- February 23, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I will pick up the debate on your blog then. I have read the linked article and the information is still not overwhelming to the free-market system. Have you read much of Walter Block’s work in this area? This is a very brief paper that describes the basics of the free market approach and the ways that government intervention have distorted the market. http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/misallocations_externalities.pdf
- Regulatory Models and the Environment: Practice, Pitfalls, and Prospects
Modeling is a difficult enterprise even outside
of the potentially adversarial regulatory environment. The demands grow when the regulatory requirements for accountability, transparency, public accessibility, and technical rigor are added to the challenges. Moreover, models cannot be validated (declared true) but instead should be evaluated with regard to their suitability as tools to address a specific question. The committee concluded that these characteristics make evaluation of a regulatory model more complex than
simply comparing measurement data with model results. Evaluation also must balance the need for a model to be accurate with the need for a model to be reproducible, transparent, and useful for the regulatory decision at hand. Meeting these needs requires model evaluation to be applied over the “life cycle” of a regulatory model with an approach that includes different forms of peer review, uncertainty analysis, and extrapolation methods than for non-regulatory models.
Their choice of terminology is unfortunate, validated generally doesn't mean true, it means understanding the degree to which a model is a suitable representation of the real world.- Thursday, February 11, 2010
Let me know when you have skimmed the brief paper of Block's and we can start discussing here.
ReplyDeleteOn this thesis, a clear definition of property rights, and the defense thereof, is a ncccssary underpinning of the market system.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think that's probably the most vulnerable part of the argument.
I've got to run, but I will check back soon.
As far as I can tell, Block is arguing that the market failure in the case of an externality like pollution is not a failure of markets, but merely a failure of government to properly protect property rights. That might be true, but what if the expedient that has been taken (handling pollution through the legislature rather than the judiciary) is actually more efficient and results in an optimal outcome?
ReplyDeleteI think the footnote is interesting:
ReplyDeleteIt has been correctly argued that there is both market and government failure, and that therefore the existence of the former docs not justify state ameliorative action. I this paper we adopt a stronger thesis. Namely, that no market failure has been shown to exist in the environmental field, and that all alleged cases are really instances of the governmental failure to clearly define, or n aggressively protect, private property rights. This is not t say hat free enterprise is "perfect." Nothing composed of fallible o human beings can attain that honorific, at least on his side of the Garden of Eden. It is, however. to deny that any systematic, pervasive or serious "flaw"in this system has so far been uncovered.
I actually agree that if property rights could somehow be defined and protected in an efficient manner then those alleged failures (which are actual failures, Block is just posing an alternative explanation for their occurrence) would be remedied. I think the reason the market has not done this is because the property rights are difficult to define and the transaction costs for collecting ``damages'' are much too high compared to the expected profit. I think markets are efficient, if there were a viable market solution, then it would be implemented long before the government got around to acting (if you can't beat the legislative process to the punch then you probably wouldn't have been a very competitive business anyway).
Admittedly, this sounds like a "cop out." We are, after all, refusing to enter into the lists on this important debate of the day. But to do so would be to go "north," or "east," when "west" is the only proper direction for us to travel in. Libertarians must not be seduced from their philosophy by the siren song of relevance.
ReplyDelete-- Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government
This is why libertarian arguments are so tedious at times. They come across as a broken record, "you know, if society were perfectly free, we wouldn't have these problems" is the answer to any discussion. If you don't bring a pragmatic solution to the table, you just tend to get written off (and rightly so, perfect 'freedom' is a goal to aim for, it isn't the current state of things, and likely never will be).
This comment on another thread is somewhat related; goes to the difficulty of establishing causation and valuing harm.
ReplyDeleteDaily Bell: Is it reasonable to believe that the state will ever wither away or does reality instruct us that the best that can be done is to limit its power?
ReplyDeleteRockwell: To me, that's like asking if we can imagine a society without robberies and murders. Maybe it won't ever happen, but we must have the ideal in mind or else we'll never get closer to it. Without the ideal, progress stops. To some extent, then, whether reality will finally ever conform is not the critical question. What counts is that what we imagine can and should exist. I like to imagine a society without legally sanctioned aggression against person and property.
I guess it depends on the topic and who you are talking too. Libertarian to Libertarian would be talking about Pragmatic solutions towards the ideal. Libertarian to non-libertarian would be talking about the ideal so they the non-libertarian would understand why the libertarian wanted progress in that particular direction.
