Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Keep in mind that the form new technology has taken is partly shaped by the institutions that fund their development.

There are still some principles that don't depend on this. Division of labor really does accelerate productivity, and so does expensive mechanization. Both contribute to centralization. On the other hand, computerization seems often to work the other direction. But there was no way for an economy that was just developing steam power to computerize.

But even before steam power, just by making use of larger labor forces that could divide the work of making things, a competitive advantage was gained. There was no way that I can see to avoid centralizing in that circumstance except by avoiding industrialization, and then you left yourself as a nation at a disadvantage to other countries that did industrialize.

A government agenda that was more egalitarian and less oriented to capitalist privilege might have steered the centralization into cooperatives rather than privately-owned companies, but that's still centralization.

How about class action suits?

Is that not merely a different method of enforcement?

There are many clear examples of private fisheries conservation.

Right, but where it doesn't work is with fishing of migratory species that are caught on the open ocean. Some things are inherently commons and have to be regulated.

This is an example I would have given myself. It seems to me that a lot of discussion of resource management gets hung up on the public/private distinction and there is a lot of ideological attachment to one or the other. It's also irrelevant, since the really important distinction is individual versus collective organization. Both are optimal in particular circumstances and not in others. Unfortunately, many people (including a lot of libertarians) conflate collective organization with state-run.

For example, there are a lot of cases in fisheries management where parceling up the sea as if it were farmland would either lead to overfishing (if the plots were too small) or privileged access (if the plots were too large). The better system involves defining when and where people can fish, having docks refuse to buy fish that are too young, etc. In other words, having rules founded in the common interests of all those accessing the resource may be more effective than individualized ownership. Such an agreement can be reached, and managed by, the fishermen themselves. A legal system is needed to help enforce their agreement but there is no need for a state agency and many reasons to fear that a government agency could stray from their common interest.

If that's the case, why has it not been done? It seems to me that we have either anarchy or top-down regulation but no cooperative legally-assisted management such as you describe.

With respect to forestry, I wonder if the good results from privately owned timber land would have been possible if we did not also have the federal timber land that can be leased? What I mean is this: a timber company's long-term interests lie in sensible forest management, but its short-term profits are better served by rapacious clear-cutting. If the company owns acreage and also leases federal timber land, it can serve both interests, putting its main effort into cutting the federal land (since even the biggest companies have limited resources), while managing its own land for sustainable yield down the road. If all timber land was privately owned, would there be a competitive incentive to treat that land the way federal land is treated today?

I think there would. Consider an economy with five timber companies, each of which owns (for sake of argument) an equal size and quality of timber land, capable (if it were all cut at once) of yielding 100,000 tons of wood products per company (500,000 tons total). There is further timber land unowned by timber companies capable of yielding another million tons. Companies 2-5 practice sustainable forestry and bring a harvest of, let's say 1000 tons of timber the first year, cutting only 1% of their land. Company 1, on the other hand, practices unsustainable forestry by cutting 10% of its land, and brings 10,000 tons of timber to market. Company 1 has 2.5 times as much product to sell as all of its competitors combined.

Company 1 now has 10 times as much capital available as any of its competitors. It buys more land, and continues to practice unsustainable forrestry. Eventually, the demand for wood products is saturated, and Company 1 begins to lower its prices, making it unprofitable for companies 2-4 to continue in business. At some point in the long run, Company 1 is going to run out of timber to cut, because it's harvesting faster than the trees can grow, but it's likely to be the victorious last-company standing considerably before reaching that point -- unless companies 2-5 see the writing on the wall and begin doing the same thing company 1 is doing.

This is the kind of thing I mean by competition not necessarily working for the good of all. Sometimes it incentivizes very bad economic behavior. And that could be the reason why what you describe has not been implemented in the fishing industry.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

The Congress and Senate of the United States are popularly elected. Are you claiming that popular elections in and of themselves are illegitimate or that these elections have become illegitimate (perhaps due to Diebold-style electronic systems or somesuch)?

I don't think the legitimacy (philosophical sense) of governments is earned via some sort of popular affirmation.

How can you go through life without being in a situation where you are legitimately subordinate to someone? You were subordinate to your parents, other adults in your neighborhood (assuming they gave a shit), your teachers, your bosses, etc.

Sure. But you're dealing with a different kind of subordination in those examples because government is a different type of authority that makes different kinds of demands and has different kinds of consequences if you do not adhere to their rules. As the shining example of their authority and rulership over you, the State requires that you follow their laws because they are laws. The system reinforces this even if a politician may deny it. (N.b. Of those that you listed, parenting probably has the most similarities, but you're dealing with children in that institution.)

Some people can't manage their own affairs, whether you like it or not, due to mental and physical disability. The compassionate thing for anyone to do is to step in and take charge. Use some friggin' common sense.

