I've long suspected that there is a problem with the evolution of street cleaning in a free market. Imagine a shopping district which tends to become cluttered with rubbish, making the area less attractive to shoppers. Suppose that if all the shop keepers banded together and contributed to hiring street cleaning services for the area then there would be a net benefit in terms of extra visitors that would lead to extra profits that are greater than the cost of the cleaners by some small margin. Now the problem is that if one of the shop-keepers does not want to join the scheme then what can be done? The other shop keepers can not force him to join in. Now the shop keeper that won't pay causes all sorts of problems: 1. it means that the others will have to pay more and the cost benefit equation may no longer work. 2. Other shop keepers may get angry and say "well if he's not paying then why should I". The system may all too easily fail or not get off the ground in the first place.
I've just read "Economics in one lesson" by Henry Haslitt and noted that on page 69, "street cleaners" is included in a list of "public officeholders whose services are really needed", so maybe Mr Hazlitt agrees.
I also remember that there were examples in "The selfish gene" by Richard Dawkins where he shows how certain groups of animals behave sub-optimally (with respect to avoiding predation) because the "optimal" behavior can not evolve due to problems almost identical to the street cleaner problem.
So my question is this: Do Austrians acknowledge that there are a variety of "services" or "institutions" that are of benefit to society that will not evolve naturally from a free market that should rightly be set-up by a government? Is there a list somewhere that most austrians would agree upon? For example police? teachers? street cleaners? "a legal system"? infrastructure builders (road/rail)?
What Went Wrong with Economics
mickanomics: How do you change water supplier? Are you expecting a multitude of pipes at your door and you can choose which one to connect to?
How do you change water supplier? Are you expecting a multitude of pipes at your door and you can choose which one to connect to?
Lets switch the playing field a bit. I once lived at 9000 feet above sea level 30 miles west of denver in the mountains. We got 250 inches of snow a year and in the summer we received regular afternoon rainstorms.
In my second year there I placed water drums at all corners of my house to collect rainwater and snow melt. The water fell on my property so I thought everything was good. I could then use that to water my plants rather then use my well water.
About 3 months after I placed the water drums I received a several hundred dollar fine on my front door step by the city of denver. Mind you I was living 30 miles outside the city limits. Turns out by some legal fabrication they were able to stake a claim of ownership of every rain drop that fell on my land. All the water that fell on my property was the property of the city of Denver. (ON a side note, I wish I could offload the damage expense heavy snow causes to my proprety to Denver since it;s apparently theirs).
Now here is a situation where the local governmetn has no power to turn off any utility to keep me from doign what I am doing. As I find out though they can arrest me and jail me for not complying. That is force. That is theft. That is extortion. That is the kind of system you are advocating.
mickanomics:How do you change water supplier? Are you expecting a multitude of pipes at your door and you can choose which one to connect to?
Think outside of the box. Your basing your entire argument on an infrastrucutre built by government. Whos to say you won't have a huge tank in the back of your house or neighborhood? Then you could subscribe to whichever serfvice provider you wanted.
Perhaps in a free market dense area's would have a better switching system for water. The point is, in a free market there is insentive to innovate ways of delivering service. In a collective market that insentive does not exist, so what you get is a single way of doing things. FOllowed by a bunch of people incapable of thinking outside of the box assung that god gave us government to build roads, provide water and electricity.
Message to "filc"... some of your questions seem to imply that you have not read the entire thread. You are asking about things I've already explained.
mickanomics:I don't know if I defined utility at all, but whether I did or not I just think the internet is a grey area to discuss because it seems to be part military, part government, part private and just for good measure, international.
You only named services provided by the government. That is ofcoarse a correct definition of utility.
Utility - a company that performs a public service; subject to government regulation
But ultimately cannot be used to defend your case. Since tomorrow the government could arbritrarily decide to provide food. Then food would become a utility. All public services have really have nothing in common other then they are being provided by the government. So as I said earlier, had government provided internet, you would be defending that as well. But I imagine, if the government provided internet it probably wouldn't be what it is today, and wouldn't be used by nearly as many people.
mickanomics:Is they guy with all the water in the desert *initiating* violence against the thirsty man by refusing to give him water?
Nope. He's going to rescue his village from being burnt down. Your the one initiating violence by using a gun to steal his fire retardant water for your own purposes. Your idea of force is deeply in error.
mickanomics:Message to "filc"... some of your questions seem to imply that you have not read the entire thread. You are asking about things I've already explained.
Message for Mickanomics.
