[ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers?

[Dan]

--- On Thu, 7/16/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/16 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>:
>>> I don't think it's the default case that people
>>> will want to manage
>>> everything communally, but they do as a matter of
>>> fact decide to
>>> manage some things at least semi-communally, in
>>> that they decide to have public services.
>>
>> Uh, no. The state or a group of people who petition
>> the state to do this does exist, but this is not all
>> people. If you agree, then how is this different than
>> saying, "people" "do as a matter of fact decide to
>> manage some things at least semi-" criminally, "in
>> that they decide to have" criminal syndicates run
>> some things?  :)
> 
> The criminals impose their will on others.

Yes, and that is how government works: people in government "impose their will on others." This is true for democracies as well: voting majorities or their representatives "impose their will on others."

> The voluntary communal
> organisations do not, except on their own members, who
> agree in being
> part of the organisation that they will go along with the
> majority
> decision even if they don't agree with every decision. This
> can happen
> whenever two or more people get together and decide to do
> something.

This is only so if the organization is truly voluntary. If, e.g., you and I agree to join and abide by certain rules. This is NOT the case with public services as we see today. There was no such uncoerced agreement in any of them -- not in any nation anyone today is living in. Instead, at best, a large group of people or a bunch of politicians decided that some things would be done their way period. That is nothing more than them "impos[ing] their will on others."

> I
> agree that as a strong principle it is best *not* to coerce
> people, as
> far as possible. But sometimes people agree to be coerced.

It's not really coercion if they agree to it. This appears also to be a word game with you. If you agree to pay a certain fee for something, then you're not coerced to pay that. You might agree to pay said fee for twenty years. You're still not coerced. This fee might be extracted automatically from your bank account. Still no coercion. The problem arises when you don't agree to that.

> We might
> all agree that project X which will cost each of us $Y is
> worth
> pursuing, but it won't happen if we are able to make our
> contribution
> voluntary; many of us will not contribute and the rest, if
> they even
> have enough money, would have to contribute multiples of
> $Y, while not
> receiving back multiples of utility from X as a result.
> Therefore, the
> choice is between X with everyone agreeing to contribute
> (and to be held to that agreement) or no X at all.

There is coercion if anyone is forced to pay who doesn't agree. If everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agreed to pay -- say, e.g., have the amount deducted from their bank accounts or paychecks -- as long as everyone else paid AND everyone else did pay, then it's not coerced. (And this would only apply to the "everyone" in that context. It can't be binding on future generations or on others who weren't party to the agreement, such as if everyone in your village agrees to pay, you can't use to compell someone from another village to pay.) The problem arises, in the real world, when some subset of everyone decided -- say, a majority or, more likely, a vocal but well organized minority (e.g., business folks, their lobbyists and the politicians they lobby) decides X is worth doing and all must pay to get X done.

And this still doesn't answer how you would measure utility. You seem to think this is easy. There's a utility-meter that we simply wave it around the plans for some project and it outputs the utility in a convenient measure that only a fool or an ideologue would quibble with. In the real world, there's no way to make those comparisons. Even using money measures -- and assuming that the models are correct; the recent financial crisis should give everyone pause about financial modeling -- tell us nothing about utility because each individual values money differently (and subjective).
 
>>> Rarely is the property so managed directly
>>> "stolen"; that usually happens in revolutions, and
>>> the revolutionaries
>>> generally argue in their turn that they are taking
>>> the property back
>>> from thieves and returning it to its rightful
>>> owners.
>>
>> It is directly stolen in the form of taxes, eminent
>> domain, and other means of coercive transfer. That such
>> transfers require coercion -- e.g., the people whose wealth
>> is being taken can't decide they don't want to transfer it
>> -- is enough to describe them as not the product of their
>> choice and deliberation, but of someone else forcing them to
>> do something or to give up something. Anyone can, of course,
>> claim people want to do something some way because some of
>> them do it that way or because there's a coercive apparatus
>> in place and they are forced to do it that way. But one
>> can't really tell how they would do something until they are
>> free to choose.
> 
> Are they really free to choose if they have to work and
> have to accept
> the wage they are given, even though large profits are made
> off their
> labour? This is something communists and anarchists call
> "theft", but which is legal in capitalists societies.

The false economic theories of communists and some anarchists (not free market anarchists) still live on!* A wage per se is freely chosen -- assuming no one is coerced into accepting it -- because the supplier of labor is free to choose to sell her or his labor or not. A motto for a free society, borrowed from Robert Nozick, might be: From each as she chooses, to each as she is chosen.

Profits are not made off labor as such. Pure profits arise when there's a difference between the cost of inputs and the price of the output. (A loss is the opposite: inputs end up costing more than the output price.) Labor is not exploited to make profits -- any more than any other factor is. Under a free market, too, laborers tend to bid up their wage to the marginal productivity of a unit of labor. Buyers of labor -- viz., employers -- cannot escape this. If they try to get labor below market prices, then they attract less labor -- if any.

