The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently".
Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options.
If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them?
Or if they are providing value, why don't they make money? Perhaps they could provide some services for free and charge for others. Or profitably provide some services very cheaply.
Actually, the libertarian stance is closer to "I have an inherent human right not to pay taxes that outweighs the public good of having things like libraries." There's some handwaving about voluntary charity, but if voluntary charity worked, no one would have invented public services to begin with, and the typical libertarian doesn't really care anyway.
I was trying to present the good side of libertarianism.
The argument you present for libertarians is bad and borderline shameful (and, I think, not representative of the majority of libertarians. but certainly something some of them would say). But there much better arguments with similar conclusions.
The main reason it's an awful position, in my view, is that it's premised on conflicts of interest and compromise -- some things outweigh others, and there are losers which must lose while having legitimate points. It views life as a mixed bag, with inevitable suffering and sacrifice and loss.
This is not the position of, for example, Ayn Rand who argued in Virtue of Selfishness chapter 4 for a very different worldview in which there are no conflicts of interest among rational men.
Your claim that if voluntary charity worked, no one would have invented public services in the first place is incorrect. If voluntary charity didn't work in the context in which Government was first invented, that absolutely doesn't imply that a more sophisticated version of voluntary charity could not work today in a rather different world.
This is exactly the position of Ayn Rand, especially the part about not really caring if poor people get to have things like libraries or housing or food. To Ayn Rand, a "rational" homeless person would rather stave to death on the streets than accept the first crumb of unearned bread or a single night's sleep under an unearned roof. The only reason there's no conflict for Rand is because Rand doesn't recognize a legitimate interest in public goods, but only private goods gained through mutually beneficial transactions. To Rand, there's no rational interest in having a public library, so there is no rational conflict between the wealthy taxpayer and the impoverished library patron. Randroidism is one of the most brutal and shameful forms of libertarianism.
Rand doesn't recognize a legitimate interest in public goods,...
This is simply false. In Atlas Shrugged, she explicitly acknowledges that providing public goods is a legitimate function of government, and taxation is legitimate insofar as at it used to pay for public goods. If I remember correctly (it's been a long time), it was Hank Reardon who states this point.
I believe a (fair) judge was also allowed into Galt's Gulch, though I might be misremembering this point. As I said, it's been a long time since I read the book.
On the plus side, I don't think there are many hardline Randians. In technology, I would guess that libertarianism boils down to some mixture of: 1) being really annoyed about civil-liberties, EFF-type issues; 2) being moderately annoyed about regulations seen as unnecessary; and 3) being mildly-to-moderately annoyed about taxes.
Varies by person, but I think if you took a vote even restricted to people in Silicon Valley who actively called themselves "libertarian-leaning", over whether libraries should get some funding, the answer would probably still be "yes". Not too many people are actively against libraries; I think they get cut more because, unfortunately, their constituency isn't as powerful as other things that might be cut instead.
We're an odd bunch, and there are certainly plenty of technical folks who are logical-minded enough to get themselves into some hardline position or another, but hardline Randians are probably a minority of any group you could think of, except for the group of hardline Randians of course.
You're wrong and should stop hating people you're ignorant of.
I'll give brief examples in hopes you, recognizing you really were wrong about some basic facts, will either learn about the subject or stop making nasty, ignorant accusations in the future.
Ayn Rand did not have a policy of "never accept handouts", said so, and, for example, signed up for medicaid.
Ayn Rand's argument I cited does not consist of denying there are public goods. Whatever her position on public goods, if you read the chapter, public goods are simply not what she talks about, and your comments do not address the argument she did make.
Ayn Rand rejected and harshly criticized libertarianism. Calling her a libertarian is ignorant.
I was a fanatical Randroid myself in my younger years, and while she may not have gone as far as "never accept handouts", she did go as far as "never expect handouts", and in Rand's system there is explicitly no right or expectation to anything unearned.
Rand's opposition to "libertarians" was purely a personal dislike of the people in Rand's time who called themselves libertarians. Most sensible definitions of the word "libertarian", ranging anywhere from "an advocate for limited government" to "an advocate of the non-aggression principle" easily entail Rand's philosophy.
Finally, while I think Ayn Rand was irrational or just plain wrong in many aspects of her philosophy and in her personal and political dealings, and while I think her philosophy has frankly horrific consequences, I don't hate the woman. I actually have a degree of fondness for her, and her role in my intellectual development.
I'm in the same boat. I used to think that Rand had legitimate points and that hey, a society like that could work.
Of course, I was fifteen at the time. Finding the intellectual discipline necessary to realize that Rand's philosophy was predicated on nonsense and that I had been wrong was important to my intellectual development.
I was a "communist" when I was 15. Visiting the Soviet Union taught me just how wrong I was.
I'm gently worried that young people aren't allowed to make similar mistakes - reading the wrong websites or sending the wrong tweets can be really harmful to some people's lives.
"The parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die."
I think what Rothbard and Rand both illustrate is the flaw of letting logical consistency override every other consideration, including basic human decency and moral intuition, when developing one's moral sense.
Do you think you have the right to something that someone else has to work to produce? That's what Rand was against. You don't have a right to use force to cause someone else to work for your benefit.
