New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | September 14, 2005

Jeff Taylor thinks it's no coincidence that Ray Nagin was calling for Greyhound's help while public buses sat underwater.

Comments

|9.14.05 @ 9:52AM|#

In the interest of accuracy I think the next paragraph which says:

'Landrieu then added: "In other words, this administration did not believe in mass transit. They won't even get people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out." '

indicates that she was speaking of all workers in the city and was attacking the administration for not adequately funding mass transit.

Of course interpreting it the other way is much funnier, but not really fair.

Having defended a politician I will now go wash.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 10:04AM|#

And although craven politicians refuse to see this, the long-term profit-maximizing route for private gasoline production seems to be to try to spread out the constrained supply for as long as possible until something like full capacity is available. In other words, to raise prices enough to deter sales, not "gouge" people.

i don't think anyone, mr taylor, can refute the basis of the economic argument there stated in peaceful and orderly times.

the question is whether or not the economic argument is the only relevant one -- and clearly, it isn't always. a market system is only as good as the law and order that it is predicated on (utopian syndicalist fantasies aside) and those who scream "gouging" are often on the verge of challenging that order. they, in many cases, must be reckoned with, either by accomodation (price control) or refutation (directing the armed force of the management state against the individual). and all of this because individuals are not the rational monads that efficient economic models insist they must be.

|9.14.05 @ 10:10AM|#

This was kind of a stupid article at its core.

First, obviously billions of dollars of private property has been destroyed, damaged, or looted.

Second, if school buses were owned and operated by private companies, people who couldn't afford to pay for them wouldn't get a ride to school. Nor, presumably, would they get a ride out of town before and after Katrina since due to high demand and limited supply, a ride on one of these buses would be pretty expensive.

|9.14.05 @ 10:16AM|#

Here is the real reason -
"New Orleans To Prosecute Underage Rescuer For Driving An Ungreased Bus"

Phil|9.14.05 @ 10:17AM|#

Second, if school buses were owned and operated by private companies, people who couldn't afford to pay for them wouldn't get a ride to school.

That would depend on a lot of things, including whether they were being paid by their passengers or by the schools. If they latter, they could be under a flat-rate contract that was contingent on their picking up all students on their route who want to ride the bus.

Nor, presumably, would they get a ride out of town before and after Katrina since due to high demand and limited supply, a ride on one of these buses would be pretty expensive.

Right, because no company ever donates in-kind services to charity, even if just for the PR value and the tax write-off. If I owned Phil's Buses, I think I'd want my name and logo all over every newscast in America as the company that was taking hurricane victims out of NO for free. Oh, yes, I would.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 10:36AM|#

no company ever donates in-kind services to charity

did you see a lot of gasoline being dished out for free, mr phil? neither did i. spontaneous acts of kindness is not the basis of an economic policy.

|9.14.05 @ 10:43AM|#

If Jeff were correct, the interests of the private property owners of NOLA would have long ago made sure the levy were in excellent condition. But instead we get this typically cock-eyed view of what economics actually tells us about the "free market".

You can tell Mr. Taylor has not spent a lot of time inside of American corps. If NOLA had been a private corp, the busses would still have been left right where they were. Anyone who has ever worked for a large bank should be able to confirm this.

The genius of the freemarket is not that it makes a specific business act "correctly", but that another business will rise to fill the void, when the one that created the void committed suicide. And that another business will fill the void when that one committs suicide.

NOLA had a lot in common with the private sector, including the fact that it prevented it's shareholders from effectively controlling the company. Those who had an interest in the effective functioning of the corp known as NOLA have been refused an effective voice in it's operations for some time. Something that is quite common in the freemarket as well.

Phil|9.14.05 @ 10:56AM|#

did you see a lot of gasoline being dished out for free, mr phil?

#1. My name is not "Mr. Phil." If you must address me with an honorific . . . well, scratch that. My name is simply "Phil." Please do me the courtesy of addressing me as such.

#2. So is that fact that neither you nor I knows of any gas stations distributing free gas supposed to actually mean that no company ever does donate in-kind services? If not, then it quite literally has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said.

neither did i. spontaneous acts of kindness is not the basis of an economic policy.

When you find someone claiming that it is, you feel free to take it up with them.

|9.14.05 @ 11:01AM|#

Ray Nagin

|9.14.05 @ 11:07AM|#

Johnny, maybe you can elaborate. You suggest that if "NOLA had been a private corp, the busses would still have been left right where they were," but in the article Mr. Taylor points out that a private concern, Greyhound, had buses, and they were moved to a safer spot. Are you making a distinction between publicly traded corporations and other firms, or something?

Shannon Love|9.14.05 @ 11:08AM|#

I agree with gaius marius that most "anti-gouging" laws are more about a pragmatic need to maintain public order than they are about economic efficiency but we need to make a distinction about policies implemented in the actual zone of a disaster and those implemented in areas that only feel the economic side effects.

