[ExI] Under the libertarian yoke was Re: Next Decade May See No Warming

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/5/4 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:
>
>
>  >  If you accept the premises of this intellectual exercise, it won't
>  >  help to complain about not being able to force everyone to cooperate -
>  >  you are only restating the premise. Also, there is something fishy
>  >  about "willingly agree to be compelled", like, an oxymoron, or
>  >  something.
>
>  Libertarians allow force in the event of a broken contract, and in
>  this case I'll be breaking the contract if I agree to cooperate and
>  then don't. But this is a slightly unusual contract in that I won't
>  agree to it unless everyone else also does.

### Now we are getting somewhere! Yes, the notion of conditional
contracts is important and it could play a role in the solution. I
believe that Alex Tabarrok did research on conditional contracts and
it is clear that they can be a very powerful means of building
extensive cooperation without violence.

One minor point: Breach of contract does not automatically authorize
the use of force - for that you need specific provisions in the
contract or in the general body of law used to administer the
contract. But yes, your overall point is right.

-------------------------------
If *everyone* agrees to
>  cooperate provided that everyone else does the same, then I don't see
>  how anyone's rights, under a libertarian system, are infringed: each
>  individual gets exactly what he has agreed to.

### Exactly!

--------------------------

This may seem at first
>  glance to be equivalent to the situation where everyone is simply
>  inclined to cooperate because they see it as a good thing, but it
>  isn't. The crucial difference is that the cooperation is not a charity
>  that may be withdrawn at any moment, but a tax that has to be paid.

### Well, you might need to rephrase it. Cooperation under a
conditional contract is binding once the conditions of the contract
are met but it is not a tax. A tax is very specifically a payment
rendered to and by the request of a sovereign or his agents,
regardless of any contractual considerations.

---------------------------
>
>  It's a bit more difficult if most people agree to cooperate but there
>  are a few stubborn defectors who don't care that they put the whole
>  planet at risk. They might even be rationally pursuing their best
>  interests by deciding this way, for example if they don't expect to
>  live long enough to see the catastrophe they will cause. Can these
>  people be compelled to cooperate?

### If you don't want to be fried by the libertarian space laser, you
need to be quite careful about what you mean by "compelled". Can't
speak for these alien libertarians but would think that shutting the
door in the defector's face would be fine. Same with saying "Mr
Smigrodzki, I see you have not yet acceded to our
Save-Our-Happy-Planet Contract, and therefore I will sell you my beef
for 110% of my normal price, and I won't sell you the prime cuts,
either". If there are enough people like that, each one them acting
within their own domain, refusing daily cooperation as long as I don't
belong to the contract, I might simply say, you are just a bunch of
stupid losers who know nothing about the climate, and I hate your
guts, but I like my beef too, so OK, I'll join. This dynamic is
strongly dependent on the relative numbers of believers, with tipping
points in either direction, and non-linear interactions but in general
it is likely to be highly responsive to the most common beliefs and
attitudes, like any good form of governance. Coasian arguments about
minimization of transaction costs apply but that's a different issue
we don't need to analyze right now.

Non-violent social pressure is a very powerful force, even if no
actual physical force is in any way involved.

There is one more component you need in your solution but so far you
are doing very well. Hint: You have described how to provide a form of
first-order social good, in this case a widespread commitment to a
beneficial (so you say) course of action.

----------------------
 Well, again in a libertarian
>  society, I could be punished for doing something which incidentally
>  harms my neighbour. Doesn't the destruction of the biosphere count as
>  harming my neighbour?

### Indeed, destruction of the biosphere would most likely be seen by
most critarchic courts as a punishable harm in most circumstances. In
this particular situation, however, the destruction is a hypothetical
occurrence in the far future, so you could hardly demand preventative
action, unless your judges were sure that a harm is guaranteed to
happen. Since the judges would be answerable to both you, a believer
in the dangers of global warming and to me, an enthusiastic supporter
of more global warming, that wouldn't happen, because I would
immediately fire any judge espousing Gore-science.

Of course, if the planet continued to warm up, and contrary to my
expectations, it caused significantly more harm than benefit, you
could reasonably demand restitution from me, assuming that the exact
amount of harm caused by my individual carbon dioxide emissions to you
could be sufficiently well calculated. You would have to subtract from
the restitution any harms that I suffered from your carbon dioxide
emissions. One delightful side-effect of this situation would be that
wealthy hypocrites like Gore would have to pay restitution to both of
us, since the hypocrites are likely to preach one thing and do
another. Only honest greenies would come ahead financially, which is
good and proper: honesty and being factually correct are to be
rewarded, while hypocrisy and making mistakes should be expensive.

Of course, it wouldn't happen, since global warming will be a boon...

Rafal