There is a pretty clear logical flaw here. Nothing is produced in a vacuum. Your ability to create, to generate wealth, is heavily reliant on the infrastructure and services provided by your society (electricity, defense, roads, education, etc).
In other words, if Bill Gates had been born in Somalia, chances are he wouldn't be nearly as successful.
Taxation is how you repay your debt to the society that enabled your success.
Actually, Rand's view was that government wouldn't provide electricity, roads and education. These goods and services would be private and paid for by the people who wanted to use them.
Defense was a different matter, in that in her view, that was one of the legitimate functions of government -- protecting the individual rights of the citizens.
Rand acknowledged that every generation stands on the shoulders of the productive people who came before them.
Yes, if Bill Gates was born in Somalia he probably wouldn't have followed the path he did. If Somalia was a nation where individual rights were respected, as Rand advocated, everyone in Somalia would be much better off.
I don't think it's best to frame the question in terms of rights. If you're asking whether it's morally justified to tax millionaires in order to feed and house the homeless, my answer is yes.
> if voluntary charity worked, no one would have invented public services to begin with
Not to judge this particular use of tax money but of course they would -- it's in the direct interest of the reigning bureaucracy, or any bureaucracy, to expand its scope whether it's necessary or beneficial to the society. It's the same with departments fighting over budget and new hirees.
So, your argument is that the Romans built roads not because they were useful to society and under-provided by private enterprise but because the road-building bureaucracy was expanding its power.
My argument is that the fact that any particular stretch of road was built doesn't prove its usefulness or superiority over alternative means of transportation. Though considering much more limited resources and greater personal interest of people in office (and options to enrich themselves), I would guess that Roman bureaucracy couldn't be as wasteful as current first world governments.
Your snide tone is neither necessary nor justified.
I'm sure the Roman empire had its share of expanding bureaucracy--after all the eastern chunk of the empire which later broke off did coin the term "byzantine"--but your point is valid.
That might explain the growth of an existing bureaucracy, but not the creation of a new one. There's no existing bureaucracy that expanded its way into social welfare or public libraries, those were created democratically when people voted for candidates who promised to create those services.
Voluntary charity was the origins of public services. The nineteenth century was very libertarian by modern standards, but there were a wave of charitable moves, everything from libraries (Carnegie), homes for the poor (Peabody, many more, even charitable housing investment companies), drinking water, universities and education. This was in a time when stopping children working was seen as intervention in the free market.
The success of this meant that the state got involved, as the benefits were so large and clear, and more was clearly needed.
Police, Emergency and Fire departments are all "good" and "provide value" however they are not profitable. Nor do people run out to voluntarily pay for them. And there are a few cases where counties/municipalities created subscription like fees for these to the effect of somebody losing a house to a fire while the fire fighters stood to watch.
This is the core of the problem with "no taxes" - principally it's good on paper. In reality it's more complicated than that.
Early fire departments were run by insurance companies to fight fires on their customers' properties. Those who couldn't afford insurance would be left to burn.
Ancient Rome had a fire brigade, run by Marcus Licinius Crassus, who you might remember as the villain from the 1960s Spartacus film. He and his crew would arrive at the scene of a fire to save your home from going up in flames...if you sold it to him.
I didn't know about this and it's quite interesting. But I wonder why it no longer exists this way? Is there a reason why a "for-profit" discontinued a service like this?
EDIT: Seems I found a clue ....
"In 1862 insurance companies told the government that they were unwilling to be responsible for London’s fire protection as the cost of compensation was becoming too high. The government decided that the Metropolitan Board of Works would take control."
It's also worth remembering that fires spread. If the house two doors down is on fire you better hope they and the house next door have insurance (and remembered to pay the bill this month).
You hit the nail on the head which naive interpretations of libertarian isolationism often miss -- unchecked problems spread viz fire, pollution, garbage, disease outbreaks, crime and poverty.
As one's liver combats the effects of pollution in your bloodstream by filtering it, so, as a society, we have developed certain organs to combat the degrading effects of similar sorts of problems.
People aren't asked to voluntarily pay for the police force, however people in the middle class and above do pay for security services which approximates a part of what the police do.
People also pay for detective services when the police fail, are unwilling, or are not tasked to inquire into a particular crime. Also people pay investigative services for breech of contract civil offenses that the police generally do not aid with.
People additionally form themselves into neighborhood watches, and voluntarily take up the general duty of a beat cop.
All these services that people are providing for themselves with their own sweat, money, and private organization are good wholesome things. Should they also become the sole providence of the government as well to perform in a beaurocratic and mayhaps inefficient manner?
Answer yea or nay, but think about it.... that's the crux of libertarian thought: thinking about everything in that manner and not just taking for granted that if something has been a government service for generations, then it should continue to be one in the future.
The crux of libertarian thought is that public services like the police can be entirely replaced by voluntary organizations--that the neighborhood watch or private detectives should assume the powers of, say, arresting people and putting them in jail.
Yes, the logical conclusion of libertarian thought is anarchy (in the sense of no government at all, not communism or syndicalism). Some people might think that is a horrible state of affairs. But, no taxes, right? And without pesky immigration and border control, you can just move if you don't like the way the people's justice system is treating you.