Within the disaster zone, free-market rationing may not work. For example, in the case of sudden mass evacuation, it might be more important that every available vehicle receive ten gallons of gas than it would be for some vehicles to have full tanks and others to have none. The free-market would fail because the incentive structure in place is not designed to evenly distribute the gasoline across all vehicles.

Outside the disaster zone, the freemarket will work well to ensure a good supply of gas or of any other product. Outside the disaster zone, the same economic parameters still apply as before the disaster. Only the pricing would change. Everybody alters their behavior to conserve gas ensuring a basic supply.

Shannon Love|9.14.05 @ 11:18AM|#

One strong argument in favor of private initiative in case of disaster is the fact that the highly successful evacuation of 80% of the population of New Orleans was carried out entirely by private means. As near as I have been able to determine, not a single individual was evacuated using public resources prior to landfall. Even patients in hospitals and residents in nursing homes were not helped. I am convinced that some government entity must have done something to help but is so it was small scale and not reported.

So the proof that private initiative can work better than public policy is right before our eyes in this actual event. We don't have to hypothesize.

|9.14.05 @ 11:29AM|#

Uh, no, Johnny. Transportation companies routinely move their assets from the path of hurricanes.

|9.14.05 @ 11:33AM|#

"Within the disaster zone, free-market rationing may not work"

Actually, it works at least as well as price controls and government rationing. With price controls in place, you obviously encourage stockpiling (i.e. there is no economic incentive not to hoard - I may not need 10 gallons of milk, but on the off-chance I do, it's worth it to buy it at the price controlled price). As a result, the price control then requires rationing to prevent hoarding. Now, you've put a politician in control of who gets what, and completely divorced the decision making process from localized knowledge - for an example, see what happened in rural MS, where local residents from several families combined their resources to fuel a car to drive to the nearest urban center. Upon arriving, they learned that supplies were rationed based upon vehicles - one ration per car. Didn't matter that several families were represented by this car, they could only receive one ration per car. They were forced to return home with a single ration to distribute among several families.

Is the market perfect? No. These families may have had trouble buying more than one ration in a free-market price scheme as well. But clearly it's no worse than the price control/ration scheme, and could be better. And at the very least, the existence of so much unsupplied demand creates an incentive for more resources to be shifted to that area to meet the demand. The price control/rationing scheme actually retards this process, and ensures that resources don't shift in response.

Private charity is really the only effective short term solution to such a natural disaster. It's better than the market or the government. But only the government interferes with private charities attempting to provide services in a disaster area...

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 11:54AM|#

Actually, it works at least as well as price controls and government rationing

until, of course, people simply quit obeying the laws of the market and take by force and/or mob action that which they cannot afford to buy.

i think we all understand free market ideology here. but there is a point to government, mr quasibill, after all. the great unstated logical and moral conflict that underlies freemarketeering as a faith is the fact that markets in practice would be impossible without the coercion to contract law that freemarketers work so hard to disavow and dissemble. libertarianism (taken at or near its logical extreme, anyway) is a suicidal adventure in economics.

unless you're a utopian, of course, and actually believe that law and peace arise spontaneously and without effort from the dust. there's as much arguing with that kind of idealist as with a devoted communist.

|9.14.05 @ 12:31PM|#

During Tropical Storm Allison in Houston, 2001, there were a number of cars flooded that were parked in a private parking lot. Cars that were VALET parked in a private lot. These cars were not moved to higher ground as the water rose, even though the attendants had the keys.

So, I think it's safe to say that employees will not lift a finger to save corporate or customer property.

The real difference between Greyhound and New Orleans is that Greyhound is apparently run by someone who has a clue. The idea that New Orleans could then confiscate Greyhound buses is ludicrous, and I'm sure the threat only ensured that the Greyhound buses stayed far from New Orleans.

M1EK|9.14.05 @ 12:33PM|#

"So the proof that private initiative can work better than public policy is right before our eyes in this actual event. We don't have to hypothesize."

YEAH! And the fact that private schools that charge $20,000 per student per year seem to do a good job at educating them means there's no need for public schools either.

How many private bus companies evacuated citizens before Katrina? And for the particularly hard libertarians, did Greyhound 'donate' in-kind services?

|9.14.05 @ 1:03PM|#

but there is a point to government...
unless you're a utopian, of course, and actually believe that law and peace arise spontaneously and without effort from the dust. there's as much arguing with that kind of idealist as with a devoted communist.

What about all the anecdotal evidence of orderly cooperation arising from some of the most anarchic sections of NOLA while chaos seemed to reign over the areas under the protection of our illustrious government? Could it be that culture is the most important part of the "effort" needed to achieve and maintain law and peace?

Why would free markets be impossible without coercion? Would it be impossible for men to band together and produce a blacklist of dishonest men? People would simply be more cautious about who they entered into a contract with and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 1:27PM|#

What about all the anecdotal evidence of orderly cooperation arising from some of the most anarchic sections of NOLA while chaos seemed to reign over the areas under the protection of our illustrious government?

i would hesitate, mr castle, to use any part of what happened in new orleans -- even when revised as propaganda -- as an argument in favor of replicating those conditions in some way.

this is an old saw for utopians and anarchists -- first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers -- but shakespeare had enough sense to mock cade's dreamy appeal to popular simplemindedness, and we should too.

