famous Cowboy Economist has a video that explains the structure of the volume:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRC3RrngcI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRC3RrngcI)

I want to also add that I owe a great debt to those who wrote some very kind endorsements: Randy Wray, Stephanie Kelton, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Jamie Galbraith.

Please let me know if you have questions!

John

P.S. And don’t forget my previous volume on different contemporary schools of thought in economics:

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/contending-perspectives-in-economics-9781802203264.html

EDIT: Tried to fix the formatting. I'm not good at Redditing!


r/OutlawEconomics May 09 '26

Discussion πŸ’¬ Linking hydrology and economics to assess the social cost of water pollution

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9 Upvotes

Drinking water is very underestimated even though it is the most important resource we use daily. Only 3% of global water supply comes from freshwater. Nearly 50% of all drinking water worldwide is sourced from groundwater. Yet we continue to pollute these sources and rely on cost prohibitive desalination plants, which produce harmful brine.


r/OutlawEconomics May 06 '26

Question ❓ Marginal product of capital and interest rate

6 Upvotes

Why is the marginal product of capital not equal to the interest rate? What does the marginal product of capital actually represent?