I would like to compile a list of markets which could potentially have had free rider problems, and yet the market sorts it out anyway. The point of this thread is to demonstrate that the free rider problem in defense isn't.
Border DefenseLighthousesSome farm roads FireworksConcealed FirearmsStreet MusiciansPay what you want Model
You mean like Light Houses.. back in the day.
But then GPS has made them pretty much redundant?
Sam Armstrong: I would like to compile a list of markets which could potentially have had free rider problems, and yet the market sorts it out anyway. The point of this thread is to demonstrate that the free rider problem in defense isn't.
I think someone from Europe said in this forum that in his area the farmers who needed it chipped in and built a road, and those who refused to chip in got to use it anyway and that was that. The road was built, everyone was happy, and there was some griping of course, but big deal.
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So far we have
Border DefenseLighthousesSome farm roads
Concealed handguns reduce the risk of being attacked. Only the individual who purchases a handgun bears the cost. However, others in the same geographic location benefit because criminals don't know who's packing and who's not.
My microeconomics textbook used fireworks as an example. Their proposed solution was to have the city tax everyone. In the example they provided, the city took in tax revenues far in excess of the costs of the fireworks display earning them a "profit" to "invest" in other parts of the community (through public works of course).
I could probably add in street musicians, or the pay what you want model for music.
David Sherin:My microeconomics textbook used fireworks as an example. Their proposed solution was to have the city tax everyone.
Haha, same thing was in my intro to micro textbook. It's kinda funny reading stuff like that in Michigan. Everyone around here goes south to Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois to purchase massive amounts of fireworks, then they go to their cabins up north and have wild illegal firework competitions on July 4. People also illegally ignite fireworks in suburban neighborhoods (forreal). I remember I was driving up north with my best bud on July 3 and someone in a house we were passing by ignited a huge firework right over the street. It was pretty cool.
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"Free riders" are not a "problem".
I thought that's what I was getting at in the OP.
I was just thinking about roads.
If it would be an economic benefit to have a road which people could access, wouldn't people chip in to build the road? Especially if the benefits they could accrue from the road would outweigh the amount of money they put forward? Wouldn't this mean that the more demand and use there is for a road, the more likely it is to be built?
It's kind of funny how it's called "the free rider problem". It's not a problem at all. People are willing to trade X for Y, and if others benefit as a result, so what? Isn't that good? Don't we want more transactions to take place that result in more free riders and a better standard of living?