Why would free markets be impossible without coercion?

have we forgotten enron, et al, already?

|9.14.05 @ 1:39PM|#

One strong argument in favor of private initiative in case of disaster is the fact that the highly successful evacuation of 80% of the population of New Orleans was carried out entirely by private means.

I had no idea that 80% of New Orleans' residents have their own private roads.

Sorry, that's a cheap shot, but at the very least this shows that private means were only 80% effective since apparently 20% couldn't afford it.

nmg|9.14.05 @ 1:56PM|#

I just want to point out that for the detractors who fear and despise libertarian philosophy, it's a fallacy to point to failures of the CURRENT private market within the context of today's decidedly NON-libertarian system.

Yes, private industry and the free market failed to save the levee and failed to bus everyone out of New Orleans. No, this has no bearing whatsoever on the argument for relying on private entities instead of public.

This is because we do not have anything that comes even close to the kind of system libertarians envision. The failure of our current system is if anything more ammo for the libertarians. At least we have PROOF that the current approach is garbage.

nmg

|9.14.05 @ 2:02PM|#

Enron?

What does that have to do with anything?

|9.14.05 @ 2:05PM|#

Gaius:

"the great unstated logical and moral conflict that underlies freemarketeering as a faith is the fact that markets in practice would be impossible without the coercion to contract law that freemarketers work so hard to disavow and dissemble."

Yep - that's why there is absolutely no black market (which can't resort to the law to enforce contracts, etc.) in drugs, right? Nobody ever makes any money off of dealing drugs - they just constantly rob from each other, and no money ever changes hands.

Those stories about Colombian drug lords living in mansions? Lies, spread by Murray Rothbard and his folk.

Stories about Quakers paying native americans for goods, services, and land? More lies.

The market preceded government, Mr. Marius. And exists even today outside of government. After all, there is no international sovereign enforcing deals between foreign nationals. And no government is enforcing the multi-billion dollar economy that is the drug trade. In fact, governments actively prohibit that market, ensuring that only the most ethically challenged individuals take part in it in the first place (at least on the supply side), and yet the market thrives. That shouldn't be possible in your fantasy land where government creates markets...

|9.14.05 @ 2:08PM|#

until, of course, people simply quit obeying the laws of the market and take by force and/or mob action that which they cannot afford to buy.

And if you put in rationing, people will simply quit obeying and loot and rob individuals for that which they are not ALLOWED to buy. Not to mention the black market that will inevitably pop up.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:09PM|#

enron (and its peer group) is a fine example of what markets without sufficient coercion to law become -- black-box crapshoots that discourage responsible investment in favor of more transparent alternatives. if participants in the marketplace are not cowed into compliance and transparency, they will simply construct a reasonable illusion of both while behaving criminally and negligently to the detriment of all involved.

This is because we do not have anything that comes even close to the kind of system libertarians envision

and never will, mr nmg. one of the things that ensures the immaculate future of libertarian ideology is that, like the communists, the faithful can always claim that the "real" system was never put to practice.

nmg|9.14.05 @ 2:12PM|#

Danimal,

Even though "private means were only 80% effective since apparently 20% couldn't afford it", the indictment is on the public sector since they failed utterly to help even the 20%.

Private interests served 80% of the population and public interests failed the entire 20% of the rest. We can only speculate, because the current environment in no way allows for anything approaching a truly libertarian approach, but if there had been no expectation of public service, perhaps more of the remaining 20% we're discussing would have been served, which would have been a better result than the one we actually saw.

nmg

nmg|9.14.05 @ 2:17PM|#

Gaius, you are hopelessly confused. Enron operated in anything but a free market. To call the energy industry in the USA and Califirnia a "free market" without coercion is ridiculous.

And even though you're right, there'll never be a libertarian system in place, it still holds that the attacks on libertarian philosophy due to the private and public failures re: Katrina make no sense whatsoever.

nmg

|9.14.05 @ 2:18PM|#

Enron was corrected by the market. Its stock was worthless before government knew anything about it. Enron's implosion is an example of the market working.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:18PM|#

that's why there is absolutely no black market (which can't resort to the law to enforce contracts, etc.) in drugs, right?

so you want to make the colombian drug trade the model of western state economics, mr quasibill?

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:20PM|#

The market preceded government, Mr. Marius.

a fallacy of market religion, i fear, mr quasibill. markets as we know them are made possible by central authority. what is possible without such order is best approximated by the economics that existed prior to the rise of city-states -- in, say, 4500 bc.

is that really what you advocate as our best possible future?

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:21PM|#

Enron's implosion is an example of the market working.

lol -- if it is, it's no wonder the communists still get adherents.

|9.14.05 @ 2:25PM|#

one of the things that ensures the immaculate future of libertarian ideology is that, like the communists, the faithful can always claim that the "real" system was never put to practice.