Indeed. But most people can manage their own affairs.

You're only partially right here, and that's what's so infuriating. I don't care about being taxed. It is not particularly onerous to me to pay money into the commons. I care about what the money is used for.

The infuriating thing would appear to be being taxed, and having your tax dollars used for really awful things. I doubt libertarians would whine about taxation as much if there weren't an empire to be funded.

It is naive to expect that real social needs are going to be taken care of to any significant extent without some level of taxation.

Well, the converse seems awfully naive to me. To each her/his own.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I've tried to explain this before. It comes down to the fact that at least a large minority, and perhaps a majority, of people would be assholes if they thought they could get away with it.

This kind of essentialism is bad philosophy and bad science. If you're talking about anarchism in a society that already (prior to anarchy) had this asshole mentality (perhaps the USA?), then why do you assume that a stateless society would be forced to let these people "get away with it," or be helpless to stop them?

That's just part of the human condition, but in a small, simple society the coercive restraints can be handled by something less formal than a state properly so called. A big man, patriarch, council of elders, or spiritual leader get most people to follow them through whatever characteristics the band admires -- intelligence, vision, spiritual insight, charisma, physical prowess, or some combination -- and under his/her/their direction the band enforces the rules. That's not a state, but it DOES have the main characteristic that you seem to dislike about a state, namely its coercive nature and enforced authority/subservience. Yet without it, people who want to be assholes would think they could get away with and thus would do it.

The authority I object to is one that commits criminal acts or one that demands subservience because of their status as authority. The State does both. "Big men, patriarchs, council of elders, etc." serving as the sole coercive authority is indeed problematic, and it does happen more often than not. But, as you can probably guess, I don't think its tendency to reoccur makes these authoritarian systems okay.

So I guess when you say "Why do you say a state is necessary?" I have to ask for clarification. Are you asking why a coercive/authoritarian structure of some kind is needed in human societies, or are you asking why large and complex human societies need to formalize that coercive/authoritarian structure as a state?

I am asking why a monopoly of force over a territory is necessary for the purpose of maintaining a reasonable order. I suppose my position rejects the legitimacy of any authoritarian structure on multiple grounds (which implies that it is not needed), but not the ability of people to enforce justice. I just don't think one enterprise should have that privilege.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

This kind of essentialism is bad philosophy and bad science. If you're talking about anarchism in a society that already (prior to anarchy) had this asshole mentality (perhaps the USA?), then why do you assume that a stateless society would be forced to let these people "get away with it," or be helpless to stop them?

Matt, it comes down to a few questions. Would the stateless society be one in which a coercive mechanism applies to keep people from being assholes? If no, then indeed it would be helpless to stop them, because the only way to stop those people who would be assholes if they could get away with it is to threaten force.

If yes, then a different question follows. One reason why complex societies require states (i.e., formal coercive structures as opposed to informal ones) is because when you impersonalize coercion it becomes more dangerous and potentially unjust. A state has mechanisms built into it to try to prevent that or at least reduce it. How would you prevent your stateless coercive structure from becoming a tyranny? (I'll add that historically, that has normally been what followed from periods of statelessness or near-statelessness in a civilized setting. Despotism anyway; one could argue that neither Caesar nor Napoleon was a tyrant in the sense of an oppressive ruler, but both were certainly despots restrained only by their own intelligence and conscience. Also, both did have a severe failing; they were warmongers. Or at least Napoleon was one, and Caesar was in the process of becoming one when he was assassinated. An effective state might have been able to restrain this lamentable tendency. Napoleon would have been wonderful as President of France -- the problem was that he wasn't President, he was Emperor, and he got to be that by overthrowing the state.)

The authority I object to is one that commits criminal acts or one that demands subservience because of their status as authority. The State does both. "Big men, patriarchs, council of elders, etc." serving as the sole coercive authority is indeed problematic, and it does happen more often than not. But, as you can probably guess, I don't think its tendency to reoccur makes these authoritarian systems okay.

If you don't think they're OK, then I don't see your thinking as remotely realistic, because those sorts of arrangements have prevailed in every stateless society that has been stable. All stable stateless societies have been precivilized or protocivilized, and all of them have had informal coercive arrangements; they were small and simple enough that there was no need for formal ones.

The state does sometimes commit criminal acts. However, I would assert that an informal coercive arrangement in a civilized setting would commit a lot more of them. The state always has checks and safeguards built into it to try to prevent this. In the absence of the state, you would have an increase in criminal acts from one of two sources: individual criminality in the absence of order-keeping coercion, or lawless governance by a dictator.

As for the other, the status as authority is always justified by some principle, so it's not the case that obedience is demanded "merely" because of that. But this is moving into your explanatory question:

I am asking why a monopoly of force over a territory is necessary for the purpose of maintaining a reasonable order.