-Rob
Rob said: depends on the topic and who you are talking to
ReplyDeleteI agree with that, but I'd come down on the exact opposite tactic. I'd say you need to 'rope in' the non-Libertarian with the pragmatic solution that gradually marches towards the more free society. If you come at them with big abstract ideas right off the bat they are more likely to blow you off as a crank. I've seen this happen on Esrati's site a lot, because it feeds the preconception people have of Libertarians as unpractical idealists who aren't willing to acknowledge market failures. Lots of times, for the sake of argument, you can accept that market failures might exist, even if you agree with Block that there aren't really any market failures.
Jstuls,
ReplyDeleteI will try to take them one at a time. Your first post is a comment that is not supported so I will skip and move to the second post.
"That might be true, but what if the expedient that has been taken (handling pollution through the legislature rather than the judiciary) is actually more efficient and results in an optimal outcome?"
I will continue in the Socratic style and argue via reductio ad absurdum in many cases. This is not intended to be insulting in any way.
As you mentioned earlier, the nature of pollution is not one to one in terms of cause and effect. It is more complex. The argument you are making here is much like saying that because sometimes when I swing my fist I might hit someone in the nose, it will be more efficient if the legislature outlaws my swinging my fist.
If you would like to argue this point more because you feel I have missed something please feel free to indicate my mistake.
"I think the reason the market has not done this is because the property rights are difficult to define and the transaction costs for collecting ``damages'' are much too high compared to the expected profit. I think markets are efficient, if there were a viable market solution, then it would be implemented long before the government got around to acting (if you can't beat the legislative process to the punch then you probably wouldn't have been a very competitive business anyway)."
ReplyDeleteThis assumes that the process of free market might not be trampled by the nature of the State regardless as to the consequence to the individual rights of the person harmed. This is dealt with by Block by his stating that the priority of the State is not to protect individual Natural Rights but instead to improve the "general welfare" of the society. This means that if a train is polluting a property but is moving goods efficiently that the property rights of the individual being damaged are not the priority of the State. It is instead the welfare of those to whom the goods are being delivered. This is, however, not a problem with the free market, it is a problem with the States ability or desire to do its job in protecting the Natural Property Rights of the individual being harmed.
The third point is more a statement about why I can't win the argument unless I concede the fundamental of the argument. Essentially indicating that I am wrong and the proof of my wrongness is that I am arguing.
ReplyDeleteThe pragmatic solution is to limit the role of coercion or force in interactions. This is a completely broken record when the response is always, "without government people would run wild and the law of the jungle would rule." My argument is not that the strongest should make the rules. My argument is that Man acting as Man must engage in the reality of the world in the way which is best suited for his continued existence and happiness.
This is the underpinnings of the Natural Rights and Negative Rights stance that I take. It is also the basis of the philosophy which says that I am not giving up my rights though I engage in a society that claims I no longer have them. I retain my right regardless as to the power of the State. I only withhold the application of my right to act because of overwhelming force and my desire to live.
With regard to your final two points: It seems as if you may actually have more similar ideas than you are willing to argue on "outsider" sites. The problem with not arguing fundamentals is that their logic is built upon their fundamental view. I have found little success in arguing the utilitarian aspect with "outsiders" because of the problem pointed out quite nicely and concisely in "Economics in One Lesson". It is always easier to see the job created by intervention than it is to imagine the job destroyed by the intervention. If you can't argue the fundamental then you necessarily lose the argument. They can always point to a tangible "gain" and you are constantly left arguing that the world could have been better if...
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said: I will continue in the Socratic style...
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Socrates ask questions?
The argument you are making here is much like saying that because sometimes when I swing my fist I might hit someone in the nose, it will be more efficient if the legislature outlaws my swinging my fist.
Stories are good too though, here's one I like better:
Instead of swinging your fist, you fire your pistol into the air, but it's a magic pistol, so the bullets don't come down for decades, and you aren't just some reckless fool avoiding random pugilism, you are The Traveling Pistelero. To earn your keep, you travel from town to town and the townsfolk pay you to fire your magic pistol into the air, because it is such great entertainment, and since the bullets don't come raining down (yet) no one gets hurt. After a few national tours, you have enough pieces of eight to retire to a non-extradition country and drink margaritas on the beach for the rest of your life. Twenty years later townspeople start dying, but that's ok because you (and the townsfolk you entertained) have successfully dodged the full social cost of the entertainment. You might say, yes, this would work for one Traveling Pistelero with a magic gun, but in the long run the townies will wise-up and stop paying our daring shootist or others like him. To that I'd say, in the long run we're all dead, and in the short run there will always be a new and different magic pistol, a hungry Pistelero willing to shoot it, and townspeople who are happy to make it worth his while.