Also, any attempt to set wages above the market rate, as William H. Hutt and others have shown, actually results in unemployment as some workers end up exploiting other workers because, e.g., a union wage above the market rate means those still employed receive the higher wages, but the unemployed lose out.

>>> As I have explained, allowed the freedom to choose
>>> people often decide
>>> that restaurants, shoe factories and farms are
>>> better managed
>>> privately and hospitals, schools and prisons are
>>> best managed publicly.
>>
>> At best, some people have decided this. The rest did
>> not. So there was no free choice -- such as taking a vote
>> that is only binding if all parties consent -- but merely
>> some people enforcing their policies (tax funding for
>> hospitals, prisons, and compulsory schools) on others. The
>> very fact that schooling is compulsory as well as tax
>> funded, too, shows that some people must disagree with these
>> things. If not, why are they forced to pay for or attend?
> 
> We get back to the problem of nothing being possible
> without unanimous decision.

Not so. If we set aside coercion, anything is possible that doesn't involve unanimous decision when it doesn't involve coercing others. For instance, you and I can work together on a project, but we'll have to persuade others to help us rather than seek to coerce them (either directly by, say, enslaving them or stealing their property or indirectly by using a third party like the state to enslave them or steal their property). Yes, this does rule out projects where others would have to be forced to help out. But this is no different than, say, ruling out medical experiments where you need to murder people to get results.

>>> The Soviets decreed that *everything* is best
>>> managed
>>> publicly, and the extreme capitalists decree that
>>> *everything* is best managed privately.
>>
>> This is not my point. My point is that initiating
>> coercion should be banned in society. That means that the
>> notion of coercing people in the name of the majority, the
>> people, the race, the nation, the proletariat, social
>> efficiency, future generations, God, etc. is ruled out. If
>> people then want to voluntarily manage some or all things
>> communally, fine. But this would not give any more rights or
>> powers to the people who decide on this than they formerly
>> had -- in other words, Rafal and I can take a vote on how to
>> communally manage your labor.
> 
> You would stick with this even if the end result was *more*
> violence
> and coercion, due to untrammelled capitalism leading to an
> underclass
> of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die, on
> the grounds
> that this would not technically be violence or coercion?

It seems your view is a little violence and coercion now will lead to less later. This is a common view, but it's no different than how fascists of all stripes view the world: if we just beat up or hurt the right people, all will be well later on. Also, it remains to be proved how this would work in any real world case.

As for "untrammelled capitalism leading to an underclass of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die," this reveals a fantastical view of freedom and free markets -- and it hearkens back to the misleading views of Engels and others on history. (See the works of Ashton among others to see how Engels & Co. got it wrong.) The actual history of capitalism -- which has never been totally free -- is one of rising living standards, especially among the lower classes. Centuries ago, before the rise of wider markets and when capital investment was limited, there was an underclass of peasants and serfs. They did not, contrary to popular opinion, live an idyllic life.
 
>> I've nothing against observation. My point, though,
>> has been that if you already start with false notions baked
> in, your observations are likely to go awry. Think of the
> case where people here have voiced the opinion that a free
> market in healthcare has failed and use as evidence of this
> failure the US healthcare system -- the very system where
> the government actually spends more perecentage-wise and in
> terms of absolute amount on healthcare and where regulation
> is extremely high. I.e., the very case where we're very far
> from a free market or any sort of voluntary system (free
>> markets aren't the form of voluntary interaction). In that
>> case, what does observation tell one? (This is leaving alone
>> the difficulties of generalizing with data on societies and
>> which data anyone will accept.)
> 
> You keep claiming this as evidence that public health care
> doesn't
> work. But that is like claiming that private car companies
> don't work because general Motors went bankrupt.

And let's look at that particular datum. GM is a private company that both benefited and suffered from government interference in the US auto market. It benefited from government contracts and also from import quotas and tariffs on foreign cars, among other things. It suffered from similar trade restrictions on some of its inputs -- most recently, the steel tariff. It also suffered from coercive unionism.

But the wider point is merely that one must consider the context and have a sound theory to interpret the data -- heck, to even know which data are relevant. I bring this up especially as some here keep pointing to examples comparing entire countries and then looking at one policy -- as if they had the correct model and all the relevant data.

> Obviously, there are more
> efficient and less efficient ways to spend money for a
> particular purpose.

Yes, though there are two points to be made on this. One, one must understand what's meant by efficiency here. It's not obvious what's meant by it in most cases and not obvious why anyone should be coerced into following your or anyone else's specific beliefs about efficiency. This, again, appears to be Hayek's "fatal conceit" in action: some believe they know what's efficient. They know the right choices, have the answers here, and are so sure of them they're willing to force everyone else to agree with them.

