Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 10-05-17 05:01 PM: > I am interested in what you Libertarians have to say about the Schelling > situation. Please, for the moment, let's stipulate to the model and its > verisimulitude. Lets further stipulate that NOBODY wants to live in a > segregated neighborhood, but EVERYBODY wants to have just a few of their > own kind around. (I am not sure what that means, either, but let's > stipulate, all the same.) Now, given Schelling, we all end up living in > segragated neighborhoods, if we are Libertarians, right?
No, I don't think that's an inevitable conclusion. As a libertarian, I would say that the Schelling setup, by definition, eliminates the possibility of libertarianism by eliminating any chance of heterogeneous preferences. (Heterogeneous preferences is the very heart of libertarianism.) For example, a libertarian would want to allow for agents that preferred to be surrounded by other types. You can't be libertarian and force everyone to have the same preference, however small it may be. I.e. libertarianism is an ideal and, as an ideal, it is easy for it to be definitionally incompatible with other ideals (like Schelling's setup). But this doesn't really answer your question, I suppose. > Is that Tough S--t? Or is their a role for government in this sort of > situation. The (again, ideal) role of government in libertarianism is the Hobbesian 3rd party to help negotiate between parties in conflict. So, here's another way to show Schelling's model is incompatible with libertarianism, by definition, because there are no explicit contracts and hence no conflicts in the interpretation of contracts and transactions in Schelling's setup. But a more practical comment would be that if we added to the setup you posit above, an implied contract (rule) between neighbors that, say, if there are >= X type A's in the neighborhood, then no more type A's can move in. And/or perhaps, if there are <= Y type A's in the neighborhood, then no more type B's can move in. But we need another rule that if an incoming agent (type A in the former, type B in the latter) wants to move in anyway, it would appeal to the government to make an exception to the rule. Add that to the model, and then, yes, there is a legitimate role for government in that situation, namely government is just an extra bit of logic invoked in the context of conflict. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
