Heck, if we can't expect 300 million in the U.S. to regularly be rational agents in regards to voting and we believe that having representation in government (being a republic) is a reasonable idea... because we can then leave these things to people who know more about the details and can truly act rationally... then why not in the case of the economy as well? Why do we expect that those same average citizens are going to vote with their money and their feet on complex issues that they don't even know about? After a full year plus, people still have a hard time understanding the Health Care bill (and significant minorities have huge misconceptions) - how can we expect them to understand or pay attention to which coal companies are safe and ethical and better for the environment and in turn whether their electric company buys from that particular coal company? People here are pretty intelligent and well read... but we don't know crap like that. Besides - armed with that information, it's not like you can go buy electricity elsewhere anyway. How many thousand products do you buy and use? Do you expect that you are, as a rational agent, that you can actually effectively give each supplier to each supplier to each company that produces, transports and sells the things you buy the thumbs up or thumbs down on their business practices by constantly changing your buying practices? Are you expecting that everyone in the public is going to do that? We need there to be policing of our economy (and environment, etc.). I can't be a specialist in a thousand different things... and neither can anyone else.

Exactly why things like your coal company's misdemeanors should be dealt with in the courts.

I think we should disband traffic cops and sobriety check points... much better to leave it to the courts and people suing each other. If someone speeds past me while talking on the telephone and drinking from a beer and cuts me off, my only recourse should be to take them to court. It is best that the cops look the other way unless that driver kills someone.

While we're at it, we should eliminate the concept of "road legal"... we should let the free market decide what kind of vehicles will travel on the roads. Should I decide to put a jet engine on my car and have my car be 30 feet wide with spikes on the wheels like a chariot from the movies then that is my business... There should be no regulation of any kind. Now, should I, for example, give third degree burns to another driver with my jet, run someone off the road with my monster vehicle or slice the leg off of a pedestrian with my chariot wheels or whatnot, then fine - take me to court. But rules on what I put on the road??? That restricts my freedom.

"I think we should disband traffic cops and sobriety check points..."

This kind of thing can either be done through the courts, or policed by the owners of the land.

I don't support the presence of state enforced traffic laws.

"There should be no regulation of any kind"

No from the government, but from consumers and land owners.

As for your sarcasm, the biggest problem with your criticism is that no-one would do any of the things in your night-mare scenarios.

"Might as well disband referees in sports and simply depend on players reporting their own fouls"

Referees are being paid to do their job by the same people paying the players, so I would argue that they are the same.

Why not privatize the government inspectors/regulators? In a purely capitalistic economy, I would pay a company to check foods for me. The problem that we all have is that we are so used to the government doing certain things for us, that we forget that it doesn't have to be this way. I'm very extreme in some views, and I know that the US would never go that far (privatized police/roads/water/etc...), so I would be willing to except just a lessening of government power and involvement.

@Hunter49r, the biggest problem with privatizing inspections/regulators is that they have a profit motive as their primary focus... not public health/safety. And with the money stream coming from the industry that is being inspected then you have an immediate conflict of interest and motivating force for corruption. At least a public agency does not have the industry being inspected as their client (and golf buddy, etc.).

Another example of the folly of privatizing certain things is the prison system. There is a profit to be made by keeping your prisoners longer... you get paid that way. As opposed to a public system whose focus is not on money but on public safety and following the law. For example: there are actual cases of people being railroaded into prison because the judge or cops were getting kickbacks from the company that owned the prison. Really.

You see, I really do respect the power of the profit motive... but I see it go wrong as often as it going right. The right behaviors need to be attached to profit. For example the National Health Service in Britain rewards doctors for having healthy patients... as contrasted with Medicare in the U.S. which simply pays for each procedure (thus, like private practice, encouraging multiple procedures).

The inspectors would be paid by consumers or a 3rd party, not the companies producing the product. Kind of like how the rating system for movies/video games are (even though that might be government run, but you get the idea. :P).

You don't see doctors purposely keeping patients sick to keep them there, do you? Are car repairs sabotaged so you have to come back every week? Maybe in a few rare cases, but for the most part people aren't horrible. :-)


And yeah, at the moment there are certain 'industries' that would have to remain under government control, such as prison. I would rather have us get rid of prisons completely. If people are too 'bad' to let back into society then either get them psych treatment, or excommunicate them. :-P

@Hunter, as far as the inspector companies or whatever, it's all in how it is set up. It can work in some cases, that is for sure. No - doctors may not be consciously keeping patients sick... but they do run people through as fast as possible to maximize revenue - this undoubtedly leads to degraded care (I always feel rushed by the doc - and like they give me about 1 minute of actual thought between the paperwork and scooting out the door. ...and they order extra tests because of liability fears (good thing we rely on courts, eh, TGM?) - and they order drugs often because the patient asks for it (believe me... I've done it)... and procedures if wanted by the patient or seen as marginally positive are often ordered because, heh, they're covered by insurance anyway... its a win-win for the doc and the patient (or so it would seem on first blush). It is not as much the docs that I have a problem with, it is the reimbursement system they have with the insurance companies. It rewards assembly line treatment and it rewards expensive treatments being performed when preventative care and careful investigation would yield more efficient treatment.

@Hunter, and I agree with you about prisons... too much warehousing and then releasing (often they are even more hardened at that point). Either actual treatment or give up on them totally and don't release at all. Preferably the first for most cases... it actually would cost less and is more humane. There is a prison release program in S.F. for example that includes intensive counseling and lots of job training... their recidivism rate is remarkable low. I saw a program on it over a decade ago so I don't remember the details... but it was pretty darn cool.

Hello. Me again. Sorry to make this debate even more complex, but an interesting question has just occurred to me:

Ghostmonger: In your Minarchist regime, would workers be allowed to form trade unions?

@ Amy,

Yes, trade unions would be allowed. No, they wouldn't be allowed to stop people outside the union from working

Disruptive picketing would be illegal. Companies would likely protect themselves by either offering lower wages to unionised workers or disallowing them in the contracts. Good thing too.

"@Hunter49r, the biggest problem with privatizing inspections/regulators is that they have a profit motive as their primary focus... not public health/safety. And with the money stream coming from the industry that is being inspected then you have an immediate conflict of interest and motivating force for corruption. At least a public agency does not have the industry being inspected as their client (and golf buddy, etc.)."

Which? and similar don't suffer from this. Private inspections work so long as the income stream is not from the producer but from the consumer.


"For example the National Health Service in Britain rewards doctors for having healthy patients"

You wanna start that argument again? I've got an article already written explaining just how bad the NHS is compared to the private sector in America, even with all the regulation, artificial scarcity and government alternatives that are in America.

Regarding prison, I can't remember the source, but there is some pretty compelling evidence that it does work as a deterrent.

This thread moves too quickly. >.<

"Heck, if we can't expect 300 million in the U.S. to regularly be rational agents in regards to voting and we believe that having representation in government (being a republic) is a reasonable idea... because we can then leave these things to people who know more about the details and can truly act rationally... then why not in the case of the economy as well? Why do we expect that those same average citizens are going to vote with their money and their feet on complex issues that they don't even know about? After a full year plus, people still have a hard time understanding the Health Care bill (and significant minorities have huge misconceptions) - how can we expect them to understand or pay attention to which coal companies are safe and ethical and better for the environment and in turn whether their electric company buys from that particular coal company? People here are pretty intelligent and well read... but we don't know crap like that. Besides - armed with that information, it's not like you can go buy electricity elsewhere anyway. How many thousand products do you buy and use? Do you expect that you are, as a rational agent, that you can actually effectively give each supplier to each supplier to each company that produces, transports and sells the things you buy the thumbs up or thumbs down on their business practices by constantly changing your buying practices? Are you expecting that everyone in the public is going to do that? We need there to be policing of our economy (and environment, etc.). I can't be a specialist in a thousand different things... and neither can anyone else."

Well, I mean, isn't that the advantage of the free market? That no single agent must understand the entire underpinnings of the market to influence it by their choices? I see representation as more of a response to a logistical issue. Do you really believe that politicians are that much more knowledgeable, more rational, and in tune with the details than the average person? Self interest is a pretty pervasive phenomenon, and I'm sure that our elected representatives are every bit as human as their constituents. The Healthcare Bill represents huge government action, the kind that would never exist or have to be understood in a laissez-faire environment. It's not as though elected officials are particularly well versed in health economics and I wouldn't be surprised if the Bill went unread in full by many politicians.

Of course I don't expect people to understand every consequence of their choices, and indeed, I don't even think experts can. However, I do believe that people have a pretty good idea of what they want, what they enjoy, and what they value, and that they can manage at least their own lives on the micro level. I don't believe that imperfections do not exist, but I believe with sufficient competition they are kept in reasonable check. Even the most educated and specialized experts often disagree vehemently and routinely about issues, and it would be foolish to think that they had a full understanding of something as complex as a nation's economy. The problem is that their beliefs through government action and regulation have widespread and profound consequences.