There is a significance difference between libertarianism and communism along this line. Every step from where we are now all the way to a libertarian society -- or even to anarchy if we choose to go that far -- is evolutionary.

There is no revolutionary leap -- nothing like stealing all the factories from the capital class. There is no coercion required at any time. There is merely the migration of the control of resources from governments to private entities and the migration of decisions on allocation of resources from politics to markets.

All that this requires is governments stepping out of the way of otherwise natural markets.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:28PM|#

European history after the fall of the Empire ... In particular, pay attention to Ireland, Iceland, and this peculiar little system known (IIRC) the Law Merchant.

again, mr quasibill, if these are your ideal systems, i don't have to argue with you -- your argument is self-defeating. you'll find almost no one willing to try to implement on a global scale these small-scale transitional episodes in medieval economics.

|9.14.05 @ 2:34PM|#

Enron's implosion is an example of the market working.

lol -- if it is, it's no wonder the communists still get adherents.

Am I the only one who thought before the implosion that Enron was way overvalued and that their skimming a fraction of a percent off the energy they were moving around while calling the price of the energy they moved "revenue" was blatant hype?

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:34PM|#

There is no coercion required at any time. ... There is no revolutionary leap

All that this requires is governments stepping out of the way of otherwise natural markets.

no offense, mr mikep -- but if people can't see the ridiculous nature of this obvious ideological oxymoron, i'm not sure what to say. sweeping government out of the marketplace doesn't constitute a revolutionary step? i beg to differ - only in the most deeply and blindly religious strains of freemarketeering could this be thought so.

|9.14.05 @ 2:35PM|#

What I love about reason's Hit & Run:

Small topics like bus service in New Orleans can rapidly evolve into arguments on broad issues of economic, social, and political theory, usually with a fair dose of historical analysis thrown in as well.

|9.14.05 @ 2:36PM|#

What I detest about reason's Hit & Run:

Small topics like bus service in New Orleans can rapidly evolve into arguments on broad issues of economic, social, and political theory, usually with a fair dose of historical analysis thrown in as well.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 2:38PM|#

And even though you're right, there'll never be a libertarian system in place, it still holds that the attacks on libertarian philosophy due to the private and public failures re: Katrina make no sense whatsoever.

ultimately, however, mr nmg, that makes it rank speculation to claim that a near-perfect libertarian system would have somehow solved all riddles and mended all fences, doesn't it? we don't know -- and can't -- because the system has never and will never be put into action.

|9.14.05 @ 2:39PM|#

MikeP

You weren't alone. Plenty of people caught on. The evidence of this realization was the precipitous drop in their share price. Perhaps you were wise or lucky enough to catch on earlier, though. If so, well done!

|9.14.05 @ 2:42PM|#

sweeping government out of the marketplace doesn't constitute a revolutionary step?

It is wild that you have a problem with this notion.

It wasn't revolutionary when the government took over these services from private markets. Why would you think it revolutionary when government gives control back to markets?

Or would you call the Progressive movement, the New Deal, the Square Deal, the War on Poverty, et al., "revolutionary"? I wouldn't.

|9.14.05 @ 2:45PM|#

Perhaps you were wise or lucky enough to catch on earlier, though. If so, well done!

I didn't get any advantage from it, other than not investing in Enron. I certainly wasn't bright enough to short the daylights out of it.

And yet I have to pay the punishment for its failure by reading again and again that capitalism is a big fraud and Enron is the proof!

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:05PM|#

It wasn't revolutionary when the government took over these services from private markets.

my point, mr mikep, is that markets are instruments of authority -- they are only possible under law and the authority to enforce law. the law merchant of the middle ages brought up by mr quasibill was possible only through the auspices of the european order of law and common values arranged by christendom under the western catholic church. conditions that have passed, it should be said, into moral relativism and personal unaccountability -- making the need for imposed managerial order all the more paramount. the onset of that relativism in the protestant reformation put the enforcement of law merchant -- always a vexing problem even under christian unity -- squarely into the secular courts for good.

i've never understood how anyone gets to the idea that virtuous markets as we understand them arise from a chaotic vacuum. what market was that, exactly, which did that? not the one erected by the british empire, which was probably the largest free-trade zone in history. certainly not the law merchant, as i just said. so which?

|9.14.05 @ 3:06PM|#

"so you want to make the colombian drug trade the model of western state economics, mr quasibill?"

No, Mr. marius, as I noted, because of state interference, it is populated mainly by ethically challenged individuals. Therefore it has an inordinate share of criminal activity (as defined by natural rights theory) associated with it. Take the government interference away, and the percentage of the market affected by such criminals will be less - as there will be reputable suppliers to patronize.

None of which was my main point, which was that somehow, a market exists. Again, in your fantasy of state imposed order being a necessary pre-condition to markets, that shouldn't be possible.

|9.14.05 @ 3:10PM|#

"transitional episodes in medieval economics."

LOL. Transitional. Episodes that are twice as long as any state that is in existence today.