The neighborhood watch can already commit citizens arrests in certain circumstances.
Private detectives provide investigative materials that are used in civil courts.
It's already happened.
---
Now libertarian thoguht doesn't say just because you can replace something by a voluntary institution then you should.
However, you should think about the scenario.
The alternative, more mainstream viewpoint, is that the government should provide for certain goods because it is assumed that the private sector won't or shouldn't do it. There's no reasoning behind it, its just taken as a given.
Libertarians are generally the ones making assumptions--that the private sector will provide health care to everyone without government regulation, that the private sector will provide housing, food, and other necessities to the poor and elderly without government assistance, that the private sector will refrain from pumping poisonous substances into the air and water without government regulation, and so forth. There's insufficient empirical evidence that any of this would happen, but it means less taxes and less government so it must be good.
There's a darker strain of libertarians who genuinely don't care whether the congenitally frail receive health care or whether the poor can afford food and shelter, because there's no human right to food and shelter, but there is a human right not to pay taxes. Even most libertarians shy away from this by asserting that somehow private charity will take care of it all, but the empirical evidence is insufficient.
“A healthy, 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides: You know what? I'm not going to spend 200 or 300 dollars a month for health insurance, because I'm healthy; I don't need it,” Blitzer said. “But you know, something terrible happens; all of a sudden, he needs it. Who's going to pay for it, if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?
“What he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself,” Paul said. ”My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not before —"
“But he doesn't have that,” Blitzer said. “He doesn't have it and he's — and he needs — he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?”
“That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks.,” Paul said, repeating the standard libertarian view as some in the audience cheered.
“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die,” Blitzer asked.
“Yeah,” came the shout from the audience. That affirmative was repeated at least three times.
-- LA Times article "Support at GOP debate for letting the uninsured die" [1]
You're probably referring to the case of a city fire department that offers service to its (tax-paying) residents, but charges an annual fee for residents outside the city limits. When one of those houses in unincorporated land is on fire but hasn't paid their fee, then - once they have ensured no lives are at risk - they choose to let it burn.
> ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options.
if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.
You seem to have no idea what the libertarian position is. So I'll try to help:
Just because something is super good and super useful -- and uncontroversially worthwhile -- like groceries, cars, delivery of packages, the production of beds, health care, retirement savings, and so on ... absolutely does not imply that the Government should be paying for it with tax money.
Libertarians believe that Government is kind of like a really big bureaucratic company, except even less efficient and poorly managed in most respects, and instead of pitching investors (say) it sometimes just takes their money against their will. If something is important and we want it run well and efficiently, all the more reason to keep Government away from it.
The reason to involve Government in something is when Government's unique talents and position are helpful. Most good things can be provided without Government and therefore should be provided without Government.
Government has a more legitimate role to play when we need:
1) massive scale. our Government is big which is, in a few cases, an advantage
2) when we're dealing with law (courts) or force (police, military, CIA) because it's very tricky to let non-Government people do a lot in these areas
Government is also useful for things which have massive positive externalities. Education is the paradigmatic example.
Libraries are also an example of a good where maintaining the "option to buy" is potentially more important than any service you consume. In other words, having a big pile of books in a building, available for close to no cost, enables us all to act more freely -- knowing we can get more information when we need it.
What "massive positive externalities" are created by a library?
The sole benefit you describe, namely the ability to borrow books, is a private benefit. I borrow a book, read it and enjoy it. What benefit does this create for anyone besides me?
Since I am the sole beneficiary, the library can charge me for it, and prevent me from consuming it if I don't pay. Why should you be forced to pay for me to receive these benefits? Should you also be forced to pay for my netflix subscription?
Having an educated populace is essential to a democratic society. It's the same reason we have public education and also why the freedom of the press is enshrined in our constitution.
I benefit from library's near me that I have never been to. They among other things reduce crime in my area which then reduces the need for shops in my area to protect themselves at night, which allows for both lower prices and longer hours. Could other things provide the same benefit, of course video games also reduce crime.
But, the choice is not to eliminate these library's and watching identical private ones pop up, it's between having them and not, and by having them I benefit more than it costs me for them to be there.
First, where I live (India), libraries are provided by the private sector. So clearly market forces can provided libraries.
Second, how much crime is prevented by libraries? Is this the cheapest way to prevent crime? Or would it be cheaper to devote the money to a few more beat cops?
The US library system far supposes India's. There would a few library's near me without public funds. But, most of them would shut down so an equivalent private option does not actually exist.
Is it the cheapest way to prevent crime? Is a leading question. Where I live we spend a lot of money on a wide range of things from beat cops to parks and street lights that prevent crime. And library's provide many other services than just crime prevention.
A more realistic question might be; Assume 10% of their useful function to me was crime prevention would reallocating 10% of their funding to something else above and beyond what we already spend on it prevent more crime? And the answer to that question is no.
PS: In theory we might be able to say use subliminal messages to prevent crime more cheaply. But, of the options that are actually being considered Library's are surprisingly cost effective.
No, the issue isn't their useful function, the issue is their public benefit.
The cost/benefit to evaluate public subsidies is (public benefits) / (public costs). If 90% of the benefits of a library are gained by the users, then it's highly likely that this will be negative.
