XYZ, I think you’re right. Please allow me to try and clarify. “Better or worse” are vague terms, imo. Ofcourse, there are definitely institutional arrangements that I absolutely prefer over others. But the way I word my reasoning is that the benefits of such institutions outweigh the costs (but there are always trade offs.) I guess my value judgments end up amounting to “better or worse” but I want to be concise. Anyways, as you pointed out, everything has a price. Something must be lost for something else to be gained. No system is perfect and they all have their flaws. I don’t see anything…unreasonable about thinking this way and I’m glad you don’t find it unreasonable that I think this way.
Check out the Hofling Hospital experiment for a more natural test. Or of course you could just look at histories mass genocides.
That being said there is some correlation showing that an authority has to be perceived as legit, and it works better when a legit authority is nearby. And it works even better if the person taking orders is somehow depersonalized from the execution of action, and he is in a social environment that already (at least somewhat) promotes the behaviour.
Instead of looking at human nature acting like saints or sinners it is far more useful to look at people acting within the homeostasis of an environment
Could you provide an example of a benefit that people will not either do in their spare time and/or profit from? One in which there will actually be a need, even if it is the fulfillment of the curiosity of a mad scientist in the basement who discovers Frankenstein.
Jacob, thanks for your clarification. The way I’m reading your post I think you make an important point, there’s not really any purely scientific way to defend any particular institutional arrangement, at the end of the day we all have to make various value judgements about what system we prefer. Economics provides those interest with many tools that can provide a purely positive picture of the real world, and allow us to do the necessary empirical work. But even then there’s a necessary humility that must be adopted, we can’t take account of all of the variables in question and to use Hayek’s phrase sometimes we must limit ourselves to an explanation of the principle. In this context what I’m trying to get at is that culture, ideology and other institutions differ across time and place, and whatever institutional arrangement may be “best” in one place wouldn’t be best in another.
All this is complicated by the multitude of political values that people hold. Unfortunately liberty is just one among many political values, and there’s not really much agreement on what liberty means either.
Presumably if you’re making the case that various public goods can be provided by the market in the absence of a state, the onus is on you to provide the necessary empirics? The work is being done, but it certainly isn’t being done by those who “know” that the state is a priori evil, I would have thought you’d have been up to speed with this literature, given your vehement rejection of the state.
It would if I had brought it up first and you were responding to a post of mine.
don’t sweat it, i’ll be waiting for a response.