As far as how popular these episodes are - few people are even aware of them. As you have so ably demonstrated with your comment.

|9.14.05 @ 3:14PM|#

tsk, tsk, tsk, Mr. marius. i caught you obfuscating:

"the law merchant of the middle ages brought up by mr quasibill was possible only through the auspices of the european order of law and common values arranged by christendom under the western catholic church. "

No state enforced the law merchant. I'll say it again so that the point is not lost on you or anyone else: NO STATE ENFORCED THE LAW MERCHANT!

In your fantasy world, the law merchant could not have existed - no authority created it, or even used it as a tool. It existed because private actors with shared values sought to engage in market transactions. Pretty simple, no?

|9.14.05 @ 3:15PM|#

i've never understood how anyone gets to the idea that virtuous markets as we understand them arise from a chaotic vacuum.

I do not know how to prove that virtuous markets can arise from a chaotic vacuum. Or, more precisely, I can't prove that free markets will survive the spontaneous eruption of force that might also arise from a chaotic vacuum. There are enough who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven that, absent healthy cultural tendencies, unpleasant, cooperation-disrupting regimes are likely to arise even against the wills of the majority of the population.

Nonetheless, we in the western world do for the most part have healthy cultural tendencies. We are not currently in a chaotic vacuum. And every step from where we are to a more libertarian world is a simple removal of government coercion.

M1EK|9.14.05 @ 3:16PM|#

"No state enforced the law merchant. I'll say it again so that the point is not lost on you or anyone else: NO STATE ENFORCED THE LAW MERCHANT!"

The state prevented a bunch of people from going out and killing the law merchant and taking all his stuff.

|9.14.05 @ 3:26PM|#

i would hesitate, mr castle, to use any part of what happened in new orleans -- even when revised as propaganda -- as an argument in favor of replicating those conditions in some way.

this is an old saw for utopians and anarchists -- first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers -- but shakespeare had enough sense to mock cade's dreamy appeal to popular simplemindedness, and we should too.

Why would free markets be impossible without coercion?

have we forgotten enron, et al, already?

Are you saying we shouldn't flood our cities and prohibit non-public rescue and relief efforts or that we should not allow free men to privately cooperate to further their own best ineterests, such as, oh I don't know, basic survival?

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't think that most libertarians are utopians. Free markets, liberty, and strong, ethical property rights will not bless us all with Heaven on Earth. They will simply lead to a bit less Hell.

I'm sorry. I forgot that I was forced to own Enron stock. I tried to sell it, but men with guns wouldn't allow me to. When a corporation like Enron fails, the folks foolish enough to have been shareholders suffer. Their stock purchases were voluntary. When the government fails, we all suffer. There is no opt out. If consumers are harmed due to these companies, it is due to a government enforced monopoly.

Enron failed and they are no more. Will FEMA dissolve after the mishandling of NOLA? Don't hold your breath. Please explain to me how this incriminates the free market.

|9.14.05 @ 3:29PM|#

The state prevented a bunch of people from going out and killing the law merchant and taking all his stuff.

Irrelevant to the creation, content and maintenance of the Law Merchant. You can say the state prevents one player of Monopoly from killing another player and stealing his hotels, cash, and Park Place, but that doesn't mean Monopoly (the board game, that is!) is a creation of the state or is dependent on government programs.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:29PM|#

NO STATE ENFORCED THE LAW MERCHANT!

you can scream it all you want, mr quasibill -- that doesn't mean there was no authority upon which law merchant was dependent. it was dependent not only on the law of western christendom but the law and permission of the secular domains that comprised it. peace and order were only possible under these institutions -- their authority made the market possible.

in the end, law merchant was utterly dependent on the complicity and power of both the state and the church.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:33PM|#

Irrelevant to the creation, content and maintenance of the Law Merchant.

but entirely relevant to the existence of commerce at all, mr darkly.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:37PM|#

You can say the state prevents one player of Monopoly from killing another player and stealing his hotels, cash, and Park Place, but that doesn't mean Monopoly (the board game, that is!) is a creation of the state or is dependent on government programs.

it is, however, completely dependent on commonly acknowledged rules, without which the game would descend at least periodically into complete chaos. your argument is essentially that, if the rules of monopoly were unstated, we would create and maintain them ourselves.

i beg to differ. have you really so little knowledge of human nature? i would not disagree that humans are capable of producing such compacts. i would also insist that humans must also destroy such compacts whenever they believe it suits them -- which is far more often than it actually benefits them.

|9.14.05 @ 3:38PM|#

a fallacy of market religion, i fear, mr quasibill. markets as we know them are made possible by central authority. what is possible without such order is best approximated by the economics that existed prior to the rise of city-states -- in, say, 4500 bc.

So does this mean that any barter our prehistoric ancestors engaged in was meaningless? At least, meaningless until Mr. Flintstone began to club people in order to impose his will and create true, centralized markets?

Did hunting and foraging end due to the creation of city-states or was it due to some magical type of natural progress that had nothing at all to do with meaningful cooperation, primative division of labor, etc.? Did some people simply force others to evolve under threat of force?

|9.14.05 @ 3:40PM|#

Once upon a time, there were some buses. Some of them were owned by a private enterprise. Some others were owned by all the people of a city. One day, a big bad storm came to town. The private buses, though, weren't there; they had left the city when they saw the storm coming. But the city's buses had stayed behind, and they got hurt.

