“What? If you steal your means of production, you’ve no way of calculating the costs of your endeavor, and thus no way of determining if you’ve really produced a profit or created value.”
I’m not stealing the means of production, I’m stealing money with which to purchased the means of production. Profit is still just judged off of the price of inputs vs revenue.
“It seems to me you haven’t even described anything relating to economics. You’ve just described some hypothetical problem of a certain production method that, if conditions held, may lead to it not being provided, but then again, you really have no idea a priori.”
… What? All of Austrian economic theory, by its very nature is something which will occur certain situations. We cannot tell that anyone will EVER engage in market activities, nor that anyone will ever actually pursue profit or even utilize money. The same applies for all a priori sciences. We don’t know that there will ever be a perfect circle, nor a right triangle. We can tell, however, what the result will be when two groups of of four are added together, or what the results of profit pursuing activities on a market in which certain consumers choose to utilize a generally accepted means of exchange.
The problem of public goods fits all of these criteria and deals with human valuation, exchange, and production, fitting all of the normal criteria for having to do with the subject known as “economics”. Also how is it that something hypothetical cannot be a priori?
“People won’t contribute if they don’t value their contribution highly enough. Is that all you’re saying here? And how do you even know it’s a good? You’re just assuming that too, I guess?”
Yes. What’s the problem with that? If you’re going to suggest that I should not be doing so because it doesn’t apply to real life, then that’s a perfectly legitimate concern. That was, as I stated in my first post, my biggest problem with the Darwin Economy, that he overestimates the commonality of public goods. The commonality of the problem is also something that we can only know a posteriori.
“Project A will not be provided unless it is funded by theft. Implicit in your definition is that it will not be provided for voluntarily. This means individuals have not revealed a preference that it be provided.”
Yes, that is a major problem with the statist assumption that you can calculate the ideal provision of a public good.
“How could you ever come about this knowledge?”
You can’t. That’s part of the problem.
“I can’t assume it, because labeling things as “defense” and “property rights” smuggles an objective conception of these things detached from individuals in the marketplace who determine what they are, how they will be provided, and whether they wish to trade to acquire or ensure them.”
What? How can you exchange property rights? And yea we kind of have an objective idea in mind when thinking about the market place, and these things do have to be provided.
“You’ve left out a necessary assumption: that the state (or whoever is receiving the stolen funds) will provide “defense” and “rights protection” in the manner individuals actually desire. For all you know, the state could use the funds it gets to exploit an underclass and protect the property of an elite. Or it could kill millions oversees, something individuals might think imposes a cost far greater than any benefit from the “defense” they’re receiving in the first place.”
Correct.
“And furthermore, you’ve framed the entire problem to lead to this conclusion. I don’t see why that makes it a relevant analysis. Look, if I assumed there was a god living among us, and I further assumed he was a benevolent god, making him ultimate dictator would probably make everyone better off. So what? And my response to the “problem” of a collective good that you present is “so what?” You can’t even prove the collective good is desirable. You just have to assume it, and that’s where your analysis begins, only to be followed by additional, unrealistic assumptions.”
And that would be a legitimate line of reasoning if you’re trying to understand what the affects of an almighty god living amongst us would be, now isn’t it? If you determine that there isn’t then this would mean that everything which we have stated would not apply, but this does not mean that we cannot learn something from the analysis. All other factors cannot be held equal, yet this is a common method used by economists in order to show economic relationships, whether this comes in the form of “ceteris paribus” or the ERE, you can’t just cut them off and say “that would never happen”, even though this is perfectly true
“I thought it came in when we realized the state steals from people, builds shit and then calls it “defense” and then says it’s desirable, and then that it can only be provided for by stealing, and then that nothing even resembling it could be provided voluntarily!”
“What problem!? The only thing a state has an easy time doing is making tons of shit that people wouldn’t fund voluntarily.”
The problem I have just outlined. Just because someone wouldn’t fund something voluntarily doesn’t mean that they don’t value the provision of a good to be zero dollars.
“To posit that the process which ignores the valuations of people will produce the better result, as judged by those same people, is ridiculous”
Why?