That’s what I am getting at with the government creating and redistributing externalities. You have a problem, you introduce the government, and now the problem affects MORE people, and is LARGER.
People who apologize for or try to justify government intervention are really fighting a losing battle IMO.
If there’s an outbreak in a city, I’d call in the national guard (yes I know in a true libertarian society this probably won’t exist) and have them contain the entire region. Set up a perimeter, isolate infected individuals, and then treat them. What do you think?
I don’t see why a city would need the national guard to control access to its property.
Being wasteful doesn’t necessarily entail failure in its goals, though. Additionally, many people might find some costs (e.g., compulsory payments) an adequate trade-off for protection from contagions. You are, of course, right that the government will prima facie be inefficient compared to market institutions.
I firmly believe that I would advocate forced containment of infectious individuals (once again, I would attempt to compensate them, such as housing them at a posh–but inescapable–resort). liberty student, would you consider this “aggression” or an instance of “Statism”?
Read what experts have to say about the usefulness of quarantines. In the case of a disease like smallpox, even 90% isolation is ineffective. Add to this the potential for willful abuse. Who says all misanthropes live in the backwoods of Idaho or Montana and send mailbombs to random addresses? How about Ted Turner (aka “Noah”) and his 250 million ideal population? Or how about Eric Pianka jumping for joy at the discovery of airborne Ebola with a 95% death rate in humans? Or how about the guy who bangs the Queen of England, the Duke of Edinburgh, wishing he could reincarnate as a supervirus that would wipe out 95% of the population? These people are very powerful (Pianka excepted, he’s just a two-bit loser with a big mouth). They can pull the levers of power. If you wanted 95% of the population eliminated, what better way than to intentionally introduce a virus with a 95% death rate into the population and, to ensure its effective spread, enact mass quarantines that corral the uninfected and infected together? Given everything that these sociopathic elites have said, if you don’t find such a scenario plausible enough to be terrifying, you’re out to lunch. Just 65 years ago in Germany, the Nazis were systematically liquidating Jews, homosexuals, Christians and other political prisoners by the millions using the latest technological methods available to them. Like the Turners and Prince Philips of today, they were obsessed with population control.
Yeah, cuz the military can stop anything.
Clayton -
Depends. If you assign magical fairy-powers to your army so that it can stop a smallpox-like infection after it’s spread into the wild, then it’s statism. If you don’t assign magical fairy-powers to your army, then it’s just ordinary aggression.
The NAP can be applied to infectious diseases just as well as anything else. It’s up to you to defend yourself and to make preparations for an event like an outbreak of a major infectious disease. This might be as simple as buying into a bio-shelter timeshare or it might involve retrofitting your house to a level-4 biolab specification. Either way, I don’t owe you a dime because you’re paranoid about an infectious disease outbreak and you have no business taking my liberty by “quarantining” me or taking my property to fund your army with its magical fairy-powers that can stop smallpox in the wild.
Clayton -
That should be a government slogan. “Success through inefficiency!” But really, you’re defining a goal, without weighing opportunity costs. And that is the entire premise of the state. We need X, regardless of what X costs.
If they found them adequate, then they wouldn’t need to be compelled.
Is forced containment “aggression” or “statism”?
Was Hitler’s mistake that he didn’t have nicer concentration camps?
Criminals impose costs on others. Therefore, we develop legal remedies to institutionalize better efficiency. I believe we both agree criminals can be imprisoned.
Likewise, diseased people can impose costs on others, so I believe remedying that justifies intervention, whatever a most efficient solution might be (e.g. perhaps having a voluntarily-finded disease control agency relocate sick persons in a resort until proper treatment can be found, etc.).
Furthermore, I think a good case could be made that infectious individuals are “aggressing” against others.
To more directly answer your question, Hitler’s problem was that his prisoners weren’t an inefficient scourge on productivity.
