Degrees of Freedom: No, libertarians are not guilty of ignoring public goods problems: Politics, Philosophy and Economics from a libertarian point of view.

No, libertarians are not guilty of ignoring public goods problems Monday, March 08, 2010

Commenting at Econlog, Daniel Kuehn expresses a commonly heard objection to libetarianism. Kuehn:

I suppose I just think the libertarian that takes public good and externality issues seriously is very rare. It's not incompatible with libertarianism, but it's deliberately minimized.

No matter how many times I encounter it, this objection to libertarianism always surprises me because it's so plainly incorrect. As I pointed out:

It's not that libertarians don't take public goods problems seriously. We just don't trust people in the government any more than we trust people outside of the government.

If I suggested that you let me withhold a fraction of your paycheck at my own discretion so that I could deal with climate change, protect you from foreign invasion and stabilize the financial system, you'd rightly be very skeptical of such a proposal no matter what you think about public goods and externalities. Libertarians are just people who react the same way whether the person proposing such an arrangement is a politician or not.

If any group seems to disregard public goods problems, it's people who so eagerly embrace political solutions to public goods problems. What non-libertarians nearly always miss is that increasing the power of government always introduces a new public goods problem: The people in the government may use that increased power in harmful ways. Anyone who expends the effort and resources to stop such abuses from happening bears the full cost of such efforts but receives only a tiny fraction of the benefit if they are successful. I've never observed any advocate for more government intervention actually address this.

It would be nice if detractors of libertarianism would base their criticisms on things that libertarians actually believe.

Labels: arguments, economics, libertarian theory

9 Comments:

At Mon Mar 08, 04:16:00 PM EST, Taylor Conant said...: James,

Thoughtful post. Unfortunately in this instance you were wasting your time as DK is a well-known troll.
At Mon Mar 08, 10:47:00 PM EST, autofyrsto said...: Great post. Last year, Thomas DiLorenzo at Mises gave a very informative lecture about the externalities inherent in public-sector economics. I don't know why the fantasy that government cures all externalities persists. People just don't think about it hard enough, I guess.

Audio here: http://mises.org/media/3982
At Mon Mar 08, 10:51:00 PM EST, Mattheus said...: James,

Good post. One of libertarianism's strongest arguments is to ask "If government can, why not me?"
At Tue Mar 16, 01:04:00 AM EDT, James said...: Taylor,

I don't expect to persuade DK.
At Mon May 17, 04:33:00 PM EDT, Anton Sherwood said...: It's an example of a more general fallacy: "If you don't support my solution to problem X, you must not care about X."
At Tue Oct 12, 09:35:00 AM EDT, Daniel said...: Just stumbled across this.

First, it was quite clearly not an objection to libertarianism. It was an objection to a crude libertarianism that doesn't take this into account.

Some libertarians provide thoughtful responses like this, highlighting the public choice issues at stake. Those public choice issues aren't ignored by the good non-libertarians, we simply point out that we've evolved institutions over time to address them.

What I think more libertarians need to understand is that if we have something like an externality, you have coercion no matter what you do. Leaving an externality alone introduces coercion. Dealing with an externality introduces coercion. So what is the position most consistent with liberty - letting weaker but narrower interests do the coercion (i.e. - leave the externality alone), or let more dangerous, but more republican institutions do the coercion (i.e. - institute some sort of policy to address it).

I would argue that the libertarian position is more coercive and less consistent with liberty. The problem with an externality is that someone gets involunatrily hurt by another's actions. Giving them the vote and the political legitimacy to address that (however imperfectly) seems more consistent with liberty than simply accepting the coercion.
At Tue Oct 12, 09:38:00 AM EDT, Daniel said...: What non-libertarians nearly always miss is that increasing the power of government always introduces a new public goods problem: The people in the government may use that increased power in harmful ways."

Which non-libertarians miss this?? American non-libertarians especially are innoculated against this fallacy.

To take a line from you - it would be nice if detractors of non-libertarianism would base their criticisms on things that non-libertarians actually believe.

It's not hard to find libertarians that openly say that externality arguments are bullshit. Have you ever come across a non-libertarian that has said "the state will never use it's power in harmful ways". Of course not. That's absurd. Nobody thinks that. Libertarians have convinced themselves that non-libertarians think that to make their own position more tenable.
At Thu Oct 28, 06:00:00 PM EDT, James said...: Daniel,

You write, "it would be nice if detractors of non-libertarianism would base their criticisms on things that non-libertarians actually believe."

But I'm not claiming that a belief exists. I'm asserting an oversight.
At Thu Oct 28, 07:09:00 PM EDT, James said...: Daniel,

You write "Dealing with an externality introduces coercion."

Not so. Washing my clothes after I go near a factory removes soot but isn't coercive. Neither does paying the factory not to pollute. Neither does avoiding the area. I could go on but the point is that you so readily make a false claim as though it were true.

Anyway, I'm not categorically opposed to coercion. I only get riled at the initiation of force. Perhaps you are using the terms interchangeably?

Remedying externalities doesn't have to involve the initiation of force, although it probably will if the government is the agent of remediation.

For example, if the restaurant near me dumps old cooking oil in my yard and I hire an agent of my own choosing to make the restauranteur clean up the mess, there is no initiation of force, other than that committed by the restaurant. On the other hand, if the government forces me to use it as my agent when I am the victim of externalities, then there is initiation of force.