In such cases, a mixed model is best - i.e., if 10% of the benefits are public, 90% private, then a 10% subsidy for libraries might be justified.
But, Public Benefit always = Sum of all Private Benefits. You may be thinking direct benefit vs external benefit, but as everyone utility functions are separate their share of the public benefit is different. I specifically mentioned my personal cost (as a share of the public cost) and my personal (indirect) benefit to help clarify the issue, but I think you missed that point.
Cost and benefit are also independent. It possible for a Polio vaccine to provide 100,000 times the public benefit relative to it's cost (eliminating a disease for all time can easily be worth vaccinating people on the other side of the planet). Research can also easily have that magnitude benefit ratio's.
And (public benefits) / (public costs) is only negative if public benefits or public costs are negative you might be thinking Benefits - Costs but that does not really fit the rest of your equations either. Anyway, the idea that public subsidy's should not exceed the ratio of (individual benefit) / (public benefit) sounds good until the public benefit exceeds the cost at which point there is little for an individual to pay the costs.
PS: There is a reason people get PHD's in economics it's a lot more complex than you might think. Just consider adding different levels of diminishing returns to all of those cost benefit equations and your still barely scratching the surface.
> I borrow a book, read it and enjoy it. What benefit does this create for anyone besides me?
That actually made me feel sorry for you.
Are you really this much of an island, or do you just enjoy trolling? Is there no possible benefit for me that you might have learned something, or that perhaps you might now be able to tell me something I didn't know before? Is there no benefit to me that perhaps because someone in a library showed you how to apply for your housing benefit online you didn't feel the need to break into my car?
And yes, much crime like theft can be related to drugs. But a significant proportion can also be tied back to poverty.
You're like a parody of all that's bad about the libertarian ethos. Or whatever you think you are.
Is there no possible benefit for me that you might have learned something, or that perhaps you might now be able to tell me something I didn't know before?
You are moving the goalposts. I asserted there is no "massive positive externality", not that there is no possible external externality.
I do concede that maybe people who spend time in the library are more interesting conversationalists. I just don't consider this benefit to be "massive". Do you?
There's no "massive positive externality" to humanity. If you are to take your position to its logical conclusion, all human life should be exterminated.
I don't think I've seen anyone argue for a truly nihilist position as earnestly as you have here.
You stated that "The sole benefit you describe, namely the ability to borrow books, is a private benefit. I borrow a book, read it and enjoy it. What benefit does this create for anyone besides me?"
Do we have different definitions of "sole" and "private" - those words feel fairly absolute to me.
Sure it may not be a massive positive and direct benefit to you, but I find it hard to understand how you think there's no possible benefit at all. Do you feel the same way about teaching people to read, write and count?
For things that are super good, super useful but not profitable nor predisposition for voluntary support how does a community get those things? Especially those within the community whom might not afford otherwise? And especially when the lack for them causes cascading affect to the whole of the community?
Seems to me an outbreak of disease by the poor surely effects the whole and that we all would do well to pay a "tax" to prevent that?
3) for things that provide value but don't (necessarily) make money. And no, persuading people to voluntarily pay for these is not generally sustainable.
The dam building example illustrates exactly why the public good argument makes sense. Let's say a town of 100 farmers need a dam built and there is a net benefit even if only 50 contribute to building the dam. Now there is a huge incentive for the farmers to play chicken with each other to see who will pay up first. The "free riders" that don't pay for the dam will have extra money to buy more land or other resources to take better advantage of the new dam's benefits.
In this case it is fair for the town government to pay for the dam with taxes. Given the net benefits of the dam it is even plausible that the increased property values and job revenues near the dam would increase the tax base.
People are not "rational economic actors" and do not make all their life choices by "incentives" of this type.
Most people will care a lot more about, for example, how they are perceived in the community. So simply making the payers list public would, in some cases, prevent people from playing chicken.
Many other solutions are possible, depending on context and culture. It's the job of the businessman to use creativity to find a solution, a way to persuade people to voluntarily participate in his project.
What's wrong with Government action?
Two main things:
1) some people will be taxed to pay for the dam who were not playing chicken but genuinely would rather have kept their money and not had the dam than have paid for it. Why? Because their kid urgently needs new shoes or expensive, urgent cancer treatments. Or their roof leaks, or many other reasons. Just because the damn project is profitable for them doesn't mean they don't have more urgent uses of capital at the moment.
2) some proposed projects should not be done. Why? Well maybe people are mistaken about it being a net win. Maybe it has hidden costs which I noticed but other people didn't notice. And I try to tell them but they don't understand my point.
The solution to the "same projects are mistakes" issue is voluntary participation so people use their judgment and win or lose based on their own choices.
Taxing everyone means the dissenters pay for it, and lose out if it fails, even though their judgment was correct.
The Government has no special skill at knowing which dams should be built now, which later (because some other use of capital is more urgent), and which never. Nor at knowing which look highly profitable now but will be rendered obsolete by new technology next year.
Interesting points, although I respectfully disagree.
It's pretty silly to talk about economics if you don't believe in rational economic actors. A public list is a nice theory, but then you would still have people trying to get on the list for the minimum amount possible and hoping that others would donate more to be higher on the list of donors. And what happens when you have 60 local farmers and 40 corporation farms. Most corporations would be pretty hard to shame into paying if they could somehow get others to pay.