Because, as I said, people tend to be assholes if they can get away with it. You can't have a decentralized order-keeping system; that's an oxymoron. If you have more than one authority over the same jurisdiction (defined not just by space but also by subject), then the authorities will conflict and be played off against one another -- and that's a best-case scenario. Order does require monopoly of force. Exertion of force by two or more competing wielders thereof is not justice. It has a different name: war.

It's true that if people weren't assholes a stateless society in the sense you're meaning would be doable. We'd still need some sort of formal organization for making collective decisions and for implementing collective efforts, but it wouldn't need to be coercive. Sadly, people are assholes, and so coercion is necessary, and the state is the safest means of applying that coercion.

Really, your question "Why is a monopoly of force over a territory necessary to maintain order?" is another way of asking, "Why can't we all just get along?" We can't because too many of us are assholes. It's that simple.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

A government agenda that was more egalitarian and less oriented to capitalist privilege might have steered the centralization into cooperatives rather than privately-owned companies, but that's still centralization.

While certainly there are some economies of scale that result from physics and engineering considerations, I think these are overstated. While there are benefits from specialization of tasks and minimization of re-tooling, there's no need to put all parts of a production process under one roof. Yet, for a variety of reasons (mostly banking laws and patents) the capitalist economies have encouraged lumping multiple processes into the same firm. The competitive advantage of that has nothing to do with industrialization and everything to do with the legal environment.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Is that{class action} not merely a different method of enforcement?

You were the one drawing a bright line of distinction between civil and criminal law, and stating that collective plaintiffs must be a feature of criminal law. This isn't the case.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Right, but where it doesn't work is with fishing of migratory species that are caught on the open ocean. Some things are inherently commons and have to be regulated.

Which is what I pointed out, but I only agree if you mean "regulated" in the sense of well-managed.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If that's the case, why has it not been done?

It has. I gave the example of the Maine lobster industry. Now, as for why isn't it more common, there are several reasons. First and foremost, the oceans are huge and we've only recently developed technology sufficient to deplete ocean fisheries. Also, the high seas have traditionally been considered an open commons where no one has standing to impose rules. This is mainly because governments found it a bigger loss to fight over control of ocean territory than to just declare it a free for all. This meant that any attempt to develop order on the high seas would be met with harassment as soon as any state in the region objected. Thus, private ocean fishery management, to the extent it has existed has been confined to species harvested near coastlines.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Company 1 now has 10 times as much capital available as any of its competitors. It buys more land, and continues to practice unsustainable forrestry. Eventually, the demand for wood products is saturated, and Company 1 begins to lower its prices, making it unprofitable for companies 2-4 to continue in business. At some point in the long run, Company 1 is going to run out of timber to cut, because it's harvesting faster than the trees can grow, but it's likely to be the victorious last-company standing considerably before reaching that point -- unless companies 2-5 see the writing on the wall and begin doing the same thing company 1 is doing.

OK, now keep going . . .

Realizing that timber depletion is the likely result of this process, the timber companies enter into an agreement to limit production at a sustainable level and create a trade association to verify this. (Actually the trade association probably already existed to specify standard lumber grades and sizes. They just add a new function.)

The above assumes that such timberland owners would even get this far. It's much more likely that they would never initiate the clear-cutting competition on the correct conclusion that it would ultimately lead nowhere useful. We have a way to empirically test this since if public lands actually provided an "outlet" for clear-cutting we would expect privately owned timberland to be use more wisely in the western U.S. than the eastern (due to the vast differences in the amount of public land). I'm under the impression that, if anything, the reverse is true.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

The above assumes that such timberland owners would even get this far. It's much more likely that they would never initiate the clear-cutting competition on the correct conclusion that it would ultimately lead nowhere useful.

You're assuming a level of rationality and enlightenment on the part of capitalists that neither economic history nor my own cynicism will support.

I'll respond to the rest later, but wanted to say that up front as it's pretty central to the entire argument.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

It has. I gave the example of the Maine lobster industry. Now, as for why isn't it more common, there are several reasons. First and foremost, the oceans are huge and we've only recently developed technology sufficient to deplete ocean fisheries. Also, the high seas have traditionally been considered an open commons where no one has standing to impose rules. This is mainly because governments found it a bigger loss to fight over control of ocean territory than to just declare it a free for all. This meant that any attempt to develop order on the high seas would be met with harassment as soon as any state in the region objected. Thus, private ocean fishery management, to the extent it has existed has been confined to species harvested near coastlines.

OK, now keep going . . .

Realizing that timber depletion is the likely result of this process, the timber companies enter into an agreement to limit production at a sustainable level and create a trade association to verify this. (Actually the trade association probably already existed to specify standard lumber grades and sizes. They just add a new function.)

