Who's responsible, gov't or society?

Economics Economics Questions
1

I’m having an interesting discussion with a progressive, in which I am arguing in favor of minarchism. He makes the following argument

[Begin progressive argument…]

Outside of protecting me from violation of my rights by other citizens or by a foreign power, the government usually acts in two other ways. First, the government creates certain products that citizens have a common interest in and which they can obtain more efficiently through their government. Second, the government regulates certain activities in advance so that violations of individual rights will be less likely.

The cookie example falls under the second of these. I want to purchase some cookies but I don’t want to poison myself or my children. Unless I have my own food laboratory, I have to rely on whatever the manufacturer prints on the label. If the label makes the food sound healthy, but is in fact a lie, have my rights been violated? I don’t think it is a bad thing if our government requires manufacturers to tell us truthfully what is in their products. I’m not sure that trans fats should be banned but I would like to know whether I am eating trans fats.

Now the use of dioxane has been banned and I think that is a good thing. It is a terrible chemical that pollutes the environment and is very difficult to eliminate.

The idea that most of these things can be taken care of by the underlying society in some ways seems very naive to me. Our lives are simply too full of situations like this to find or create local institutions or businesses that will perform these protective tasks for us. Take just food. If we wanted to be safe, we’d have to create a local company that would assess all our in-coming foods to tell us whether or not they are safe for our consumption. And we’d have to pay our share of whatever that would cost. Personally, I’d rather pay a little more tax and have the government regulate food manufacturers nationally.

The first government activity (above) is very broad and is even less obviously a matter of protecting rights; however, it seems to be a case of doing things efficiently through our collective power. Take the Coast Guard. In a limited sense the Coast Guard is there to protect us from invasion, but actually they spend most of their time saving citizens who are in trouble out in the water. Does anyone have a problem with this?

We have a common interest in interstate commerce and transportation so we build interstate highways, develop and regulate waterways, and work to help the railroads. Education is a similar issue. There are privately funded highways, waterways, railroads, and schools. But the presence of the government in all these areas is a common benefit, I would say, not an impediment.

[…end progressive argument]

Any thought regarding these arguments? I don’t buy the “we can do things more efficiently” through the government. Is there any economic sense to back up this feeling?

2

Tell them to google “Vioxx”.

3

  1. Companies have absolutly no interest in killing their costumers

  2. Private organizations that control foods do exist. Well, in France it does. There are several associations, who pay private laboratories to check every single product, and if there’s a problem with one, they shout all over the country “X company are killing your children with Y toxic stuff that they put in their food !”
    And no company want that to happen, that’s bad advertissement, and certainly people would start sueing them etc.

  3. If you don’t want to buy food that contain the Y stuff in it, don’t buy any food that could contain it, send letters to companies, or anything, about putting labels on products that say “Does not contain the Y product. Verified by the Z laboratory” etc.

4

“The cookie example falls under the second of these. I want to purchase some cookies but I don’t want to poison myself or my children. Unless I have my own food laboratory, I have to rely on whatever the manufacturer prints on the label. If the label makes the food sound healthy, but is in fact a lie, have my rights been violated? I don’t think it is a bad thing if our government requires manufacturers to tell us truthfully what is in their products. I’m not sure that trans fats should be banned but I would like to know whether I am eating trans fats.”

If it is profitable and there is consumer demand for ingredients to be listed on labels, producers will provide them due to the profit motive.

“The idea that most of these things can be taken care of by the underlying society in some ways seems very naive to me. Our lives are simply too full of situations like this to find or create local institutions or businesses that will perform these protective tasks for us. Take just food. If we wanted to be safe, we’d have to create a local company that would assess all our in-coming foods to tell us whether or not they are safe for our consumption. And we’d have to pay our share of whatever that would cost. Personally, I’d rather pay a little more tax and have the government regulate food manufacturers nationally.”

We have companies that produce numerous colors of cotton candy, but he doesn’t think that we could have companies that regulate food safety? Of all things that individuals value, I imagine that food safety would be pretty high up there. To his latter point, I don’t know what to say. He would rather be forced to pay for something than voluntarily pay for it? It seems like a strange position, but I guess you could argue that private regulation would introduce competition which would lower costs and improve quality vs government regulation.

"The first government activity (above) is very broad and is even less obviously a matter of protecting rights; however, it seems to be a case of doing things efficiently through our collective power. Take the Coast Guard. In a limited sense the Coast Guard is there to protect us from invasion, but actually they spend most of their time saving citizens who are in trouble out in the water. Does anyone have a problem with this?

We have a common interest in interstate commerce and transportation so we build interstate highways, develop and regulate waterways, and work to help the railroads. Education is a similar issue. There are privately funded highways, waterways, railroads, and schools. But the presence of the government in all these areas is a common benefit, I would say, not an impediment."