Yes, oversight is important, but this need not necessarily be a government role. Many private agencies exist to provide information to consumers and inspect the practices of firms. I know you feel this is a problem due to profit motive and conflict of interest, but an inspection or regulatory firm is only as good as the work it does. It would take only muck up to ruin its credibility. For example, Health Check run by a Canadian charity with no government funding, was once a credible source of information regarding healthy choices for heart attack and stroke prevention. However, the media uncovered that some products awarded the Health Check were in fact high in sodium and there was evidence that the charity was paid to include the products. Health Check has most definitely lost its credibility in my eyes, and in the eyes of many Canadian consumers. It's absurd to think that the same could not happen with public agencies, as though CEO's and politicians golf separately. The difference is that public agencies have the weight of government authority behind them and their actions have potential for more widespread and profound consequences. If a private firm loses credibility, consumers can seek the same services from an alternative firm. If the government loses credibility, there is no alternative...

"I don't support the presence of those regulations, regulation should work from the consumer up, not the government down." - so a workers union from the bottom up is fine?

but governments can be seen as bottom up organisations of people, right?

"Disruptive picketing would be illegal. Companies would likely protect themselves by either offering lower wages to unionised workers or disallowing them in the contracts. Good thing too." - ok someone else brought up unions, so Companies can try to offer lower wages to unionised workers but they are a group who people who naturally find themselves allied against the managment, really simple the company can't afford to act against the entire union so the negotiate acceptable salaries and working conditions instead. (i think this works in sweden where there is no minimum wage but wage agreement are made by collective bargaining) - my only fear here is that you are adding a layer of union managers between the company and the workers, is that really ideal?

"Of course players, being rational agents, would do this self-reporting and take the penalty on the spot"

- really this is how we expect wikipedia to operate - self-appointed editors all communally pooling knowledge; of course none of these editors would be willing to make any contribution at all if the resulting encyclopedia wasn't free to all, and you can argue that knowledge is better gather from reputable sources - but i think wikipedia has shown one thing - it is a more efficient model of information gathering than previous methods - free market information all competing for it's place in a 'neutral unbiased' article - but also inherently a communal project, very communist in it's nature.

Which is it more like state-central controlled information or free market information?

"but an inspection or regulatory firm is only as good as the work it does" - how were private ratings agencies successful in rating good and bad loans in the past few years? is that no a major part of the whole 'credit crisis'?

"The difference is that public agencies have the weight of government authority behind them" - and the other difference is that if a government politician gets caught up in such a scandal they will find it rather hard to get re-elected, what is the problem they have self-interest in mind too!

Offshoot, but Ultimate Frisbee does not have referees and players do indeed self-report fouls. Not that it's a major sport...

lol, so does golf I think. And any pick-up games you play with just your friends. So playing without refs is possible, but there are always going to be cheaters. :P

I've been doing tourney and G-Rating stuff, but

""but an inspection or regulatory firm is only as good as the work it does" - how were private ratings agencies successful in rating good and bad loans in the past few years? is that no a major part of the whole 'credit crisis'?"

It was not a major part. The major causes of the credit crisis were:

1. The Federal Reserve Bank Setting Interest Rates way too low
2. Bush's stimulus when the dot com bubble burst
3. The Communities Reinvestment Act
4. Regulation of Freddie and Fanny
5. The Recourse Rule
6. Fractional Reserve banking allowing Banks to inflate the money supply in a common currency.
7. Other regulations.

Sure, people chose to take out/ offer mortgages they couldn't afford, as always happens, but the bubble was created because of those factors.

I HATE GHOSTMAKER
he's too clever for his own good.

@Chrispminis, You make a decent case. I am wary of the private market - though I agree that private firms can (and are) part of the solution. Perhaps a middle ground here is the thought that, us citizens, being supposedly rational agents, can start to dismantle government in favor of private agencies if the private agencies are actually proving their worth. If you believe in the wisdom of the masses and the wisdom of the market then this seems to be an almost inevitable path that we will choose (being all rational and everything). I, on the other hand, am a bit more pessimistic and am used to seeing people get convinced of the silliest things based on advertising campaigns. You turn this on its head and say well, if my neighbor can't do it then what makes me think that my Congressman can do it any better. So - you're arguing against the idea that there can be experts? ...and against the idea that experts can (on average) make better informed and simply better decisions than those that are uninformed and uneducated about the topic at hand? Yes, they will disagree at times... but they will have some idea at least what they are talking about. ...and we are here to pull the plug (theoretically) should things get out of hand with the pols lying to us, for example.