I'm sure the people the bullets fall on would rather the town just outlaw firing pistols (magic or otherwise) into the air, than wait for them to land on someone and then try and extradite you from your tropical paradise so justice can be served.
Anonymous said:The third point is more a statement about why I can't win the argument unless I concede the fundamental of the argument. Essentially indicating that I am wrong and the proof of my wrongness is that I am arguing.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I lost track; which part were you addressing with this?
On the whole natural rights and pragmatism thing; I really think you only have rights when there are laws with teeth that protect them. Outside that we're in 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short' land. So I guess I'd disagree about the right existing when the law doesn't recognize it. It's that whole sheeps and wolves thing, sheeps may bleat about their rights, but the wolf still gets dinner. I'd certainly like it if the law was consistent with my favored ethical theory, but I'm pragmatic about my deal with the devil (social contract).
you may actually have more similar ideas than you are willing to argue on "outsider" sites. The problem with not arguing fundamentals is that their logic is built upon their fundamental view.
I'm just sympathetic to the libertarian ideals (freedom and wealth, whats not to love?), but I don't think economic theory is a sound basis for an ethical theory (so I really find libertarian moralizing when it comes to taxes a little silly), I don't think the market is a Good (un-contingent on anything), I don't even think freedom is a Good, their good is contingent on what they provide.
I didn't mean to mislead you. I was speaking generally about my argumentative style so that I could prepare you. I find that people are often insulted by the two styles, especially when combined.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the acceptable risk that people should be allowed to accept? Who should make the decision?
You again revert to a "town" for your model. You must assume "public" for the issue to be real. If the idea of "public" is eliminated from the reality then the risk of "those not willing to accept the risk" being harmed is essentially none. If you were damaged by a neighbor who was shooting up in the air then you would have recourse. Even if you were damaged by a pistelero who has since moved on, you would have recourse. It is not for others to tell you that you many not engage in contracts. It is for you to decide.
There is no middle ground with regard to rights. You either think that rights are granted by masters or you think that they are innate. Which is it?
ReplyDeleteAre North Koreans human beings with rights? What is wrong with totalitarianism?
Even if you were damaged by a pistelero who has since moved on, you would have recourse. [...] It is not for others too tell you that you may not engage in contracts.
ReplyDeleteOnly if you lived, and only if the pistolero could be found (the whole point of the drinks on the far away beach part of the story); small comfort to the individuals (not the public) who are harmed. The folks who got killed by the bullets coming down weren't necessarily the same ones who got entertained
by the bullets going up; they didn't sign up for any contract.
Are North Koreans human beings with rights?
Not right now they aren't.
What is wrong with totalitarianism?
It is not very good.
Well...you have apparently given up. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteFour things:
ReplyDelete1. The Tale of The Traveling Pistolero doesn't depend on a 'public', it just depends on side-effects for folks not party to the contract, and a lack of any practical means of 'recourse' when those side-effects are realized.
2. I don't subscribe to Rights mysticism; rights are legal things.
3. Socrates would have asked, 'what is good?'
4. I really enjoyed the stories, I'm sorry my short answers to your last two questions made it seem I had given up.
Here's a similar tale, a little closer to home, no traveling or pistols involved:
ReplyDeleteIt’s just that some landlords just don’t care – they rack up fines and unpaid property tax bills while collecting rents from tenants who often have nowhere else to go.
One can form an “investment corporation” and can buy a single family home for $5000 – entirely possible in some of our neighborhoods – and stick in a tenant paying $400 a month. It’s possible to collect several thousand in rents over and above the purchase price and not pay a dime in property taxes or maintenance to the property before FINALLY the city can take back the building on a tax lien years later. Do the “owners” care? Not a bit! They dissolve the business and move on to the next cheap property with a new corporation and a few grand in their pocket.
The back taxes and fines? Company’s bankrupt, sorry – but here you go, City of Dayton, have the house – and spend a few grand in legal fees to take over an unmaintained property, and a few more to either re-sell it (likely to another slumlord), raze it, or rehab it into low income housing (tens of thousands).
From KarriO's comment on 'Datyon Trash Fees...'
Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteWhat is the acceptable risk that people should be allowed to accept? Who should make the decision?
If you could accept risk for yourself in isolation of any risk to others then there's no interesting problem. It's when your risk taking endangers others in a complex and difficult to attribute way that things get interesting.
Perhaps you might argue that this isn't a problem that needs government meddling to fix, we just need to expand the parties to the contract. If we just get everyone who could possibly be effected to consent and to sign up then things are good. All's fair for deals struck between consenting adults right? At some point, for some actions, the contract has to be with everyone.
Or maybe you might say, there's no need for a contract with everyone, just enforce restitution when harm actually occurs to those who weren't part of the original contract. To successfully do that the state would have to prevent people from retiring to far off lands, otherwise the option is always there to shoot and run like our friend the Pistolero, or stiff-and-fold like our Dayton slumlords. The arm of the law may be long, but its grasp is sometimes feeble and its reach is finite.
Anonymous, your argument seems to be let me swing my fist, and if it actually hits someone, then come down on me with both boots. Mine is that, someone who walks around swinging their fist where they could hit someone else probably isn't behaving innocently, and likely has a get-away already planned out for when they do hit someone. So it's stupid to wait for someone to get hurt, you should probably just get the guy to stop waving his fists around.
I know, I know, bring on the slippery slope: where does it all end, who gets to decide, what right do you have to tell me not to swing my fists, I've got those crazy close-proximity-inadvertent-fist-swing-contact-avoidance skills that you're not considering...
Okay, a bunch issues arise with your situation. I would love to spend more time on the thought that people only have rights if others around them grant them rights...but that is a really complicated subject that I am afraid we will not settle. It would seem then that their is nothing wrong with oppressing people because you aren't violating their rights. But we will focus on the landlord situation.
ReplyDeleteAssumptions:
1) There are people who are forced to live in $400 a month slums.
2) They have no choice amongst $400 a month slums.
3) In a capitalist system corporations are "individuals" that are not related to those to whom they belong.
4) They must necessarily improve or maintain their own property and if they do not they are violating the rights of someone else.
5) That the taxation issue would be an issue at all.
In the very cases that you site the only problem is that the individuals don't engage in the "public" duties. There is nothing wrong with buying a property and renting it for $400 a month. There is nothing wrong with not maintaining that property. There is only a real problem with the fact that they are not paying taxes on the property.
You must again be assuming that taxes are necessary for "public." Without "public" there is no violation of anyones right here. This is not a demonstration of the need for stronger "public" it is only the demonstration of the problems caused by the idea of "public."
In fact, the individuals in the interaction are both bettered by their interaction. The people who need a $400 a month place to live are bettered because their is one available. The people who want to buy cheap homes and rent them out for $400 a month are bettered because their is a market for affordable housing. The only people "harmed" are the citizens who are being taxed to purchase the house and improve it, demolish it, etc. That is not the fault of the landlord. That is the fault of the city that is taxing them. The problem isn't with freedom, it is with coercion.
Anonymous said (glad you're back):
ReplyDelete...nothing wrong with oppressing people...
As far as their law can say (for example in the case of the N.Koreans you mentioned); I think the distinction between moral and legal matters here, and that perhaps the reason oppression is wrong has nothing to do with rights (or Rights).
In the very [but not every] cases that you site the only problem is that the individuals don't engage in the "public" duties.
So does everyone need to be party to every contract? I don't have to assume any public duties, all I have to assume is that there exist some people who are not party to the contract and that side-effects from said contract (or mutually agreeable exchange if you will) affect those people while leaving them with no recourse.
There is only a real problem with the fact that they are not paying taxes on the property.
I agree, that's the problem (though the ability to stiff and run because of corporate liability limitations is interesting too).
That is the fault of the city that is taxing them
I see, it's a noble tax protest, not criminal behavior at all... When those guys don't pay taxes, do they forgo calling on the cops to evict tenants who don't pay rent? Do they forgo any and all public services? Do they stop using the roads? I have no problem with affordable housing, but cheating on your taxes is not morally praiseworthy.
You're right in the slum-lord case the duty being dodged is a public one, but it isn't too hard to imagine (eg tTotTP given above) that there might be dodging that's possible and has nothing to do with the coercive power of the state.
The problem isn't with freedom, it is with coercion.
The problem isn't with freedom, it is with externalizing costs in new and interesting ways that aren't easy to litigate/internalize (so that the market can thereby self-correct).