R. Anders Schneiderman wrote (responding to Robin Hahnel):
>>One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free
>>rider problem for expressing desires for public goods.
>
>What about other free rider problems? And how exactly does it eliminate
>the FR problem for expressing desires for public goods? As anyone who's
>spent time slogging through endless planning meetings has probably seen
>firsthand, it's quite possible--easy, even--for people who are
>participating in the planning to want to have everything without making any
>compromises, or to participate in such a way that everyone else has to do
>all the real work involved in planning (such people are ususally referred
>to as "men").
>I think participatory planning is a good thing, but I don't see how it gets
>rid of free riders.
And what about the critique, as succinctly put by Nancy Folbre, that this
model turns life into one long student council meeting. Some people like
meetings, and others sleep through them.
>>Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a
>>desirable system of law enforcement.
>
>Er, no. If you're proposing this as a serious alternative, you can't just
>say, "I'm just an economist and can't say anything about crime" and expect
>folks to take such a radical, sweeping proposal seriously.
No kidding. It's reminiscent of Herb Gintis' claim that as an economist,
he's just a technician - like a "plumber," not an architect, and therefore
not responsible for what a house looks like. Isn't participatory planning
supposed to overcome the compartmentalization of responsiblity that comes
with a division of labor?
Doug
