On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market > solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work.
Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? > No one is going to clean > up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is > no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval times are myths or gross simplifications > The tragedy > of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants > something done that no one will do "off their own bat" - but they are > prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or > organising somone else to do it. If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige. You don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is that you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more altruism. Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable. This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this system and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too great. Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations that I deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would end up in jail for "chipping in". In fact government robs me of my freedom to chip in, because they take all of my "chip in" money and then some, and then give it to banks. Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive to be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under coercion and market distortion. > And if no one does it, we all end up worse > off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although > game theory has something to say about it. Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply. Telmo. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
