[ExI] External costs (was Re: are all cultures equivalent?)

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Aware <aware at awareresearch.com> wrote:

> Doesn't this strike at the heart of the naive (pure) Libertarian
> stance?  Isn't it almost always the case that real-world
> inefficiencies impair the pure, frictionless free transactions upon
> which the Libertarian dream depends?  If so, mustn't we rely on an
> ever more efficient framework within which to conduct our "free"
> market bargaining?
>
### Well, the idea of using polycentric methods for the invention of
laws and overall ordering of the society doesn't require frictionless
transactions - the only condition needed to establish the superiority
of a solution is the absence of better ones, not the achievement of in
some way absolute perfection. Since I know that monopolistic
production of law is extremely inefficient, all I need to posit is
that the libertarian order is less bad, and it's very easy to find
thousands of examples where bottom-up, non-violent solutions to
problems (including coordination problems) are better than "solutions"
imposed by fiat. The simplification I used in the present thread
(absence of a tort complicating the situation) was necessary only
because my interlocutors had problems with accepting the idea of
inviolability of personal property, and it's very hard to talk about
torts without first accepting property as a premise. Once you know how
to think about property, torts can be dealt with by the polycentric
system.

Rafal