Wasn't this thread about this little fable, once upon a time?

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:44PM|#

So does this mean that any barter our prehistoric ancestors engaged in was meaningless?

does it mean that this is what you wish to revert to, in a search for ideological purity?

i think the kind of lawless markets that some of you are contemplating are such a profoundly destructive regression from what you have experienced that you have no way of comprehending the annihilation you're advocating. you're talking about going back to before the stone age. good luck to you.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 3:46PM|#

Wasn't this thread about this little fable, once upon a time?

i thought it was about foolishly taking that fable as some kind of evidence that we'd all be better off without law. :)

|9.14.05 @ 3:47PM|#

"The state prevented a bunch of people from going out and killing the law merchant and taking all his stuff."

Actually, 180 degrees wrong. Many European states of the time were busy subsidizing pirates to steal the merchant ships and killing the merchants of other states.

|9.14.05 @ 3:49PM|#

Sorry for the smartass post.

This has actually been one of the more enlightening threads for me lately--also very amusing. Sadly, as fun as this has been, I am going to have to tear myself away so that I can take my copy of that picture of the flooded buses to the framing shop. I'm thinking a large cherry frame with triple matting will suit it nicely. The finished work is going to look great in my office.

|9.14.05 @ 3:54PM|#

it is, however, completely dependent on commonly acknowledged rules, without which the game would descend at least periodically into complete chaos. your argument is essentially that, if the rules of monopoly were unstated, we would create and maintain them ourselves.

i would also insist that humans must also destroy such compacts whenever they believe it suits them

Is this why so many people choose to play using "house" rather than "official" rules? People alter or substitute their own rules all the time. The advantage to standard rules is that they are standard-everybody knows them. Do games using house rules tend to end with the board getting tossed across the room while a player shouts "I quit!" any more often than games played by official rules with at least one law enforcement officer present?

Also, please explain to me why wikipedia.org hasn't descended into utter chaos? It is a sort of free market for knowledge and ideas and it allows any user to edit the info. Why is it still standing and where are the regulators who are supposed to save this system from vandals?

|9.14.05 @ 4:01PM|#

does it mean that this is what you wish to revert to, in a search for ideological purity?

So are you saying that these markets could not have evolved into modern commerce without the help of the all-powerful and all-wise state? I simply tried to point out how free markets likely started, I didn't say we should hit the reset button. As far as I can tell, the market evolved despite the state, not because of it. The state seems to do all it can to crush markets. Is it not a coincidence that many see Marxism as the highest evolution of the state?

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 4:04PM|#

Do games using house rules tend to end with the board getting tossed across the room while a player shouts "I quit!" any more often than games played by official rules with at least one law enforcement officer present?

actually, they do. :) not that anyone has ever played monopoly with a cop looking over their shoulder, but it's a pretty effective deterrent. for a while, anyway.

not my preferred one, i might add. this is not an episode of state worship for me. but neither will i be silly enough to sit here and say that the state, perverse as it is, isn't the sorry parochial substitute for social unity that has been lost for some centuries now -- nor would i say that it as an institution is not primarily responsible for the massive expansion of commerce that has accompanied the modern era, as the custodian and defender of commercial and corporate law and order.

|9.14.05 @ 4:04PM|#

i thought it was about foolishly taking that fable as some kind of evidence that we'd all be better off without law. :)

Is law simply another word for coercion? I thought we would be better off without thuggish and arbitrary coercion, not law. Silly me, here I thought that the rule of law was a good thing. I'm a bad libertarian.

gaius marius|9.14.05 @ 4:06PM|#

Why is it still standing and where are the regulators who are supposed to save this system from vandals?

actually, wikipedia is, as i understand it, going to stop allowing ad hoc revisions due to the large number of vandalisms that occur on its site.

|9.14.05 @ 4:21PM|#

actually, they do. :) not that anyone has ever played monopoly with a cop looking over their shoulder, but it's a pretty effective deterrent. for a while, anyway.

not my preferred one, i might add...as the custodian and defender of commercial and corporate law and order.

I hardly ever toss the board across the room. And the last time I played with my buddy who happens to be a cop, I caught him palming an extra $100 after passing Go. Damn county workers.

Some of us would argue that the state is a deterrent to social unity. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn impressed with the acts of love and brotherhood that have come out of this disaster. While our incompetent government tends to get all the press coverage-blogs, local papers, and photo diaries are telling a story of unity and cooperation amongst private citizens. It's similar to what happened after 911. New Yorkers actually stopped stabbing each other long enough to help.

