As I indicated before, we get to conclude that there is no such thing as market failure!
You have declared government to be efficient. The only manner in which this can be true in a representative democracy is by tipping one’s hat to the supremacy (read “efficiency”) of the majority’s will.
And “But, look, methodological individualism!” sure makes for a pretty wrapping, but it doesn’t change the crappy present inside.
Only if you take the ideal of “representative democracy” seriously. I don’t. I have a more Paretian-Schumpeterian idea of elitist democracy (involving pressure groups, etc.); my views are in step with Richard Posner’s idea of “Concept 2 democracy.”
No, it can’t. Market efficiency is only possible in the absence of barriers to the expression of individual will.
If I am able to “will” a barrier to your desired trade, just because I have been successful doesn’t mean the outcome must efficient—efficient, because, after all, I’m an individual and the barrier to your trade is a product of my willing it.
Preposterous.
There’s no practical difference: If you happen not to be a member of a successful pressure group, your will fails to be adequately expressed. You’re an individual. You failed in expressing your will. Where’s the efficiency in that?
Esuric and bcyclewutztht, I would appreciate you both answering this question.
David Friedman states, “The efficient level of crime, taking account of enforcement costs, may leave some inefficient crimes undeterred–because it is not worth the cost of deterring them.”
Do you agree with Friedman or not?
I could fail to win a free-market auction, too. That’s not necessarily inefficient. The good went to a person that valued it more.
Likewise, acting alone, I could sufficiently outbid competing pressure groups to influence public policy, but the policy itself is not necessarily representative of the supposed majority.
Except that is not the claim, as I’m sure you know. The argument is not that the marketplace produces efficient outcomes, but that it works in such a way that efficient practices and institutions are encouraged, while inefficient practices and institutions are discouraged. This results in a tendency of efficient practices and institutions winning out against inefficient ones. One cannot simply carry this reasoning to the political sphere, as the political sphere is functionally different than the marketplace. It lacks the incentive structure and feedback loop that encourages efficiency/discourages inefficiency.
Again, that people have pursued their own interests does not mean that they have succeeded. There needs to be some way to measure the success of an action in order to determine its efficiency. If there is no easy way to ascertain the benefits or costs of actions, then individuals may continue to emply the wrong means in an earnest effort to achieve their ends. Hence it is entirely rational for a person to perform a rain dance, as his forefathers did before him, but that does not mean it is efficient.
Peace, brother. When I want an alchemist, I’ll call.
Not sure, I saw someone saying “anachro-capitalist” so it made me think of “arachnophobia” instead of “anachronism” then I thought it would be a pretty cute avatar to have a spider on top of some gold with “arachno-capitalist” on it. Feel free to reuse the avatar… I’ll probably go back to the Hoppe-profile once the novelty of this wears off. 
Clayton -
Before you leave, bcyclwutztht, could you please answer my last question?
P.S. I know extended debates like this one can become tiresome; thanks for being a part of it for so long, though!
I’ve brought this up twice, and as far as I can tell, he has dodged both times. Arguing with this poster is largely a waste of time, he doesn’t seem interested in serious debate.
LS, Esuric –
The way I understood the argument (and already explained previously), mere occurrence or existence of X would be a manifestation of the weakest form of “efficiency”. If something occurs (or just happens to appear, or exists occasionally) then it becomes a mere candidate for being “efficient”. It gradually graduates to higher efficiency status by persisting to exist and becoming prevalent across the realm of human actors. The persistent existence of X is a manifestation of two things: (1) that the perceived cost of removing X is higher than the perceived benefit of doing so to the actors that dislike it or consider it “inefficient”, and (2) that the perceived benefit of X persisting is higher than the perceived cost of maintaining it to the actors that support it, hence consider it “efficient”. In a dynamic (changing) world, X becomes “inefficient” when the inequalities in both (1) and (2) are reversed which is also the point in time when X ceases to exist.