All of those things are an impediment if they wouldn’t exist without being forced upon society. If they weren’t an impediment, they would be done voluntarily.

5

He’s imaging that government will do whatever he wants it to do. But there’s nothing special about government. Its just a group of men like any other. Omg there’s poisoned cookies? What if the GOVERNMENT stopped it? What if people voluntarily stopped it? What if an invisible lazaer beamz neutalizejd the poizons?!

Which is these is more likely? The government doesn’t have any incentive to do anything. Whether its a king, or a majority, they don’t have one bit of incentive to do anything than look out for their own self interest. Its just a group of men. There is nothing mystical about it. It is not panacea. So the next time he says “government should do X”, you can reply “and serial killers should stop killing”. Its a solution on paper, but the odds of it actually happening in real life are slim to none.

And if the a political body is capable of solving the poisoned cookie problem, why could they not band together voluntarily? Start an association of safe-foods group, pay nominal membership fees, and make sure some trusted laboratories analyse all the food they eat, inspect factories, etc…

Free association means that you can break off relationships when they become unsatisfactory. This establishes a natural, and quick, check on the nature of these relationships. You can’t get away from the state quickly or easily. Checks and balances have to be built into the system by the government itself. Its like asking the thief to set your locker combination.

Government is basically saying: “nuts to voluntary relationships, Group A should just use violence to get things done!”. Getting guns involved is for the weak of mind. Got a problem? Use guns. Tried something without guns? It fail? Use guns. The notion that violence will improve the incentive structure of institutions is retarded. There is no system of checks and balances when Group A has guns and Group B doesn’t.

No one ever agrees to this sort of relationship. If governments really were efficient ways to run things, people and corporations would have created their own governments and ceded their rights over to majority decision or a sovereign. They don’t, becuase people implicitly know this is a stupid idea. Its like all mainstream social theories: An ad hoc justification for historical accidents that wind up benefitting a small group of killers and thiefs.

6

“If governments really were efficient ways to run things, people and corporations would have created their own governments and ceded their rights over to majority decision or a sovereign. They don’t, becuase people implicitly know this is a stupid idea. Its like all mainstream social theories: An ad hoc justification for historical accidents that wind up benefitting a small group of killers and thiefs.”

Seriously, and plus, government is always further removed from the actions it needs to stop -there’s a major time-preference problem involved with it. What’s easier, to just buy food safety at a high price, or to pass a law for cheap to regulate all the food? Obviously, it would be more difficult to do move 2, since move 1 is accomplished immediately.

7

Snowflake: "The government doesn’t have any incentive to do anything. Whether its a king, or a majority, they don’t have one bit of incentive to do anything than look out for their own self interest. Its just a group of men. There is nothing mystical about it. It is not panacea. "

Quoted because it is well written and says much with few words. Snowflake, I copied this into my Bio, with attribution (if you take exception, I’ll gladly take it down). I’ve started a collection of quotes there.

8

Name one government agency that successfully accomplished it’s primary societal goal and “closed shop”.

The idea that any government agency or department can perform as beneficially as private companies and citizens practicing self-interested due dilgence has been proven wrong time and time again.

For example, since we have had a Dept. of Energy – the price of energy has increased and our dependence on foreign oil has increased. Conditions this agency was supposed to correct, yet made worse despite increased funding year after year.

SInce we have had a Federal Reserve – the dollar has declined 96%, thousands of banks have collapsed, and we have had myriad cyclical downturns. Conditions this agency was supposed to address.

Since we have had a Dept. of Education – the costs of education have increased, while the quality has decreased.

Since we have had a SEC, the size and scope of financial fraud and junk financial instruments has increased precipitously.

Since government has been invested in health care, the costs have increased without an equivalent decrease in the rate of mortality and morbidity.

the list goes on and on.

In summary tell your liberal friend that increased govt. regulation results in reduced due diligence among consumers and an increase in societal moral hazard. Unfortunately, these negatives are hidden from all but the most informed citizenry, especially progressives who generally are unable to view consequences beyond their immediate effect.

9

I agree this discription of your The idea that any government agency or department can perform as beneficially as private companies and citizens practicing self-interested due dilgence has been proven wrong time and time again.

10

Thanks to all for providing a sanity check. You’ve all given me lots of good ideas on how to make the case.

I’m surprised that no one brought up Underwriters Labs, which is exactly the sort of organization that my friend thinks would not exist.

And as Snowflake points out, it is sad that my friend is willing to resort to violence in order to accomplish these goals that he believes he cannot accomplish voluntarily.

By the way, all of this is going on over at http://onpoliticaleconomy.blogspot.com, in case anyone wants to leave a comment of their own.

11

aww im touched :slight_smile: