If you’re not an anarchist yet, then read Bryan Caplan’s “The Economics of Non-State Legal Systems.”
Beware: reading the aforementioned paper can cause you to view the public sector as radically inefficient.
How can it be efficient if it exists,please explain? :-p
Will give it a read.
Tomorrow, I have my first lecture of the academic year. It’s Economics and the legal system. Hey-ho.
I’ve ordered Benson’s The Enterprise of Law for an anarcho-capitalist background. Of course, just as studying only Austrian economics alone won’t get you through an economics degree, just learning An-cap theories of law won’t get me my law degree.
As nirgraham said, weren’t you the one saying “Government exists so it must be efficient?”
Furthermore minarchists agree with the inefficiencies of the state. They support the “minimal” state out of a fear that it is “necessary” to keep order.
@Azure and nigraham
I’m pretty sure he was just bringing up an interesting topic and playing devil’s advocate. He’s always said he was an anarchist.
I’m less interested in the positions he holds but in his arguments…
So perhaps he will reveal why his diabolical advocation had failed? Was it for reasons shared by those who countered him, or does he have other unique arguments of his own? Or perhaps he will say that it is sound, and go on to explain how he is nevertheless an anarchist?
I still think Stigler hit an important point: rational behavior has given rise to our social institutions, government included.
So you are an Anarchist despite the state being more efficient than anarchy?
No, I believe anarcho-capitalism is more efficient, but that there are market failures preventing us from transitioning (e.g, high transaction costs, collective action problem, etc.). We are in a suboptimal stable equilibrium.
To be clear, people are still maximizing their own interests; there is no widespread “brainwashing” or “indoctrination.” Hence, to move toward anarcho-capitalism, creating better incentives is more important to me than preaching.
We are in a suboptimal stable equilibrium.
so where do you disagree with the Stiglerian argument? According to you the argument is that there are no ‘suboptimal’ stable equilibriums for to be stable equilibriums is to be ‘optimal’ , no ?
I’ve already stated this elsewhere, but I think Stigler was wrong to use the term “efficient”; incorporating the vocabulary of game theory would have been more appropriate.
Additionally, I believe that line of reasoning supports Patri Friedman’s critique of “Folk Activism.”
Did you think that the people using horses to travel in the nineteenth century were in a “suboptimal stable equilibrium” until the invention of cars? Do you think that we are in a “suboptimal stable equilibrium” right now using cars, assuming that people will invent a new way to travel which will be as better than cars as cars are better than horses?
What do you think of this?
nirgrahamUK, I also want to add that Stigler’s use of the term “efficiency,” so far as I can tell, more closely conforms to how Austrians have used it than any other usage.
For instance, Israel Kirzner has stated that “efficiency for a social system means the efficiency with which it permits its individual members to achieve their several goals.”
No.
I believe that’s basically right. This is similar to to SEK3’s idea of “counter-economics”; however, it’s more or less the simple fact that entrepreneurial innovation can override government-produced goods or prohibitions. I’m not as optimistic that “the destruction of everything that the government does [will] happen like this,” but I do believe revolutionary transitions or substitutes can be achieved through the market process. Plus, government coercion, even if wallowing in efficiencies, doesn’t necessarily lead to privatization (e.g., despite congestion and minimal innovation, most public roads aren’t adding toll pricing).