I don't think it's in our best interests to take part in commerce opened up by gunboat diplomacy. And remember, there is a difference between a libertarian(typically minarchist) and an anarcho-capitalist. Most of us see a role for limited government. The federal monstrosity that so many of us worship today is not at all limited. And perhaps it isn't a good idea for a body that is only good at creating disasters to thoroughly dominate the rescue, relief, and recovery efforts needed after a natural disaster. It's like calling a building full of arsonists the "Fire Department."

|9.14.05 @ 4:27PM|#

actually, wikipedia is, as i understand it, going to stop allowing ad hoc revisions due to the large number of vandalisms that occur on its site.

And is this anything other than a perfectly sensible solution to a problem caused by the ever-present fringes of society? It is perfectly free-market and free from coercion. My guess is that they will require registration before allowing users to alter the contents.

Despite this, I would call their experiment a success. A few pages may have been infiltrated or defaced, but the vast majority of them are fairly stable and reliable.

|9.14.05 @ 4:32PM|#

Of course, Wikipedia would never exist if not for the ever-vigiliant government police who keep the contributors from killing each other.

|9.14.05 @ 4:53PM|#

I notice that Mr. Gaius Marius persistently engages in two fallacies:

1) Arguing that "having rules and agreements" is the same as "having rules and agreements imposed unilaterally by a third party," government-style.

Not only markets, but law, proceeded the state. And evolve and persist often despite the state. Better read Bruce Benson's The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State before you embarrass yourself any further. :)

2) Often someone provides evidence that a specific function can be accomplished without the state by pointing to a past society in which that function was accomplished by non-state means. Mr. Gaius then deflects the point by accusing the poster of wanting to revert to the least desirable but unrelated aspects of that society as well.

you wish to return to the classical virtues of the roman republic, mr. gaius? a time when women were held in such low regard that daughters were numbered rather than given their own names? a time when the fastest means of transport in a medical emergency was by horse? this is what you wish to revert to, in a search for ideological purity? i think not, and i doubt you could persuade many others to adopt your fantastic utopian scheme.

|9.14.05 @ 4:57PM|#

Dammit. "Not only markets, but law, preceded the state."

Of course, I never would have fixed that language error -- as defined under Paragraph 5, section 1, of the government's English language laws -- if not for the threat of coercion by the Language Police.

|9.14.05 @ 5:01PM|#

I wish to modify this:

Mr. Gaius then deflects the point by accusing the poster of wanting to revert to the least desirable but unrelated aspects of that society as well.

In this thread at least, Mr. Gaius implies the poster wants to adopt the characteristics of the past society in toto -- the less desirable characteristics are implied.

|9.14.05 @ 5:02PM|#

Gaius wants to revert to the "virtues" of the Roman Republic?

Is this true, Gaius?

|9.14.05 @ 5:13PM|#

Danimal,

Even though "private means were only 80% effective since apparently 20% couldn't afford it", the indictment is on the public sector since they failed utterly to help even the 20%.

Private interests served 80% of the population and public interests failed the entire 20% of the rest. We can only speculate, because the current environment in no way allows for anything approaching a truly libertarian approach, but if there had been no expectation of public service, perhaps more of the remaining 20% we're discussing would have been served, which would have been a better result than the one we actually saw.

I don't know if the "public sector" failed necessarily - residents of NOLA who were unable to leave were able to find shelter in the publicly owned SuperDome. Obviously not the ideal situation to be in, but better than no shelter at all.

M1EK|9.14.05 @ 5:42PM|#

"Despite this, I would call their experiment a success. A few pages may have been infiltrated or defaced, but the vast majority of them are fairly stable and reliable."

Uh, no, by definition this proves that the experiment doesn't scale. Sorry.

M1EK|9.14.05 @ 5:49PM|#

"Do games using house rules tend to end with the board getting tossed across the room while a player shouts "I quit!" any more often than games played by official rules with at least one law enforcement officer present?"

Why do we have umpires at big sporting events? Why don't we need umpires at family softball games?

The thing you hard libertarians never get is that benevolent cooperative rulemaking DOESN'T SCALE.

|9.14.05 @ 6:07PM|#

The thing you hard libertarians never get is that benevolent cooperative rulemaking DOESN'T SCALE.

The thing that you hard anti-libertarians don't get is that libertarians SUPPORT THE RULE OF LAW.

For minarchists provided by a state, by anarchists as supplied through private markets. No one said, "lets get rid of all law and tradition, then just cross our fingers."

Shannon Love|9.14.05 @ 6:44PM|#

A better thought experiment about freemarkets vs government in this context would be to consider what the city of New Orleans would have looked like if the city had been evolved over the course of decades using only a minimalist state. How would it have been different and how would those differences caused the events of Katrina to play out differently.

First, I think the city would have a had a much smaller population. It took a lot of government money to drain swamp and build the extensive levee system. That spending had no relationship to the actual economic production of the city itself. Also, the welfare state pulled people into the city and trapped them there. A freemarket city would have been physically smaller and with a smaller percentage of poor or dysfunctional individuals who could not care for themselves.

Second, the city most likely would have evolved to withstand periodic flooding. Private levees would not have been as high as the government ones and would be overtopped more often. Land would have either been built up and buildings made with a sacrificable ground floor. The infrastructure would have been built to withstand flooding.