Point #2 goes both ways. If the project becomes a net benefit then the dissenters get the benefit and win even though their judgement was incorrect.
Point #1 also goes both ways and points towards the need for public goods. In reality the sick farmer will benefit the most from public services such as dams and health care being shared by all of society. By sharing the cost of the dam and healthcare across all of the farmers they can help prevent one of them going bankrupt due to a bad case of cancer.
It's true that the government isn't better than everyone else at knowing which dams should built, but that doesn't mean that society can't figure out that some projects are best funded by the entire society.
Anyway - interesting perspective on your part. I wish more people could talk about the pros and cons without getting downvoted for disagreeing with the majority.
> Point #2 goes both ways. If the project becomes a net benefit then the dissenters get the benefit and win even though their judgement was incorrect.
Lots of people dissented from the iPhone. Now they benefit. Their benefitting doesn't hurt Apple or prevent Apple from having funded the project themselves and from making plenty of profit. Apple got what they paid for and then some. Other people come out ahead too but that isn't Apple's loss. I don't think some people getting unearned benefit is something to worry about as long as the primary actors are able to make their profit.
The same point could be made more broadly about computers as a whole. Funded by a minority initially, now hugely benefitting many people who didn't take any of the initial risk.
I think there is an asymmetry. I'm far more concerned about people being forced to pay for failed projects or projects requiring capital they more urgently need elsewhere -- being actively, involuntarily hurt -- than I am worried about people gaining broad benefits from projects that benefit the primary actors and risk takers plenty (I actually regard this free stuff to lots of people, which is the result of many projects, as a positive, happy thing, not a negative.)
If you'd like to discuss further, with interesting people and no downvotes, you could come to:
The same point could be made more broadly about computers as a whole. Funded by a minority initially, now hugely benefitting many people who didn't take any of the initial risk.
Libertarian selectivenes again. Government grants have always had a large part to play in computer development, but aside from that, what's really benefitting people is the internet, which was most definitely a government project, 'funded by all US taxpayers' rather than 'funded by a minority'.
> It's pretty silly to talk about economics if you don't believe in rational economic actors.
With respect: when you find rational economic actors in notable quantities, please do let the rest of us know. (My skepticism of the questionable assertions of libertarians is largely based on the conspicuous absence of such actors.)
Basing policies on the assumption that nobody will exploit obvious inefficiencies since people aren't entirely rational is the economic equivalent of using "drowssap" as your password.
Surely as argued above, contagious disease prevention would qualify as a public good — it is certainly something that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Why do you agree with government provision in this case but not in the case of, say, free education for all?
That article doesn't seem to give much sway to the issue of transaction costs in letting people organise to provide a public good, which is really central to the issue..
> That article doesn't seem to give much sway to the issue of transaction costs in letting people organise to provide a public good, which is really central to the issue..
There are transaction costs for Government action too. In general they are higher. Government has no special ability to keep transaction costs low.
> Surely as argued above, contagious disease prevention would qualify as a public good
It has excludable ("public") and non-excludable aspects like all goods. It's certainly possible, in theory, to make a profit off it. But today no such thing is organized, meanwhile the Government does have it under control, and the total cost isn't very high relative to the country's wealth. So there's much, much higher priorities to privatize like the postal system or social security.
I think reform needs to go one step at a time. Do I predict that contagious disease control will and should one day be done differently? Yes I guess so, though the far future is quite hazy. Let's not worry too much about that because by the time we get closer to doing something it will be a lot clearer what works or not.
But when you bring up something like education, where we already have many private educational institutions, and public schools are widely regarded as largely failing, no I don't think the Government is good at this and no I don't want to spend billions in taxes on throwing money at stuff with institutional problems other than underfunding (e.g. teacher's unions and the wrong epistemology).
A good transitional proposal is vouchers. In this way the Government can subsidize poor people or any other favored group while not actually running any schools. So if what you want is access to education, paid for by the Government, you can still have that without Government actually running schools. I think that'd be a good step forward.
Transitions are important because if you cut off aid to some group overnight then they are going to get fucked in the meantime before alternatives are created. And transitions are also important in that alternatives are not created before some sort of transitional steps are implemented to allow alternatives a purpose and ability to be useful.
It's important to keep in mind that economists consider things cetibus paribus - that is, as they are at the time, in isolation and in the real world. Whilst I have no particular problem with market based solutions (e.g. publicly funded vouchers should be provided for schools rather than public funding per se) I'm interested in seeing some kind of current, market based solution to issue of contagious disease prevention (how do we make everyone who benefits from protection against contagious diseases pay the value of their protection, for instance) and education (how do we make everyone who benefits from an educated populace pay a fair price towards the education of the next generation) --- when I do, perhaps the libertarian approach will persuade me more. Keep in mind that approaches which require future technological advances or infringement of civil liberties aren't allowed.
> There are transaction costs for Government action too. In general they are higher. Government has no special ability to keep transaction costs low.
Of course they do --- it's called fiat. When a variety of beneficial options exist but a lack of cooperation prevents an overall resolution, the government has the power to step in and dictate what should be done. If you don't like it, other options are still available --- there are other countries to migrate to.