Yes, government can get corrupt... as private firms can easily as well (golf trips, kickbacks, etc.)... and both have (thanks to government) laws to follow and regulations to help ensure that everything is on the up and up. Given a well designed government (Constitutional rights, balance of power, free media...) both the government and the private firms that operate within that country have a decent chance of providing the sorts of services we need in a way that we need. ...but if you remove the government from the equation... realize that corporations do not have Constitutions... and with very few exceptions, the company ethics policies that exist are only there because they are required by union labor contract (which, thanks to government, unions are protected) or more directly by law. I would posit that if you remove the government (and it's Constitution - because that is the defining feature of a modern government) you will end up with banana republics and company towns... notoriously bad places to get a fair shake. It would be the new feudalism...

Indeed... if we are such rational agents, why haven't we (or some country somewhere in the world) yet chosen this better system? If we are rational agents as envisioned by the Austrian School it seems more than likely that this private government system would already have been selected and installed around the world. The market always picks the best product/company/system, right? What's the holdup? I would posit that the mere fact that we don't have a proliferation of privatized countries tells us rather clearly that either: 1) we are not rational agents and the market can therefore not be depended on, or 2) as rational agents we have selected public agencies over private in very many situations because it serves us better. Which is it?

"Indeed... if we are such rational agents, why haven't we (or some country somewhere in the world) yet chosen this better system?"

Because people are apathetic when it comes to government. When less then 3/4 of your eligible pop votes then you have a problem. In a Free Market, they are FORCED to vote through their purchases.

Also, what is easier to get rid of, a corrupt government or a corrupt businessman?

"I would posit that the mere fact that we don't have a proliferation of privatized countries tells us rather clearly that either: 1) we are not rational agents and the market can therefore not be depended on, or 2) as rational agents we have selected public agencies over private in very many situations because it serves us better. Which is it?"

neither? our current system was built centuries ago and is carried by the momentum of those year. History is rather hard to overturn even if you are a rational agent.

The ideas we as a society embrace (and as a forum debate) are the ones which have proven effective from history - as times change some ideas prove inflexible and fail only to be replaced or modified - but there is no reason to assume humans are capable of picking the best system; they can only pick what exists...

The free market assumes small changes to what exists currently (innovation) will sometimes provide success which will be selected by natural 'market forces' and be promoted - this is evolution by another name.

How do our political systems change over time?

Dang. I really feel like I've made a couple of breakthroughs today as far as recognizing and distilling internal contradictions in the pure free-market view... Here is my summary of the absurdities:
1) a) Property rights are the only rights,
b) Government's mandate is to manage/regulate select activities in order to protect our rights,
c) Therefore, government's mandate is to manage/regulate property-related activities in select ways in order to protect our rights... except that it's not. It's actually supposed to never ever do that. Any management/regulation of anything to do with property is a violation of our rights. Huh?!

2) a) we are all rational agents,
b) rational agents select what is best,
c) privatized government is best,
d) we haven't selected it. Anywhere in the world. Ever. huh?!

yeah people are imperfect and every system is flawed. Nothing wrong with that though, because if everything was perfect then nothing interesting would happen.

Would the East India Company in 18th and early 19th Century India by a privatized government?

dexter, you haven't really broken through anything:

With the first, the role of the government is to stop rights violation, but it may not engage in activity such as regulation that is itself a massive rights violation.

With the second, it never assumes that we are all rational agents.

Firstly, there are arguments for free markets in economics, such as the spontaneous order tradition's arguments, which do not assume that people are particularly intelligent.

Secondly, it expressly states that people are limited in their knowledge of the market, not the other way about. That makes people's decision making on a macro-economic level necessarily flawed, for instance in choosing to have a privatised government.

Note also, I don't support a privatised government.

The same arguments in my last thread could be used to defend "limited government" as a concept.

Getting back to the VERY first topic here would you say that people often accuse people of multi-accounting too seriously just like "She's a witch! Burn her! BURN THE WITCH!"
or something along the lines of that.

"With the first, the role of the government is to stop rights violation, but it may not engage in activity such as regulation that is itself a massive rights violation." - there does seem to be some discrepency here: to stop violations it must define what rights are and are not available to individuals and companies, and this is the same as regulating what rights are and are not available to individuals and companies.

i don't see the distinction which you clearly see - you seem to think the definition of property rights is sacrosanct, which is fine but someone has to define it at some point - perhaps in a constitution....