The above assumes that such timberland owners would even get this far. It's much more likely that they would never initiate the clear-cutting competition on the correct conclusion that it would ultimately lead nowhere useful. We have a way to empirically test this since if public lands actually provided an "outlet" for clear-cutting we would expect privately owned timberland to be use more wisely in the western U.S. than the eastern (due to the vast differences in the amount of public land). I'm under the impression that, if anything, the reverse is true.

The New England fishing industry is a mess. My niece is down in Carolina Coastal working towards an career in fisheries management. She intends to go to Alaska for a few years to learn how government oversight of the resources ought to work, then return to Massachusetts where the tradition of seeing the ocean as an infinite resource which every family fisherman has an infinite right to exploit has collapsed some very rich fisheries.

I've also been watching the PBS Ken Burns series on the national parks. They showed a lot of images of the old clear cut logging style. They hit the conservation good unregulated industry bad meme hard and believably.

Capitalism is focused towards profits, while the government is focused for the common good, at least when capitalism hasn't got too much influence over the politicians. Slowly, various industries are accepting that careful resource management has to be part of how they do business. Too slowly. One has to rub their noses in it before they will see it.

Factory farming is another current example. Chicken and pig farms are on the edge of turning Chesapeake Bay and other areas into an oxygen free dead zone. Fertilizers flowing down the Mississippi are creating another dead zone off the delta that can get as large as Rhode Island. Agricultural interests are stonewalling action.

After the government finally gets its act together industry might accept the idea of responsibility to the community, but historically industry alliances have fought for irresponsible policies with everything they have.

The last few posts come on the heels of my finishing the excellent Ken Burns PBS series NATIONAL PARKS: America's Best Idea. Much of the 12 hours captured the essence of this debate. Anyone who thinks that the free market is going to be controlled by market forces or simply doing the right thing should watch this series and see how this nation came very close to not having the beautiful areas like Yosemite and the Redwood Forests. The Gilded Age happened for a reason and it stopped for a reason also.

I remember watching CLOCKWORK ORANGE and seeing Malcolm McDowell with his eyes forced open and having to watch a film to change his sociopathic thinking. Perhaps something along those lines could be done with the libertarians or anarchists regarding the NATIONAL PARKS series...... I say half jokingly.

Originally Posted by Odin

This Xinos freak can got to hell!

He sounds like kind of an isolated crank, Taylor.

People like libraries and tend to advocate for them pretty fiercely when they're under attack.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

..." Anyone who thinks that the free market is going to be controlled by market forces or simply doing the right thing should watch this series and see how this nation came very close to not having the beautiful areas like Yosemite and the Redwood Forests. The Gilded Age happened for a reason and it stopped for a reason also....

Great series. I found it ironic that much funding for national parks & monuments came from Gilded Age money.

It is ironic that once the robber barons made their fortunes a few of them decided to use some of the money for good. Carnegie and the libraries come to mind. In Burns series, it was neat how Stephen Mather came upon some redwoods and bought them on the spot and then donated them to the park system. Money does have its uses.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

It is ironic that once the robber barons made their fortunes a few of them decided to use some of the money for good. Carnegie and the libraries come to mind. In Burns series, it was neat how Stephen Mather came upon some redwoods and bought them on the spot and then donated them to the park system. Money does have its uses.

Yep. Through the unraveling, it has been fashionable to sneer at the American political dynasty families, such as the Kennedies and the Bushes. The National Parks series, however, is full of people who are so rich they don't have to worry about getting richer, so they try to do something good. The Roosevelts and Rockefellers were the most recognizable names among the 'good' robber barons, but there were quite a few others that figured strongly in the history of the parks.

There were more that were vile, however.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

It is ironic that once the robber barons made their fortunes a few of them decided to use some of the money for good. Carnegie and the libraries come to mind. In Burns series, it was neat how Stephen Mather came upon some redwoods and bought them on the spot and then donated them to the park system. Money does have its uses.

Conscience and a love of beauty can do wonders. Add that they have about the cleanest air (of pollen) of any environment other than polar regions, the open seas, and extreme deserts... redwoods don't need much pollen.

Really, the giant redwoods have little value as timber, as their wood has little tensile strength. The only structures for which redwood wood is appropriate is redwood trees themselves.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The New England fishing industry is a mess. My niece is down in Carolina Coastal working towards an career in fisheries management. She intends to go to Alaska for a few years to learn how government oversight of the resources ought to work, then return to Massachusetts where the tradition of seeing the ocean as an infinite resource which every family fisherman has an infinite right to exploit has collapsed some very rich fisheries.

There are some deep problems, driven by the government. See here. Only this year have they finally come up with a reasonable plan for cod fisheries.