Fiat isn't saving on transaction costs. It's basically just failure to do due diligence (enough to persuade people to participate voluntarily) and therefore acceptance of high risk.
I don't consider proposing emigration as a reasonable response to proposed reforms of our country.
I have no particular ideas about changes for dealing with contagious diseases. It's low priority and I haven't thought about it. If you'd like several examples (but not that one), I suggest the book The Machinery of Freedom, now free: http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
> how do we make everyone who benefits from an educated populace pay a fair price towards the education of the next generation
I don't understand the necessity of making everyone who benefits pay. The real problems, as I see them, are getting stuff to happen and be paid for in such a way that everyone directly involved mutually benefits. If someone else benefits to, that isn't hurting anyone and is not a problem.
What actual problem do you want to solve? Having schools and having them paid for? I don't see that as terribly hard. We already have schools, public and private, people already pay for them (both types), it works. I don't see any fundamental difficulty in getting the Government out of the education equation unless your goal is redistribution of wealth (for educational purposes) to poor people or other groups, and you want to redistribute more than voluntary charity will do (in other words: you want to redistribute wealth from people who think it's best used on X, for purpose Y, against their best judgment).
If you want to do that redistribution you need Government because it has the special power of using force against innocent people who disagree with you. But vouchers are still adequate.
Running then with the library example, who then would be inclined to fund and run libraries in local communities across the nation (where companies may not be heavily invested or even able to afford such efforts)? In the libertarian stance, what would the alternative here be?
Don't get me wrong - I generally find the libertarian mindset quite agreeable but there are certain examples where I'm unable to reach the conclusions truer libertarians do, and this would be one of them.
Without wanting to get into a political debate (although I'm happy to do that off-site), I see this as baseline infrastructure: part of the solid platform underlying a healthy economy. I do see it as government's job to provide that.
"if there is a genuine need for ____, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently".
The problem with that argument is there is Nothing that get's past it.
People talk about creating wealth like it exists in a vacuum but without the knowledge and resources that comes from living in society You can't create such things. Bill gates would have been completely incapable of creating 99.99999% of his wealth if he had been born a mere 10,000 years ago. That's not to suggest society should the vast majority of your output but giving up 1/3 of your income to keep things running smoothly is in no way unfair. If you really think you would be better off fending for your self without tools or knowledge then feel free to get a lobotomy and move to an island somewhere otherwise you do owe society a great deal.
The "get rid of society" mentality of some libertarians/anarchists is one of the reasons I do not call myself a libertarian.
However it's no reason to reject all libertarian or classical liberal type ideas. Just because society brings value, and Steve Jobs made his fortune in context, does not mean taxes should pay for all sorts of stuff or that it's necessary to either give up a third of my income or find for myself without tools or knowledge. That's a false dichotomy. It'd be possible to have a functional society, with knowledge and tools and so on, with a lot less being provided by taxes and more being provided by non-Government entities.
Yea, I don't mean to suggest that's the only choice, just that there is valid justification for society taxing someones output.
In general terms government consists of 3 choices. What do we prohibit(1), promote(2), and how much do we forfeit(3). The libertarian view is to focus on minimize 1 and 2 with the assumption that it minimizes 3. But, as soon as you pick a sacred cow like defense and say this is governments job there is no clear limits, should we build 10,000 nukes? how about 100,000?
In my view if you instead pick how many resources government has to work with and focus on maximizing benefit you naturally start to balance collage scholarships and attack subs. You also tend to avoid budget deficits because if you assume you only have a given budget to work with you don't do the I need do do all these things and taxes must be below _ so I guess we need to barrow a little bit more. Basically, stepping from what can the government do, to how well can the government afford to do X,Y and Z. Which fit's with the reality of diminishing returns while your 10th nuke is worth more than an extra math scholarship your 100,010th is not. As well as differing option on just how important various things are.
PS: As to why 1/3, well at best I might get to keep 50% more money, but government is going to take something so it's just a classic compromise. Also, while it's probably not the top of the laughter curve it's closer to the top than 20% so lowering it is not going to provide more income for the government.
They provide the most service to those unable to afford help. Also, they mostly provide the intangible service of raising peoples' education. That's why they don't make money. People only go to college because they think they're screwed if they don't, but almost nothing else education related has that amount of leverage in the peoples' decision-making.
Fundamentally they don't make money because they don't charge, and also don't sit around trying to think of ways to make money (while still remaining true to their core values and purpose). I don't think we should assume it's an insoluble problem. Once one has an audience and does something useful, monetizing can often be tricky, but is often possible.
Just as one example, what if libraries had some ads somewhere? Then they could be provided for free to poor people but also gain some revenue. (And you offer premium membership with no adds for a yearly fee.)
If that would work (I don't know), then the question would become: should we charge people taxes so that poor people don't have to deal with ads at libraries? And I think the answer to that would be "no" -- if you want to help poor people see fewer ads you could pay money for that yourself without the tax system (e.g. the libraries could directly accept money and the more they get paid the fewer ads they show according to a formula).
> Just as one example, what if libraries had some ads somewhere? Then they could be provided for free to poor people but also gain some revenue.