If an infectious disease broke out in an urban, heavily-populated district of work (e.g., downtown NYC), then productivity will be severely impacted, drastically reducing social welfare. If there is a cost-effective means of preventing such an outbreak (e.g., PDAs could require individuals to have regular check-ups, etc.) alongside a societal willingness to detain infectious individuals, then the benefits could outweigh the costs (especially as compared to the alternative: every man for himself).
Luckily for me, I read your linked paper.
As usual, cherry-picking distorts the full truth: “isolation of symptomatic patients is sufficient to control an outbreak,” or if it is insufficient, it should still be used “together” with other means; furthermore, “early isolation” can have a “dramatic impact” on the the spread of an epidemic.
Non sequitur
They can be, like I can punch someone, or I can call in sick to work, or I can jump out a window. Whether they should be, is another matter altogether.
I’m not trying to start anything up here, but you do realize you are a libertarian arguing for violation of property rights and individual freedom through intervention, right? If you can justify this intervention, you can justify any. If you refuse to allow the market to work in this situation, when can you argue with a straight face for the market, and not have it be completely arbitrary?
Hitler thought they were. He thought Jews, gays and others were social bads.
You didn’t answer my main question.
We are theorizing about anarcho-capitalist policies, but we both concede that only the discovery process of the marketplace will actually settle these issues, hence our proposed remedies are only speculation. This “intervention,” in my opinion, is nothing other than an attempt to maximize efficiency. I believe social institutions, if left unimpeded by monopolistic central management, will tend in that direction. I am justifying my intervention on the grounds that it will be welfare-maximizing, much like I would justify imprisoning serial murderers (e.g., convicts could auction themselves to the most appealing prison, where earned money is partially or wholly redirected as restitution).
Essentially, I’m not sure what it means “to allow the market to work”; in what sense am I not? Once again, I am alleging that infectious individuals–just like more straightforward criminals–impose a heavy social cost that will incentivize proper action. What that “proper action” is is our debate, since we are acting as amateur central planners.
amateur central planners.
I like this. Implying there are “professional central planners” haha
I am not. Anarcho-Capitalist policies is an oxymoron.
Your remedy is to bypass the market and use coercion.
Isn’t that what every planner, politician and bureaucrat says? Does anyone say, “I have to rob you of your freedoms so you can be worse off?”
Again, what is libertarian about forced internment in a concentration camp?
So you’re saying that decentralized coercion is preferable to free markets. And you keep appealing to welfare maximization, without having any way to measure welfare objectively.
You can’t have a market if you don’t have private property. Your “policy” completely bypasses property. This has been a recurrent theme in our discussions. You don’t seem to understand what the market process is, and what conditions are essential for it to occur.
Proper action would be for the healthy to quarantine themselves by exercising their property rights. That would be consistent with ancap, markets and libertarianism.
I endeavor to never act as a central planner. It’s inconsistent with free markets and libertarian ethics.
I’m glad you read the article and, no, I’m not cherry-picking. The point is that there is a minimum level of isolation and quarantine which must be achieved in order for any such measure to be effective. That’s the whole point of the article. In other words, you either catch it in time and fully contain it, or don’t bother. Combine that with the simple observation that a disease that is dangerous enough to justify mass quarantines (for example, a smallpox-like virus) is also the least likely to actually be contained by any isolation or quarantine measures and it becomes clear that mass quarantine is nothing but security theater.
Clayton -
Only if I said “public policy.”
Infectious individuals are imposing costs on others; it is efficient to contain them.
to whom is it efficient?
What is private policy?
If the cost is significant enough to warrant action, action will be taken. This is ancap. We don’t plan what costs must be paid with force. We allow the market to determine that.
Nozick wasnt an ancap. Also, please dont argue through proxies.
You have completely ignored my direct questions, as well as my challenge to you as a libertarian that you cannot draw more than an arbitrary line between when you use violence and when you allow the market to work. Is this correct?
I’d like some quality answers please.
Society! 
Clayton -
Does anyone here know some background information regarding past major epidemics and how it was “solve”?
i.e. bubonic plague