Basically the process went like this:
1) The fishery was fine, then huge foreign ships arrived. Fishermen had no recourse.
2) The U.S. government kicked out the foreign ships and then went about subsidizing the construction of new and larger vessels.
3) The cod population was decimated and fishing restrictions were implemented including an expensive permitting system that locks out a lot of the smaller, older, fishing boats.
4) Finally, they're going to assign shared regions and implement something akin to property rights which the whole system has crucially lacked from the beginning.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I've also been watching the PBS Ken Burns series on the national parks. They showed a lot of images of the old clear cut logging style. They hit the conservation good unregulated industry bad meme hard and believably.

Burns? You may also wish to learn Roman history from reading the Aeneid.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Capitalism is focused towards profits, while the government is focused for the common good, at least when capitalism hasn't got too much influence over the politicians.

When was that precisely? Several people have noted the "irony" of the key role captains of industry played in the conservation movement. It's only ironic if you persist in buying the ahistorical notion of a "conflict" between Big Business and Big Government.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Factory farming is another current example. Chicken and pig farms are on the edge of turning Chesapeake Bay and other areas into an oxygen free dead zone. Fertilizers flowing down the Mississippi are creating another dead zone off the delta that can get as large as Rhode Island. Agricultural interests are stonewalling action.

Gosh, I wonder why fishermen have no standing to sue and agricultural interests dominate all the water control boards. Must be those pesky markets . . .

The key here in all these examples is to internalize costs with the actors themselves. In so many circumstances, you have industries using the law to push costs onto other people (consumers, competitors, taxpayers, other industries, etc.). It seems to me that the principle to guide regulation should be to find ways to internalize externalities. If you have a market process that isn't leaky (i.e. costs are borne by the actors themselves) then you get good results. To the extent that the system facilitates cost-shifting, bad behavior creeps in.

Kurt, from your link about the New England fishing situation:

"But between 1963 and 1974, New England's groundfish declined by almost 70 percent, according to US government statistics. So many trawlers were on the water, Dykstra remembers nights at sea lit up like Times Square.

"Dykstra, then president of the Point Judith Fishermen's Cooperative Association, Rhode Island fishermen who collectively processed and marketed their catch, suggested a one-sentence law: No one but US fishermen could fish within US waters.

"It took more than 50 pages to finally say it, but in 1976, Congress passed a bill now known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. The law, which claimed all fishing rights within 200 miles of the American coast, took effect in 1977.

"The foreign trawlers were kicked out, and American fishermen had the fishing to themselves -- and, before long, a new problem."

So here we have an initial problem that arose not because of government regulation but because of government inaction. The U.S. government failed to do its proper job, and then afterwards did some of the wrong things. It acted to encourage the expansion and modernization of U.S. fishing fleets beyond sustainability. But the fishermen themselves were no wiser:

"Now, the fishermen were clanking mugs together and boasting about steel-hulled boats and newly painted pilothouses. They took daily bets on who would bring home the biggest catch.

"With the foreign trawlers gone, and with government assistance pouring in, an irrational exuberance had taken hold. Landings of cod and other fish shot up, and the money poured in.

" 'The times were high,' remembers Vito Calomo, who finished building a new steel-hulled boat, the Italian Gold, in 1980. 'Fishermen wanted to have bragging rights. Their chest would come out like they won the Olympics, and it was all about who could catch the most fish the fastest.' "

This illustrates what I was saying about competitive pressure not lending itself to long-term gain, and encouraging short-term thinking. The government subsidies for modernization made this process happen somewhat faster than it otherwise would have, but it would still have happened without those subsidies.

You are of course absolutely right about the government operating too much at the behest of corporate interests; nothing new there. But that things would be better if it simply got out of the way does not follow. In most cases, what we have is a situation where the government fails to act, and it would not cure the problem merely to eliminate the comparatively few instances in which it acts wrongly. And you are also right, probably, about internalizing currently-external costs; however, consider the implications of that. Whether it's done through regulations or through laws that can be enforced in civil court, government action is necessary to require the actors to pay the costs. A farmer whose fertilizer pollutes a river does not naturally pay the price for that, others do. Similar problems developed in the ancient world downriver from major cities and their sewage discharge, without any government action being responsible. (Unless you count the building of public sewers to start with, and you shouldn't, because the same thing would happen if people simply hauled their wastes to the river and dumped them.)

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

So here we have an initial problem that arose not because of government regulation but because of government inaction. The U.S. government failed to do its proper job, and then afterwards did some of the wrong things.

This is a fair assessment. Since the core justification for having government is to prevent people from hurting one another, then expelling the foreign fishermen (whose arrival had destabilized the fishery) was something that one should expect from government. Alas, the way this actually played out suggests that libertarian class analysis (the idea that law is actually a secondary function of the state) is more realistic than the naive democratic idea that government works for all of us.

