I would disagree. Optimum is a matter of benefit, and benefit is clouded by too many perceptions. The whole problem with game theory is that for it to actually work, players have to have perfect knowledge, and while the study of economics has worked for some time towards that end, it's still far too wooly for game theory to be applied in a way that is not founded in someone's biases.

Oh please enlighten me how economic benefit is not objective. Though I agree, if you ask any church the best distribution is where they hold all the money and the others barely have anything left.

Furthermore, as you pointed out, economists are spending more and more time trying to get as close to perfect knowledge as possible. Of course that will not happen for a long time, however even the optimum we get with our current incomplete knowledge would be better than whatever it is we're stuck in currently.

The problem of benefit mostly comes from understandings of public good, of human development on the upper end of the needs pyramid. Like is it optimum for colleges to require all students to take Theology and Philosophy classes (like mine does) when that money (in the big picture) could be spent on something of more tangible benefit?

That would go across to schools, foundations for the arts and yes, religious donations.

The notion of the Humanities is where this all gets thrown off, though i'll grant moneys going to the humanities is a drop in the bucket in the big picture

How is that not solved by gaining more knowledge, as I already said we should? If we knew what a humanity ended up doing to a person (in this case broadening their extremely ignorant minds). Your point also falls apart in the fact that determining the budget for a given curriculum is already planned and has nothing to do with it dtriving for its self-interest. In the end though the fact still remains that the most optimal solutoin even given our knowledge is different than where we end up when we act in self interest.