Pardon me for reposting. I should have mentioned in the subject line that
my message "ride free or die!" was a reply to the thread on utopias.
>Robin Hahnel wrote,
>
>>But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried
>>about the free rider problem in provision of public goods. They mean if
>>we leave it to the market for people to buy as much pollution reduction
>>or military defense as they want to, few if any will buy any at all
>>since each enjoys such a tiny fraction of the benefit and all have an
>>incentive to ride for free on the purchases of others. Hence the market
>>bias against public good provision versus private good provision.
>
>In other words, the *problem* is not that some people get to ride for free,
>the problem is that the free-rider calculus leads to a misallocation of
>resources. An even more pernicious problem (a side effect of the side
>effect) would be the administrative machinery set in place to capture the
>unwarranted advantages resulting from this misallocation.
>
>Couldn't the parecon model suffer from excess literalism in its efforts to
>"eradicate" the free-rider problem?
>
>Or, perhaps, my oblique point would be clearer if I came at it from another
>angle: the greatest indignity inflicted on the poor is not their poverty; it
>is the retroactive justification of that poverty (and the corresponding
>wealth of the wealthy) as being "as of right". It's worth entertaining the
>thought that *most* inequality results not from misfortune or personal
>qualities but from the ideology erected *ex post facto* to explain, justify
>and, ultimately, naturalize inequality.
>
>What I'm proposing, then, is a kind of multiplier effect for free-ridership
>or inequality that makes the final impact much worse than any direct
>effects. The best solution to such a problem is not always the most obvious,
>direct or literal one. As a thought experiment, I'll pose an alternative to
>parecon: "socialotto". Socialotto doesn't seek to eliminate inequality or
>free-ridership, only to systematically randomize them. As an aside, I'd
>reckon that, given a choice in the structure of rewards (but not in their
>actual distribution), people would opt for much less inequality than now
>exists but for substantially more than a ratio of 2:1.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Tom Walker
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Know Ware Communications
>Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>(604) 688-8296
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
>
>
>
>
>
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Know Ware Communications
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 688-8296
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