Perhaps when people borrow a book they are only given the first four chapters; they have to promote the library to get access to the next three chapters; and they have to pay to get access to the last four chapters?
I doubt freemium models will translate well to libraries.
Now you have a situation where a large part of the population is forced to pay a private middleman for the privilege of interacting with their government. That's not an improvement.
I'm not saying this is a good thing by any stretch, but clearly most people are paying middlemen already for "the privilege of interacting with their government".
E.g., Intuit or private accountants just to pay their taxes, lawyers, and so on.
> If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them?
Because, in this specific case, the people who most need libraries can often barely afford to pay for food and shelter.
Libraries are such an obvious public good that I will never understand why they're not treated (both in the US and in the UK, and perhaps in other countries), as a basic and absolute necessity.
[edited to add not which I left out in my rush to get my point across]
I meant persuade people with money to pay for them.
You value them. Why don't you pay something voluntarily? And a thousand other yous? Why doesn't Bill Gates throw some money at it if it's a super efficient use of resources?
He will, and many other non-poor people will, if they are persuaded it's a better use of their resources than Greenpeace, Oxfam, malaria medicine for Africa, clean water for Africa, and so on.
If such people can't be persuaded of this -- that it's an efficient use of resources -- then that's no time to send the tax man to take their money for this purpose and divert it away from the purposes they judge to be more important.
Is it really so hard for you to imagine prisoners dilemmas and tragedies of the commons?
I'm willing to pay $1 for a public good if everyone else pays $1. But it is utterly irrational for me to pay voluntarily for this public good, for at least two reasons: 1) since most people won't be paying for it, if I want it I'll have to pay much more, and 2) whether or not it exists is entirely independent of my actions anyway, so why pay a thing?
In order for fundamentalist libertarianism to work it will need to come up with a solution to the free-rider problem. Got one?
It's a philosophical argument, not an evidence-based argument. Do you have a criticism of it other than that you are an empiricist who dislikes philosophy? Do you have a rival idea which isn't refuted?
Philosophers use evidence all the time in support of their arguments, especially when they are making empirical claims (as you are: you are claiming that the costs of government outweigh the benefits when it comes to the provision of public goods). If you choose to not use evidence, then it is important to be far more careful and charitable than you have been. E.g., in your "simple argument" you only consider examples at the extreme (million -x benefit or 1% ROI). These are straw men -- you don't in fact deal with any kind of realistic example.
For your reasoning to have been good and fair, you would have had to consider the scenario that puts your position in the worst possible light and then show that it still holds. Imagine a dam that costs $100 but provides $10,000 of benefit to 20 users. Imagine, further, that all 20 users are competing with each other for status and customers, they are all roughly equally wealthy, and that paying for the dam will be a significant expense for most of them. Even though the dam could be built by any five of the users, any user who doesn't pay will gain a comparative advantage over the others. The libertarian might propose that they collectively participate in a contract. But why should anyone agree to participate in this contract, if they know that the dam will be built irrespective of their participation, and if they will get an advantage over others by not participating? No doubt the hold-outs will claim that they can't afford to pay for it, or that they don't want it -- but this is just a negotiating strategy.
Sure, setting up a government to deal with the provision of a single collective good is extremely inefficient. The issue is that there are many thousands of such public goods (and services). The empirical argument, here, is that on balance the inefficiency is worth it.
It does not appear, from your essay, that you have carefully and sympathetically examined the relevant counter-positions. If you haven't already looked at it carefully, I would recommend http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-rider/
It is interesting that free market fundamentalists seem to have trouble deciding whether their argument is an empirical or a philosophical/moral/ideological one. They will claim that libertarianism is the answer because government-based collective action is always less efficient (an empirical claim). When evidence is provided that this need not always be true, they switch to an argument of "freedom" and natural rights. When this argument is shown wanting, they then revert to their efficiency-related arguments. This flip-flop frequently works to fool many, it seems.
> Philosophers use evidence all the time in support of their arguments, especially when they are making empirical claims (as you are: you are claiming that the costs of government outweigh the benefits when it comes to the provision of public goods).
That's a moral not empirical claim. You can't measure what is morally better than what.
Also that isn't my claim: I said nothing about what outweighs what, and I object to such arguments.
You complain that I don't give a sympathetic reading to free rider problems -- without details, presumably simply because you disagree with me -- but then what do you do? You characterize my views grossly inaccurately by throwing in a bunch of your own assumptions.
HN has terrible UI for finding new replies to comments like this, where they are nested under other comments I wrote, so I don't intend to check again. If you want to have a serious discussion and perhaps learn something, reply at: http://groups.google.com/group/rational-politics-list?hl=en
One of the (many) flaws with libertarian dogma is the assumption that a person can be intelligently informed about every aspect that might affect them, from social effects of libraries to air quality to choosing services right down to who picks up the garbage. Building regulations? Who needs those, right? Let's just replace it by doing 'buyer beware' and making every purchaser of a property have to do an in-depth research of everything, down to what kind of metal the pipes were made out of.