Perhaps I am intentionally repeating myself.
filc: Utility - a company that performs a public service; subject to government regulation
I have repeatedly listed the kinds of thing that I meant by utility. I am not defending any specific government that may have chosen to become the supplier of something inappropriate. If I chose the wrong word and misled you then I am sorry. Maybe I need to invent a new word "mutility" meaning the things that mick thinks should be provided by the government. Now do a search and replace of utility with mutility in every message I've posted and please accept my apologies.
filc: mickanomics:Is they guy with all the water in the desert *initiating* violence against the thirsty man by refusing to give him water? Nope. He's going to rescue his village from being burnt down. Your the one initiating violence by using a gun to steal his fire retardant water for your own purposes. Your idea of force is deeply in error.
I was asking about the initial scenario without the fire.
filc: Perhaps I am intentionally repeating myself.
I can not be bothered to repeat myself without good reason.
filc: In my second year there I placed water drums at all corners of my house to collect rainwater and snow melt.
In my second year there I placed water drums at all corners of my house to collect rainwater and snow melt.
Wow, my earlier post is now seeming spookily accurate... do you light your home with candles too?
mickanomics:Wow, my earlier post is now seeming spookily accurate... do you light your home with candles too?
You are showing your ignorance. Water drums are a common feature of the countryside, regardless of whether the house in question is hyper-modern or extremely rustic.
https://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf - the myth of the natural monopoly.
why are two or three or whatever 'water' pipes running under my street 'too many' ? is it for the same reason that having 2 or 3 sneaker factories in my neighbourhood is too many?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
mickanomics:I have repeatedly listed the kinds of thing that I meant by utility. I am not defending any specific government that may have chosen to become the supplier of something inappropriate. If I chose the wrong word and misled you then I am sorry. Maybe I need to invent a new word "mutility" meaning the things that mick thinks should be provided by the government. Now do a search and replace of utility with mutility in every message I've posted and please accept my apologies.
I understand what your saying. I'm trying to get you to think about what constitutes a utility. How do you decide whats better managed socially and whats not? Who makes these decisions? Who has such forsight? I still highly recommend you taking a look at Economic Calculation in the Socalist Commonwealth.
mickanomics:I was asking about the initial scenario without the fire.
To answer your question, the only aggressor is you, who is trying to steal an honest man's water.
Do you think we ought to reward those who make no attempt at being economically responsible?
mickanomics: filc: In my second year there I placed water drums at all corners of my house to collect rainwater and snow melt. Wow, my earlier post is now seeming spookily accurate... do you light your home with candles too?
If you've ever lived outside of the city you know that most water comes from wells. Just like the old days, so it is today. What, did you think they pumped water from the desert of denver in a pipe 30 miles back up into the mountains and up 4000 feet of altitude? :)
The rockies are the source of water for alot of people, It made more sense for me to harvest the water where I was. Using rain water is better for the plants and such.
nirgrahamUK: https://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf - the myth of the natural monopoly.
Than you for a very useful contribution to this debate. I will respond to it later.
mickanomics: Message to "filc"... some of your questions seem to imply that you have not read the entire thread. You are asking about things I've already explained.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
mickanomics:If the market forces are very weak then the performance of the chosen provider can remain *permanently* a long way from optimal. Consider it as a mathematical optimization problem like finding a local minima in a "scalar field" where you start at a point away from the minima and then take a "pseudo random walk" where each step is part random and part in the direction of the minima. If the component in the direction of the minima is always very small then you would remain far from it most of the time.
However, if you feel that the task is not performed to your satisfaction, you can easily switch the provider nonetheless, no matter if there are "weak market forces" or "strong market forces".
mickanomics:Sounds like you are agreeing with me on this point then. Or are you saying that taking money direct from my bank is non-violence (fine by me, but any sort of non-agreed to action against someone seems to be described as violence by most people on this forum).
I don't think that people here are against reasonable use of force (like getting money directly from the bank) if it is due to a breach of contract of the client (it's not really aggression but rather a king of self-defence).
mickanomics:Ermmm... not true with the long term contracts.
It's your own fault if you are not smart enough to not do a 25 year long term contract. However, even with a long term contract, you can decided for yourself. And the provider is bound to the terms and conditions, whereas government's life long contract does not have any terms and conditions at all.
mickanomics:A) The process of having to read the contracts is not a good thing in itself. You may claim that it leads to some good consequences, but if thats a different matter.
Well, if the reading of contracts is such a horrible thing, it's a necessary evil, as it is rather impossible to make a reasonable decision without knowing what exactly you agree to, and it's impossible to have interaction between the members of a complex society without contracts.
mickanomics:It would be extremely difficult to switch utility (gas, water, road, electricity, policing) providers under any system.
It's the easiest thing in the world to switch an electricity provider even under our current system (at least in Germany). Same goes with gas and water. Roads might be a bit tricky, depending on the road concerned, but policing should not be a problem at all, either, as it's up to you whom you'll ask to provide your security, and why should there not be more than one security agency active in a certain area?