>>(My book The Transparent Society is about the accountability side of the >>equation. More than enough people keep talking about the morality side.) > > Your book talks about how to detect malicious actions, but I doubt that >preventing all malicious actions would redirect more than 20% of current >relative-wealth-seeking behavior towards absolute-wealth-producing behavior. > For example, Robin has mentioned (http://hanson.gmu.edu/showcare.ps) >evidence that paying more for medical care doesn't improve health. It >seems likely that one of the reasons for this is that when faced with >unclear information about whether to perform an operation or to trust >the human body's naturally evolved healing abilities, doctors will be >too likely to claim that their medical skills are needed. It seems >unlikely that increased surveillence (or even mind reading) will detect >many cases where a doctor advocates unneeded surgery, because doctors >are rarely aware of how much their desire to seem important is biasing >their medical decisions. What we need is better analysis of information >that is already somewhat available, and acquisition of data that is not >currently available to anyone. I believe you leave out the essential aspect of transparency as the essential ingredient in any market. Four great social innovations have fostered our unprecedented wealth and freedom: science, justice, democracy & free markets. Each of these "accountability arenas" functions well only when all players get relatively fair access to information. But cheating is always a problem because, while criticism is the best antidote to error, most humans, especially the mighty, try to avoid it. This applies to all four arenas. Leaders of past civilizations evaded criticism by crushing free speech and public access to information. As a result, these elites stayed in power... and made horrific blunders in statecraft. As for markets for goods, services and ideas, knowledge is the lubricant that makes them work. Even the example you give above, of self-deceiving doctors, is applicable, since a translucent system makes it easier to get 2nd or competing opinions, especially from MD's who hate the one you just talked to. db