That's not to say that the idea of accountable government is nonsense, it just needs to be seen as an ideal to be striven for. All too often you will hear the "government works for us" line used as an argument for obedience and to silence criticism. Several of the liberal posters here have used some variation of this quit-your-bitching argument. Sadly, that argument completely undermines the beneficial ideal of accountable government by encouraging acquiescence to bad policy on the grounds that "we" chose it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

This illustrates what I was saying about competitive pressure not lending itself to long-term gain, and encouraging short-term thinking. The government subsidies for modernization made this process happen somewhat faster than it otherwise would have, but it would still have happened without those subsidies.

We don't know for certain what would have occurred in the absence of subsidies. The fact that it didn't happen in the long history of New England fishing until the exact period when boat production was subsidized tends to argue otherwise.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

In most cases, what we have is a situation where the government fails to act, and it would not cure the problem merely to eliminate the comparatively few instances in which it acts wrongly.

I disagree that it is comparatively few, but I can support this general statement. A government that purports to be providing law and fails to do so is doing just as much damage as if it were providing dysfunctional law.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

And you are also right, probably, about internalizing currently-external costs; however, consider the implications of that. Whether it's done through regulations or through laws that can be enforced in civil court, government action is necessary to require the actors to pay the costs.

Law does need enforcement, although generally the only "force" needed is the desire of the loser of a case to maintain the legal system. You obey the judgment of a court because you wish others to obey judgments in your favor. This is why people need to believe they're being fairly treated by the law (they will avoid the law or make their own if they don't) and this is also why heavy, direct use of force by a state is often a sign of impending collapse.

You've argued that there are "a lot of assholes" and thus, coercion is required for social stability. But the percentage of miscreants in society is not a fixed value. If government doesn't treat you fairly, you will avoid the law and will likely become one of the miscreants. Many Americans, especially the poor and minorities, have early direct experiences with violent, capricious and malicious law enforcement. This predisposes them against the law. I have no idea what the baseline miscreant percentage is, but I am absolutely certain that we are way higher than the baseline right now and lots more force isn't going to fix that; in fact it's causing the problem.

I fully admit that libertarians are more sensitive to institutional coercion than other political groups. I also admit that this makes us perennially inclined to question the legitimacy of our current government. But that skepticism is precisely what our society needs. You can't just trust the government, you must continually demand that it prove itself. The national security state, in particular, is dependent upon people failing to question the government. How else did people come to believe in Iraqi WMDs despite an almost total lack of evidence?

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

We don't know for certain what would have occurred in the absence of subsidies. The fact that it didn't happen in the long history of New England fishing until the exact period when boat production was subsidized tends to argue otherwise.

The technology wasn't available until concurrently with the subsidies, though, so that really proves nothing.

You've argued that there are "a lot of assholes" and thus, coercion is required for social stability. But the percentage of miscreants in society is not a fixed value. If government doesn't treat you fairly, you will avoid the law and will likely become one of the miscreants.

When I refer to people predisposed to be assholes, I'm beginning my visualization from a hypothetical lawless base. It's not a question of obedience to the law but of compassion for other people and basic civic responsibility. I've certainly broken the law in the past (few Boomers haven't), but I don't think that makes me an asshole. Theft, violence, fraud, cruelty, callousness, these are what I mean by being an asshole, and whether one is disposed to this sort of behavior has little to do with whether one is respectful of the law per se.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

The key here in all these examples is to internalize costs with the actors themselves. In so many circumstances, you have industries using the law to push costs onto other people (consumers, competitors, taxpayers, other industries, etc.). It seems to me that the principle to guide regulation should be to find ways to internalize externalities. If you have a market process that isn't leaky (i.e. costs are borne by the actors themselves) then you get good results. To the extent that the system facilitates cost-shifting, bad behavior creeps in.

I can agree with the principle of internalizing costs, though I would disagree with any notion that industry or the capitalist class will spontaneously internalize themselves. Industrialists and big agriculture do not generally voluntarily take an ecological perspective. If there is a resource to manage, or a form of pollution being released, I would expect big business to lobby government to maximize profits in the short term rather than seeking to manage resources and the environment for the long term.

Thus, Purdue and other chicken growing organizations around the Chesapeake and the country are resisting responsibility for waste flow into the local water. Thus agricultural interests throughout the Mississippi watershed and elsewhere are resisting management of nitrate outflow. Thus, industry that burns anything is resisting the principle of a carbon tax. Thus, the fishing industry has been fighting catch limits on principle.

Thus I can agree entirely with the principle of internalizing costs, but disagree with the anarchist / libertarian delusion that industry if left alone will be responsible. The majority of companies that exist for profit should be expected to act for short term profit rather than for long term best utilization of resources. Thus, government generally has a role to play.

I think a good sized part of the problem is a campaign finance system which leaves politicians acting more on the behalf of for-profit entities than on the behalf of the voting public. Thus, I think the revolutionary change could involve a push for direct vote democracy rather than representative democracy. However, I don't anticipate that the last is apt to be achieved this crisis.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The technology wasn't available until concurrently with the subsidies, though, so that really proves nothing.

