http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/how_one_japanese_village_defie.html
Why the market hadn’t saved other victims of the tsunami? My take is that the mayor was just lucky (in a sense of guessing right, not that he would be glad to know he was). Insurance companies hadn’t built walls like these (or hadn’t charged higher premiums to members of communities without walls) because the expected risks were lower than the costs to build the walls. Any other ideas?
How do you know a free market wouldn`t save people?
How do you know a free market wouldn`t save people?
Which specific regulation prevented it from that?
I am only playing a devil’s advocate here.
If I could use government to enforce my risk preferences then everybody would be better off. Had there been no tsunami then the mayor would still look like a fool. Or what if the tsunami had broke the wall like the other place mentioned in the article? Then he would look like a bigger fool. The point is not in the efficacy of government force or the benefits of government decision making but that you are forcing everyone in the town to use one standard of risk and they may have other ideas about how much risk they want to encounter.
The best/worst examples of this disastrous thinking are in the USA with the FDA and even worse TSA. The FDA has pharmaceutical companies use FDA standards of safety and efficacy. So these companies spend billions testing these drugs while there are people literally dying who would gladly take on a different level of risk in a new drug. The TSA has this elaborate security theatre that is designed to enforce obedience and has never caught a real terrorist. So the millions of air, soon to be bus, train and car (You thought they would not start doing this at toll booths and rest stops, well you will be wrong.) have to deal with this and waste literally millions of hours and make changes to their behavior.
If you are asking why the free market did not save people in the non-free market state of Japan, I am laughing at you.
OP, you’re confusing the individual’s forsight that a sea wall as a good idea for the use of coercion to construct it. They’re not the same.
Had there been no tsunami then the mayor would still look like a fool. Or what if the tsunami had broke the wall like the other place mentioned in the article? Then he would look like a bigger fool.
That’s what I meant when I said he just was lucky. If he really was such a visionary for natural disasters, he would better organize some insurance business.
The point is not in the efficacy of government force or the benefits of government decision making but that you are forcing everyone in the town to use one standard of risk and they may have other ideas about how much risk they want to encounter.
I agree to the critique of coercion, but by its very nature the wall is shared by everyone in the town. I still think they could have used a voluntary campaign with contributions to be returned if the goals were not met (like thepoint.com).
FDA and TSA analogies are appreciated.
OP, you’re confusing the individual’s forsight that a sea wall as a good idea for the use of coercion to construct it.
I am emphatically not. Thus the post. I must have been not very clear - I am against coercion in general, and I do not think coercing people to finance the specific wall was justifiable, I am just interested in different arguments - why. Moral arguments are standard; from utilitarian perspective I think this mayor’s success was a random freak event; also, it is not at all clear that all who contributed to the wall benefited from it.
If you are asking why the free market did not save people in the non-free market state of Japan, I am laughing at you.
I am aware of Japan’s economy being far from free, I still would appreciate discussion which specific regulations prevented free market from saving the people. Note that it is entirely possible that some people would not be saved under a completely free market - people do take risks fully voluntary.