Property Rights, Externalities, Assurance Contracts, and Freedom Faith

[lengthyounarther]

Even assuming a well intentioned government (something history tells us is an unreasonable expectation) it is not possible for such a government to manage the externalities and public goods in a way that is not damagine. How much carbon is to much carbon? How much climate change is to much? How many roads are to many and wastful? These are questions that do not have singular answers for all society. Attempting to centrally plan can only lead to disasters greater than the original problems.

[lengthyounarther]

If government can addres more effectivly address social problems with legislation you might as well advocate full fleged socialism. Perhaps government can just "pass a law" giving everyone free healthcare or universial welfare. This wont work because central planning is not possible, including in the regulation of negative externalities. Also the incentives in government are such that arguments based on government acting in the best interests of others should be disregarded.

[lengthyounarther]

Governments dont "own" or "control" the ocean either. To say anarchy is falsified because privatizing the ocean is hard to imagine is being hypicritcal, because no state has the power to appodictally prevent or control oceanic pollution.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@lengthyounarther Governments can limit ocean pollution that originates within it's borders through taxes and regulations. You're right though, that it is difficult for governments to control pollution that occurs outside it's borders. My guess is that they'd still have a better shot at it than an anarchist society would though.

Regardless, I don't think any one argument falsifies anarchism.

[lengthyounarther]

@ithinkronpaulissmart Again your using a double standard. If we grant that governments can control pollution within their borders, the same is true of private property owners who can also control pollution that originates from within their borders. Your objection to anarcho property rights is that you dont think it can regulate pollution from OUTSIDE its borders, but here you admit that governments cant do that either.

[vteam02]

You give anrchy a lot of burden. So much so that, I think a debate is impossible. Anarchy isn't really a positive assertion really. Either you can explain why the state is better at these things or you can't.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@vteam02 The state can tax externalities and nationalize public goods, thereby solving these problems that anarchism cannot solve very well. To claim that anarchism would be superior to the status quo is absolutely a positive assertion.

[vteam02]

@ithinkronpaulissmart

I don't need to make anarchism a positive assertion to be skeptical of your arguments. It your arguments I find faulty. If I fail to accept the hypothesis that the state is neccesary, then anarchism seems like a logical position to fall back on.

[lengthyounarther]

@ithinkronpaulissmart How much should states tax externalities, and who desides what actually count as externalities? It seems almost anything could qualify (farts do produce greenhouse gases after all).Given the states historically proven proclivity to expand its own power at the expense of the rest of society, you have no basis for imagining that a state would, or even could, "tax externaliteis and nationlaize public goods" in any way other than to benifit members of the state at our expense

[davyjames]

Regarding charity the reason most people give to charity is either a) because it makes them feel good about themselves or b) because they want to appear generous to their friends and the community.

Very few people refuse to give to charity because other people aren't also doing it. In fact I'd argue it never crosses their mind.

In fact if EVERYBODY had to give to charity it would actually mostly remove the 2 primary incentives people have to help.

[billyjoeallen]

Dominant assurance contracts (explained in the Wikipedia article) give everyone an incentive to join. If the public good is not produced, you get more than your money back.

Even with standard assurance contracts, attempting to free ride carries the risk that the good won't be provided at all. If no good is produced, there is no additional cost to the participants, so the disincentive you claim is minor and surely less onerous than taxing people for things they don't want or don't need.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@billyjoealle It's interesting. It might work and it might not. DACs create weird incentives.

With DACs, if the DAC is successful, the losers are the ones who agreed to it. If the DAC is unsuccessful, the losers are the ones who don't agree to it. This means, no one has an incentive to agree to a DAC if they think it will be successful. No one has an incentive to be the last person who helps reach the quorum.

DAC offerers have an incentive to hide how many people have signed up thus far.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@billyjoeallen CONT. The more capable consumers are at predicting the success of DACs, the more DACs will fail, and the riskier the deal becomes for the offerer and the buyer. Risk premiums will go up, which may turn away the risk averse from these types of transactions.

I think the effectiveness of DACs depends on the ability of consumer to measure the probability of success and the distribution of risk profiles among a population.