Hard to say. My main counterargument would be that implementing technology costs money and rather than the transition occurring all at once, causing overshoot, the process would have been spread out, making the overfishing easier to notice and more likely to be dealt with before it got out of control.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I've certainly broken the law in the past (few Boomers haven't), but I don't think that makes me an asshole. Theft, violence, fraud, cruelty, callousness, these are what I mean by being an asshole, and whether one is disposed to this sort of behavior has little to do with whether one is respectful of the law per se.

I don't think very many people are inherently disposed to this sort of behavior (i.e. born that way). Social environment matters a great deal and while it is not the sole factor, the way in which one is treated by those tasked with law enforcement will definitely color one's view of justice. A sizable minority of our culture experiences the law primarily in the form of abuse and harassment. This leads to a belief that violent friends are the only real protection anyone can ever have (and moreover, that police are someone else's violent friends). On the other end of the social ladder, it is crucial to have accountability for criminal activity, otherwise cruel behavior gains the advantage.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a number of liberals who want to "believe in" the system more than they want to actually ensure good outcomes. Thus, as long as Obama says the U.S. doesn't torture, they don't care that it is plainly obvious that it has done so and that there is no drive to punish anyone responsible for it. Consent to the state cannot be unconditional, otherwise it ceases to be consent and becomes obedience.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I don't think very many people are inherently disposed to this sort of behavior (i.e. born that way).

There's where we disagree. What it comes down to is empathy or lack thereof. A large minority of the human species is sufficiently lacking in empathy to predispose them to taking advantage of others to the extent opportunity exists and they think they can get away with it. That's the way it's always been throughout history in every society that has ever actually existed, so if it is due to environmental factors rather than genetic ones, the causative environmental factors are universal and certainly not due to government. (Since the same spread of behaviors can be seen in precivilized societies that had no formal government.) For that matter, you can see the same spread of behavior in any high school. I actually do think that it has a large genetic component, although like most complex human behaviors it's not a simple one or the other.

It's not that everyone is like that; plenty of people are endowed with empathy and not naturally inclined to be assholes. If you could have a society that is entirely composed of non-assholes, there would be no need for coercive mechanisms of any kind. But how can you do that? Certainly it's never been done before on any lasting basis.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Thus I can agree entirely with the principle of internalizing costs, but disagree with the anarchist / libertarian delusion that industry if left alone will be responsible.

No one is making that argument (or at least, I'm not). Law is clearly necessary for a functional society. Libertarians (among others) point out flaws in the way the law is created and enforced. There is a rhetorical failing among many libertarians to critique regulation in terms that imply that no rules are needed at all, or rather that civil law doesn't count as a set of rules.

To me, the correct argument against regulatory agencies is that they are extremely unlikely to produce the outcomes desired by their (honest) proponents. Regulatory agencies are easily captured by an interest group -- usually the regulated industry itself* -- and this dramatically increases the likelihood of unjust outcomes. I don't think the choice between regulation and no rules is an idea worth contending with since when you properly define terms, no one, not even anarchists, actually believe in the latter.



* I should also note that instances where regulatory bodies are captured by persons hostile to the industry are rare, but do occur. Alas, many libertarians talk as if this is the more common outcome which no doubt contributes to the common view that libertarians must be pro-corporate.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There's where we disagree. What it comes down to is empathy or lack thereof. A large minority of the human species is sufficiently lacking in empathy to predispose them to taking advantage of others to the extent opportunity exists and they think they can get away with it.

I think this is a statement that needs both justification and clarification. How big is this large minority? One in 1000? One in 100? One in 10? Nearly half? Also, how do you substantiate this "inherent" lack of empathy and distinguish it from social and institutional factors?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

It's not that everyone is like that; plenty of people are endowed with empathy and not naturally inclined to be assholes. If you could have a society that is entirely composed of non-assholes, there would be no need for coercive mechanisms of any kind.

The issue is not the use of coercion, but the use of coercion upon non-assholes which all governments are routinely guilty of. Now, I realize that the justice of any particular circumstance is a matter of dispute and that some amount of accidental violence to innocents is going to occur in any society. However, present governments don't try particularly hard to confine their use of coercion to the jerks. They're fairly indiscriminate and, in fact, jerks often manage to be a part of the government and are thus given a stamp of approval for their behavior.

The obvious response is to have proper limits on the government. But, as pointed out before, any sufficiently limited government is indistinguishable from anarchy. So, thus, anarchism is a perfectly reasonable position for anyone of a broadly liberal persuasion as long as they don't cling to it as an imminent possibility.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But how can you do that? Certainly it's never been done before on any lasting basis.

Nope, and that's why anarchism only makes sense as a futurist, rather than primitivist, idea.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

The issue is not the use of coercion, but the use of coercion upon non-assholes which all governments are routinely guilty of. Now, I realize that the justice of any particular circumstance is a matter of dispute and that some amount of accidental violence to innocents is going to occur in any society. However, present governments don't try particularly hard to confine their use of coercion to the jerks. They're fairly indiscriminate and, in fact, jerks often manage to be a part of the government and are thus given a stamp of approval for their behavior.

The obvious response is to have proper limits on the government. But, as pointed out before, any sufficiently limited government is indistinguishable from anarchy. So, thus, anarchism is a perfectly reasonable position for anyone of a broadly liberal persuasion as long as they don't cling to it as an imminent possibility.

One problem would be a wide disagreement about what various people would think a 'sufficiently limited government' would be. Some anarchists propose that the state cannot coerce at all, and that mandatory taxes are coercion.

In discussions with JPT on distinguishing between Marxists and Democrats, I noted there was a big difference between Democrats seeking to set up a proper balance of power between labor and management, while Marxists would want to destroy the capitalist class entirely. Marxism is a totalitarian world view. The objective is not to compromise, but to utterly destroy.

Many anarchists are similar to Marxists in working towards utter annihilation of the state rather than setting up optimal balances of power between conflicting interests. I consider this difference important, especially as I believe humans are social animals that naturally function in the context of a group with leaders, territories and rules.

I can agree that many current modern governments include too many jerks. I can agree that jerks from the capitalist ruling class have too much influence with the jerks in government. I can agree we need additional checks on the jerks to rectify the sorts of government we have seen throughout human history.

I'm not convinced that the resulting sufficiently limited government would necessarily be mistaken for anarchy save by someone who is creatively redefining the word 'anarchy'. We need more firm checks on jerks, not less. We need a stronger state in many respects, not a weaker one. That government which governs less does not necessarily govern best.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

To me, the correct argument against regulatory agencies is that they are extremely unlikely to produce the outcomes desired by their (honest) proponents.

This is more true of complex regulation. One of the most effective forms of regulation and also one of the simplest is confiscatory taxation on the very rich. Libertarians usually oppose taxation because they see it as theft. But taxation of the very wealthy is not theft in the sense that libertarians care about.

To see this one needs to consider what is money/wealth? For most people money has four broad applications that make it desirable: (1) security (2) freedom, (3) fun (4) status.

Money provides security because if you have enough of it, you don't have to worry about getting sick (you can pay the medical bills) or losing your job (you can live on the interest) or other financial mishaps of life.

Money can provide freedom because you can hire someone else to do tasks you don't want to do, freeing up your time to do what you want.

Fun and status are self explanatory.

The first three of these become saturated if you have enough money and so cease to have meaning. If you have enough money you will be covered against all mishaps and more money will gain you no more security. Similarly at some point you will be able to hire someone to do everything in your life you don't want to do and you have all of our time free time, if that is what you want. In this case, more money will not increase your freedom. The same is true of fun. There is only so much time and only so much fun you want to have. Once you have enough money to afford it all, more money will not grant you more fun.

So all that is left is status. For the very rich, the only value of money is for status. As Ted Turner put it, money is how we keep score.

But score is not absolute. What is better, to have 70 points in a basketball game when the other team has 100, or to have 7 points in a baseball game when the other team has 5? Most people would say the latter is better because with 7 points you are winning, whereas with 70 points you are losing.

And so we have it. Is Larry Ellison better off with $30 billion to Bill Gates' fifty, or with 5 billion to Bill's $3 billion? Larry is better off (i.e. he wins) whenever Bill has less than Larry, regardless of the absolute amount Larry actually has.

So if you pass confiscatory taxation on the very rich in an even handed fashion so that you do not affect their rank order, you will have taken nothing from them in terms of the enjoyment of their property. That is, their pursuit of happiness (the term Jefferson chose as a synonym for property in the Declaration of Independence) is unaffected.

That is, if one defines property as the "wherewithal with which one seeks the good life" taxation of the very rich takes from them no property at all and so does not constitute theft in the same way as does taxation of the non-rich.

There is a caveat. Money/wealth/property is also power, particularly in a capitalist society. There is no saturation for power, more power is always better than les--for those who desire power.

Thus there is a fifth use for wealth, that correlates with wealth with no limit. Taxation of the very rich does reduce their power. That is, taxation of the very rich is theft of their power, that is, their ability to subjugate/enslave other men.

But libertarians are by their very nature, not particularly sympathetic to others' need to dominate, so why the distaste for taxation on the very rich?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

But libertarians are by their very nature, not particularly sympathetic to others' need to dominate, so why the distaste for taxation on the very rich?

Because they've been bulls**tted by the powers that be... and either don't realize it, or are in denial of it.