Rape, theft, and hitting people’s heads with bricks exist. They would be “efficient” if they were prevalent and persistent across the realm of human actors. The fact that they aren’t makes them “inefficient” by the above standard, or at least less “efficient” than human institutions that are more prevalent and persistent then them.
Z.
To use the word “cost” in the same way in a market as well as non-market situation is very misleading.
I think this line of reasoning surreptitiously assumes a territorial monopolist of law who may define what acts of expropriation count as theft (purse-snatching) and which do not (tax-collecting), which hittings over the head count as assault (bar brawl) and which do not (police “continuum of force”).
Clayton -
Right, so it is bollocks. That was my point.
You’re right, you did say that. Either I missed it or didn’t take it into account when I wrote my earlier post. So my fault there.
With that said, do you make any causal distinction(s) between the loss a person suffers due to mugging and the loss he suffers in stock-market investments?
If a person is mugged on the way to seeing a movie, does that mean to you that the most efficient way for him to see that movie necessarily involved the mugging, per Stigler’s definition of “maximum efficiency”?
In that case, I’m sorry to have made a libellous accusation. It does seem that you were not committing the equivocation I accused you of.
However, I do have another accusation to make. This concerns your claim that you have not used any normative criteria for your arguments in this thread. I think this is incorrect. You’ve asserted that, because government is “efficient” in the Stiglerian sense, it must exist for reasons seen as “good” by the part of most or all of the people who live under it. While that is obviously true and also hardly new information, you use it to make recommendations about future action. For example, you stated at one point that your argument means we should all become more “Burkean” in our outlook. This is a completely normative proposition. Furthermore, you claim that libertarians should not engage in any “consciousness-raising” or other educational activism. Again, this is entirely normative.
So while you claim that you’re arguing from a completely descriptive (i.e. non-normative) standpoint, these latter statements show you to contradict that assertion. You take a necessarily ex post argument and apply it ex ante; this is known as an appeal to tradition. Although you don’t outright claim that, because government has persisted in the past, it must persist in the future (ad infinitum?), you do claim that social activists and reformers (including of the libertarian variety) should all essentially shut up because their efforts are/would be a waste of time – hence sneaking in (however unwittingly) the appeal to tradition and contradicting your claim of being non-normative at the same time.
Finally, I’d like to address your stated belief that “interests” (almost) always trump “ideologies”. Why should we make a distinction between the two? After all, couldn’t it be said that following a particular ideology can be in someone’s interest? If so, then when speaking of following interests, ideologies must necessarily be included as a subset thereof, which means that the claim “interests trump ideologies” cannot hold.
Clayton,
Human actors don’t need definitions and semantic distinctions to justify their end-achieving actions. That’s the beauty of reality and persistent existence: It’s very hard to explain (rationalize) into oblivion. I don’t think the line of reasoning assumes anything more than an inter-subjective agreement (between you and I) on which societal phenomena exist (and persist to do so) and which ones do not. Or, equivalently, which products and services are selling (are being supported by human actor’s end-achieving action) and which ones are not.
Z.
Good points, Autolyykos.
On the topic of of ideology, I would claim that I mean “ideology” as a set of convictions believed to be rationally true, in a disinterested sense (à la Kant). That is, I consider most people to believe their ideologies are ethically justified and well-reasoned: unionization is “fair”; vegetarianism is “moral”; libertarianism is “liberty.”
Your criticism is strong in that ideologies can be considered a subset of interests; however, if true, the ideologies should then be seen for what they are. Additionally, my point was in regard to missionary practices: don’t expect to “educate” others about libertarianism, since their personal interests are stronger than your philosophic arguments. That’s ultimately all I was saying.
You’re right that my appeal to Burkean conservatism was normative; I didn’t mean to imply that all of my words are always and everywhere purely positive. My point was that libertarian logic, however persuasive, should not necessarily second-guess the ecological rationality of social institutions, governmental or otherwise.