I'm just theorizing here though. I don't really know.

[fringeelements]

Freedom faith comes from the fact that people can't know every issue, and so they need bias. When you've caught them on something they cannot answer, you then get the bias. When statists find what they can't see the market solving, they invoke a state. The state has the advantage of being able to impose somewhat arbitrary laws, it doesn't have to "emerge", and so is an easy default. Arguments about "emergence" and "freedom faith" are an attempt by anti-statists to make a counter-default.

[fringeelements]

Dominant-assurance contracts don't "solve" the free rider problem, they lessen it.

[evilcrabsitchalways]

The problem is that you seem to be using the fallacy of the argument from personal incredulity. Just because you may not be able to think of an answer doesn't mean there isn't an answer.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@evilcrabsitchalways I agree and just because there might be an answer doesn't mean there is. Why should we assume there is an answer?

[evilcrabsitchalways]

@ithinkronpaulissmart why not suspend judgement until there is information one way or the other.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@evilcrabsitchalways That's exactly what you should do. And personally, if there is substantial uncertainty as to whether a system will work, I am very hesitant to try it out if it might mean I have to jeopardize my standard of living.

[billyjoeallen]

@ithinkronpaulissmart Your standard of living is already jeopardized. How long do you think the State can continue to grow or even maintain multi-trillion dollar deficits?

[billyjoeallen]

@ithinkronpaulissmart We should assume that it is more likely that an answer will be discovered when the incentive for the discovery is greater.

[DeraJa]

I like you. I might give you a nickname. I shall call you big mouth bass.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@DeraJa Personally, I think I am devilishly handsome, but you are welcome to call me whatever you'd like.

[DeraJa]

@ithinkronpaulissmart Actually in some tribal societies, prominence within the tribe is based solely on mouth diameter. 

[dadrogon]

Why do taxes? If it is the case that somthing is harmful to other people to any signifigant degree it should just be banned altogether right?

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@dadrogon No. All beneficial behaviors have costs associated with them. Diminishing marginal returns lead these benefits to diminish, the more the good is produced. Optimal production of a good occurs when the marginal benefits equal the marginal costs. In other words, you should produce something until the benefits cease to exceed the costs.

[billyjoeallen]

@ithinkronpaulissmart You seem to be ignoring the massive damage state "solutions" cause as a result of concentrated benefits and distributed costs.

A hundred thousand special interest mosquitoes will suck more blood that a vampire bat and swatting one consumes more resources than it saves, so we get a 14T on-budget debt (100T+ if unfunded liabilities are counted) with no possible long-term outcome except collapse due to default or hyperinflation.

That's a real cost of taxation.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@dadrogon The problem with externalities is the producer does not experience the full cost of their behavior, and so they continue to produce the good even when marginal social costs exceed marginal social benefits.

If you place a tax per a unit of production, equal to the cost inflicted upon society by that unit of production, producers will produce the optimal quantity of a good or service.

Cars produce a harm to society, but banning cars would obviously not lead to an optimal outcome.

[dadrogon]

@ithinkronpaulissmart So should the taxes just be directly redistributed? I think that would make the most sense.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@dadrogon You could do that. However, I don't think you'd want to. The government needs some revenue in order to perform services. It would be better to use the revenue from this tax, instead of levying additional taxes.  If this original tax were so high, and government was so limited that it led to a surplus, then sure.

[dadrogon]

@ithinkronpaulissmart Well this just creates and incentive for the government to look for things to tax. The only "taxes" that should exist are one's that directly relate to the service the government provides.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@dadrogon What do you mean? What kind of tax directly relates to the services governments provide?

I think the government has some incentive to look for things to tax regardless of what you do.

[dadrogon]

@ithinkronpaulissmart Court fees, voting fees, that sort of stuff. I would like to have it as close as possible to being voluntary. So if you didn't want to pay the fees, you wouldn't have to, just you wouldn't get the services.

[IndividualAutonomy]

Yes you highlighted the individual incentive problem very well. Businesses and other individuals don't have an incentive on the individual level either to punish free riders on the macro level assuming they can even figure out who they are.

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

@IndividualAutonomy I'm glad I have one fan in the comment section :)