Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site wucs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!wucs!esk From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Eric Kaylor ) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: libertarianism VS economic reality Message-ID: <495@wucs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 16:34:47 EST Article-I.D.: wucs.495 Posted: Mon Nov 19 16:34:47 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Nov-84 00:10:37 EST Distribution: net Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept. Lines: 109 [replies to laura@utzoo, nrh@inmet, danw@oliven] From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) > Only a consequentialist would worry about whether the disired > consequences would arise from his political philosophy. Then so much the worse for non-consequentialism! Actually, what you say here is not quite true -- almost every philosophical position worries *to some degree* about consequences. To ignore them completely would be absurd. Let me remind the net exactly what consequence the libertarians are willing to accept: that there could be a situation in which a coercive action could make everyone better off, and they would still oppose it. For all we know this may be the situation for some coercive actions that are occurring right now. There is a word for accepting bad consequences when nobody gets any net benefit in return: IRRATIONAL. Laura mentions that some people may be totally opposed to some of the things govt. produces (e.g. nukes). In this case, government non- production is Pareto-optimal. Nevertheless, at this point one may want to depart from the restrictions of economic analysis and ask whether people's preferences are rational (in the case of nuclear weapons, it's a tough question; however in other cases it might be easier). > Any figure that you come up with will have to be some person's opinion > of the value of the public good. Wrong! It will be some personS' opinionS of the value of the public good. If people can be made to reveal their preferences for a public good honestly (and Clarke explains how this can be done), the government (or anyone) can determine what level of provision of the public good will be Pareto-optimal. Unfortunately for libertarians, the mechanism by which this is achieved involves a tax, so the free market can't do it. The free market is LESS EFFICIENT than one with certain kinds of govt. inter- ference. From: nrh@inmet.UUCP > I should, of course, read Clarke to find out what he says about this, but > if you know offhand, tell me: is he talking about the efficient moves > a government could make were it benignly-motivated? A red herring par excellence. Motivation has nothing to do with it; Clarke is talking about efficient moves that government could make, period. Pre- sumably we have to *force* the government to make these moves, by threaten- ing to "vote the rascals out" of the legislature who don't work for economic efficiency. This is worth elaborating on, for here we have a CLASSICAL libertarian FALLACY. Libertarians see political philosophy as a ONE-DIMENSIONAL spectrum: someone is either for "less" government or "more". To state the obvious (obvious to everyone but libertarians that is), this totally ignores the fact that there are DIFFERENT KINDS of government activity. Political moderates like myself favor more of some kinds of activity and less of others. Furthermore, if libertarians ever get up enough votes to reduce the size of government, they will ALSO have enough votes to impose on government those policies that would promote efficiency. On morality: Your "breaking up with your girlfriend" example is a bad one because it is totally beyond me how anyone could *force* me to do that unless they did something drastic, in which case I would not be better off. Let's take a better example: suicide. Now, if by forcing me not to kill myself you would make me grateful afterwards, do you have a right to do it? I say you do. > In other words, if the government could find out true social costs and > such, libertarians would be opposing the imposition of those costs. > This might or might not be true, depending on what was thought to > belong to government. On the other hand, it hardly matters: > the government posesses no way of generating Pareto-optimal outcomes ... On the contrary, it does. And even if it falls somewhat short of Pareto- optimality (efficiency) it may still come closer than a laissez-faire market. What I have conceded it cannot generate (except by luck) are outcomes that make everyone better off than they were under the status quo. Nevertheless, over a wide range of issues, as far as anyone has the relevant knowledge, it might make all of our *expected* prospects better. It could easily fulfill my "modified golden rule" criterion that says that society is best which one would choose if one didn't know which member of that society one was to be. > By the way, in a libertarian society, nothing would prevent people from > forming and joining compacts designed to result in enforced > Pareto-optimal outcomes among themselves. That's a valid point which Clarke discusses at some length. However, it would not work for large-scale externality problems like air pollution, national defense, research, and many others. > One [book] which addresses the subject more directly, but which I've never > read all the way through is "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by (I think) > Robert Van Nozick. Robert Nozick (no Van). This is a book I would highly recommend to danw (@oliven, I think) if he hasn't already read it. Unfortunately I lost his article in which he explained his views on rights in more detail than previously. Danw says that people have rights against force and fraud. Unfortunately this leaves unclear what constitutes force and fraud; for example, if I threaten to build an ugly structure on my property, demanding payment from my neighbors not to, is this illegitimate (is that a use of force)? What if *I* think the ugly structure is attractive; is it wrong then? (Nozick's answers: yes; no; respectively.) Well, this is too long already, but stay tuned ... --The Aspiring Iconoclast Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's. Thanks.