Volunteer charity also only works for <i>visible</i> problems. There's no need for it to go away, but to suggest it could replace (and improve on!) governmental social services is just silly. Everyone gave money to Katrina funds... when it happened. What percentage of the original donators were still donating 6 months later? 12 months? 24 months? Same question for Haiti. Private charity is good for the initial burst for visible causes, but it sucks for ongoing support on the grand scale.
Libraries are good for the majority of people who can't afford them.
People who have the money to support them, don't need them.
By the time there are enough sufferers, and discontented others who create an externality where libraries are useful, the solution for those who can afford it is personal protection.
Do you have any information about the cable TV subscription rates of the poor, or are you just trotting out bullshit theories of poverty as lack of impulse control and proper priority setting that were already dusty when Reagan took office?
edit: That is definitely information. Appreciate the references (that were given as a reply to the other comment.) Will look at them later to see if they answer the question that came to mind as I was reading your numbers; what's the churn? How many people were in that 14% during any particular period?
For example, if I did a survey during a famine to find out how many people had a meal that day, and found out 2/3s had, it would be incorrect to say that only 1/3 of people had been effected.
And you know they can afford cable tv how, exactly?
Because the US government did a survey measured this. I link to the raw data in a separate post on this thread, currently downmodded for reasons unknown.
First, let it be said that reading through your comments in this thread has driven me to drinking. I'm heading out to the local watering hole, but, before I do, I want to make a couple of points.
First, a library is most assuredly a public good in that it provides services that it can only provide which are not directed at profit-making. It serves many civic purposes and provides many services to the community. This is empirically true. It can be observed. Go to a public library in a city center and you will observe these functions being carried out to the great good of the patrons and the community at large. Your links to Wikipedia notwithstanding, you've made no real argument that libraries do not provide the public goods of communal learning, discourse, shared meeting spaces, free internet access (in intervals). I'm sure you'll go read your Wikipedia definition and come back to split hairs, but it really comes down to the notion of shared services and their potential for enriching the lives of the people in a given community. You've exhibited a great disdain for such here. It's distasteful, but I'm accustomed to it here on the internet, where every engineer who read a Rand novel got the idea that he was John Galt. So it goes.
Second, you've brought in this cable TV nonsense, as if it reveals that the poor are in fact not poor at all because they've found a way to scrape together enough money to enjoy just one small pleasure. Would you like to commission a study on how many poor children eat one or more pieces of candy during a given month? Would that vindicate your view that nobody is poor and that nobody benefits from shared services and that people with less money and opportunity than you are all lazy idiots looking for a way to mooch off of your bootstrapped successes? I think not. I think you'd still be dissatisfied after having ripped off the mask of those greedy little children in the bad neighborhoods, pretending to be poor while eating a piece of candy now and then. For shame! It's almost as bad as having a Playstation! You went looking for these data points as if they prove something. You went looking for data with a clear agenda. You didn't point out how few of these households have usable kitchen appliances or access to healthy, affordable foods. You didn't check out their schools. No, you went looking for evidence that nobody's really poor. I wish you were right.
Third, instead of picking on public libraries, let's talk about the NSF grant that you say is funding your own lifestyle on your homepage at NYU. Is that a public good? I'm paying for scientific research. You're sucking just as hard on the government teat as anybody. Shouldn't you explain to us why it's worth it when our libraries aren't? The truth is, I'm a big believer in funding scientific research and public libraries. You seem to want it both ways here, though. You want to bash libraries as useless and go on and on with these badly built, parsing arguments. Why don't you feel the same way about NSF grants? Are those a public good? I'd say by your criteria, they are not, since a grant for you means no grant for somebody else. I suspect that your logic only really applies to those less motivated, less gifted souls who haunt the dim and sad hallways of our dying public libraries. Is that it?
Fourth, your attitudes here, I'm sure, seem logical to you and your friends on the internet who love John Galt as much as you do. But these economic and social issues are about outcomes in systems which are (effectively) infinitely complex. And they carry moral weight. Your approach to these questions, in their selfishness and proud disregard for your fellow man and neighbor, is, as Gore Vidal described Ayn Rand's philosophy, "almost perfect in its immorality." An easier way of saying that is that you just sound like a dick. Sure, you're pompous and kind of a smartass, but that's most of us here in computerland. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how painfully careless you are with the hopes, the well-being, or simply the lives of others. You reduce our collective existence to atomic miseries, as if you've escaped most of them by your own virtue rather than through a series of accidents. You place blame where it isn't due and heap glory where it doesn't belong.
You can call it libertarianism. I just call it being an asshole.
See you at the library (not now - I'm headed to the bar).
...public goods of communal learning, discourse, shared meeting spaces, free internet access...
Just because you stick the word "public good" and "free" in front of something you want other people to pay for doesn't make those services non-rivalrous and non-excludible.
As for NSF grants (note: webpage is way outdated, haven't been at NYU for years), the theory behind their public benefit is that published scientific research helps everyone - you are free to build a medical or other device based on the basic research I published.
I'm not going to defend this empirically since I'm unconvinced it's true. The large chunks of grants pilfered by universities, the paywalled publications, and the patented inventions exploited by universities seriously undermine the public benefits.
Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options.
If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them?
Or if they are providing value, why don't they make money? Perhaps they could provide some services for free and charge for others. Or profitably provide some services very cheaply.