Third, the people would always know that they had the primary responsibility for caring for themselves and would plan accordingly. Nobody would get trapped because they believed the calvary would ride right over the hill.

In short, a New Orleans that evolved under a freemarket would have been a smaller, more robust city that might have just shrugged off the hurricane.

|9.15.05 @ 12:33AM|#

Gaius wants to revert to the "virtues" of the Roman Republic?

Is this true, Gaius?

All I really know is that gaius is opposed to "rampant individualism," Neitzcheianism (I'll never learn to spell that), imperialism, militarism, and people running around willy-nilly without the firm hands of both an internalized sense of duty and tradition and an externally imposed authority on their shoulders. I've inferred that he sees things to admire in pre-imperial Rome, but that was really just an example, and my point doesn't rest upon it being literally true.

I'd be curious to read gaius' answer, though.

gaius marius|9.15.05 @ 12:38PM|#

New Yorkers actually stopped stabbing each other long enough to help.

as i've said somewhere else, the roman empire fell not because romans could not help one another in disaster -- but because they could not help one another in anything except what they perceived to be a disaster.

Arguing that "having rules and agreements" is the same as "having rules and agreements imposed unilaterally by a third party," government-style.

Not only markets, but law, proceeded the state. And evolve and persist often despite the state. Better read Bruce Benson's The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State before you embarrass yourself any further. :)

i fully agree, mr darkly. you'll get no state worship from me. patriotism is a sort of sin, in my eyes.

you wish to return to the classical virtues of the roman republic, mr. gaius?

utterly not. although i don't doubt i'm popularly perceived as such here, i'm no archaist either. there is no going back, and any attempt to is ultimately destructive.

however, that does not mean we can blithely ignore all the lesson sof the past in charting our future and expect success.

All I really know is that gaius is opposed to "rampant individualism," Neitzcheianism (I'll never learn to spell that), imperialism, militarism, and people running around willy-nilly without the firm hands of both an internalized sense of duty and tradition and an externally imposed authority on their shoulders. I've inferred that he sees things to admire in pre-imperial Rome, but that was really just an example, and my point doesn't rest upon it being literally true.

what i would wish for, in my weaker moments, is what i cannot have -- a return to a society that functioned under a cooperative consensus, leaders and led alike, of morality and moral action -- as the west and indeed every civilization was in the years of its growth and flowering. that is not the roman republic, nor is it anything in the classical record after the peloponnesian war, as i read it. rome, fwiw, was a monstrosity in these terms -- its entire existence from the rape of the sabines forward an exercize in a managerial, imposed concord by conquest.

but, as i say, this is merely what i find to admire in civilization -- not what i would purport to be able to have manifested. given our desperate lot at this late stage, i see two evil choices for us: regrettable imperial management or an invitation to chaos. i'm certain we will try to maintain (are maintaining, really) the former.

but that is, as many would be surprised to hear me say, at best a rearguard action in the decline of the west (though it may continue for centuries). i don't feel the management class deserves our proletarian fealty, as the folly and destruction of the nationalist period of 18th-20th c clearly illustrates. that doesn't mean, however, that the consequences of our choice, regardless of which it is, will be desirable or even survivable for our society.

|9.15.05 @ 12:39PM|#

Wait a minute-that never actually happened. Baseball-players, owners, umpires and all-is pretty free-market. Nobody is forced to play baseball. Umpires have authority that is granted to them by all involved in the game and no further authority than that. When players are forced(by a Congress with nothing better to do) to piss in a cup in order to play ball and earn a living, it will become a little less free-market. If owners impose drug tests, few machine guns are involved in a player's termination. That last word takes on a whole new meaning when Congress steps into the picture.

|9.15.05 @ 12:46PM|#

I'm sorry, I had trouble posting that last one and left the first two paragraphs out.

Why do we have umpires at big sporting events? Why don't we need umpires at family softball games?

-Insert smart-ass comment about an umpire shooting a coach for disputing a call here.-

-go to last post-

|9.15.05 @ 1:03PM|#

Say, gaius, I'm curious. Have you read Oswald Spengler? Specifically, The Decline of the West? (I tried to, once. And the only reason I did was that science fiction writer James Blish wrote that he drew upon Spengler when he wrote his "flying cities" novels, and there was sort of a Cliff's Notes version of Spengler's cycles of culture and civilization at the back of Blish's Cities in Flight collection.)

I'm only curious, because some of your posts sound a little Spenglerian.

gaius marius|9.15.05 @ 3:59PM|#

i have, mr darkly, but -- while spengler clearly had some brilliant insights and was massively influential in the study of history -- his shortcomings are apparent. i think the analogy of a civilization to an organism with a fixed lifespan is falsely deterministic. civilizations are the products of the acts of men with free will and their interaction with random events, and are conceivably open-ended. the idea of a hegelian spirit of history/culture is laughable to me.

i think what men like h.g. wells and spengler contributed that is worthwhile is better taken as distilled by later cultural historians like toynbee and barzun.

|9.15.05 @ 4:44PM|#

OK. Thanks, gm.