Two, on a meta-level, one doesn't choose between particular efficiency cases, but between frameworks that allow for more efficient choices to be made. Think of the case of a dictatorship. The dictator might make a few very efficient choices -- maybe he's right about using, say, grassoline when his subjects would've freely chosen, say, gasoline (petrol). But is it likely he'd always outperform his subjects were they free to choose? The same might apply to a real smart, well read, creative person running science today. That person might turn us all on to the right theories and avenues of research, but what would be the long run effect of a science czar? Don't you think in both these cases, the better meta-level rule is to allow free choice for all rather than for one? And doesn't the same apply when the choice is instead of being made by a single dictator, by a dictating minority or a dictating majority?

> The US spends public health money far less
> efficiently than
> any other country does. The main point of difference seems
> to be that
> the US system is not universal. There may be other
> differences leading
> to inefficiency, and these need to be worked out, just as a
> private
> company needs to observe their competitors and work out why
> they are making more money than they are.

I'm not sure that's the main point of inefficiency for US healthcare -- or even a point of inefficiency. What happens now with people who aren't covered is they tend to get health services anyhow -- either by private donation, from the government, or by taking and not paying.

Also, in order for the competitive discovery process to take place, one can't regulate or socialize it. One must allow private individuals and groups to make decisions with their resources. This is mostly not allowed on the planet in the arena healthcare. I recommend not only de-socializing the US in this respect (and all others), but the rest of the planet.
 
>>> If your computer breaks and the insurance company
>>> buys you another one
>>> then who really owns the new computer: You? The
>>> insurance company? All
>>> the people who have paid premiums for longer than
>>> you have and never
>>> claimed, and whose premiums will now be increased
>>> by the insurer to pay for your carelessness?
> >
> > We've been over this sort of example before. In this
> case, assuming no one is coerced, there's no problem. I'm
> not forced to buy computer insurance. No insurance company
> is forced to insure me. No one else is forced to buy
> insurance. All these are voluntary interactions. You can't
> generalize from the voluntary case -- one where someone
> agrees to buy me a new computer and however she or he got
> the money to pay for it was also voluntarily gotten -- to a
> coerce one -- one where someone is forced to buy me a new
> computer either directly (where the insurer is forced) or
> indirectly (where the insurers other customers are forced).
> 
> I'm forced to insure my apartment. As an apartment owner, I
> am happy
> that I and everyone else is forced to do this. If I don't
> like it, I can sell it.

I don't know enough about your situation here. Why must insure your apartment? Who forces you? I take it you mean real force and not just something like, "My girlfriend forces me to wash before we bed down. Oh, the horror!"

> If I don't like paying taxes, I can choose not
> to work,
> not to move to the tax-paying country, leave if I was born
> there, or
> not work. These aren't ideal choices - I'd rather have it
> all my own way.

This is like saying, if I don't like being raped, I can flee the area.
 
> > Taxation is unjust because it coerces people. It does
> so in a clearly observable way: they pay taxes because they
> fear the penalties of not paying taxes. This is no different
> than it's clearly observable that if an old lady is being
> mugged, she's not giving up her purse of her own volition.
> >
> > Now, you might believe, say, someone is getting
> services, so he or she should pay. That argument would be
> flawed because people cannot opt out of these services --
> which would be like a restaurant charging me for a dinner I
> never wanted or agreed to have.
> >
> > Or you might believe that people should just be
> coerced because this serves some higher purpose. If that's
> the case, then any arguments about human suffering fall by
> the wayside and in a practical sense might makes right.
> After all, real human suffering will happen under coercion
> -- to be coerced is to suffer -- and it's anyone's guess if
> anyone is better off in the long-run from this.
> >
> > (To my knowledge, no one here has addressed the
> problem of how to measure suffering -- much less addressed
> my earlier use of pareto optimality and subjectivism here.
> Let me repeat this point: there seems no objective way of
> making such interpersonal comparisons. So, the best
> "meta-policy," from the perspective of not wanting to
> increase suffering, is to not to adopt policies that entail
> any more suffering. To wit, there's no way to tell if a
> policy that makes some people suffer while benefiting others
> really balances out, so pareto optimality forces out to seek
> policies where, at least, suffering is not increased. Put
> another way, pareto optimality counsels one not rob Peter to
> pay Paul because one can never tell if Peter's suffering is
> balanced out by Paul's gain. This is so even if Paul is
> suffering: one can't tell if Paul's suffer is worse than
> Peter's will be. To wit, policies that reckon these things
> in terms of social cost or other supposedly
> >  objective measures are merely some person or group
> pretending, wittingly or not, that his/her/its subjective
> evaluation is objective -- that it knows who suffers, by how
> much, and can actually make valid decisions based on
> this.*)
> 
> I avoid measuring suffering by discussing only what people
> want;
> presumably, they want that which they believe will cause
> them less suffering.

That's fine, but has problems. Demonstrated preference is a better measure here: not what people say they want, but what they actually act to obtain. E.g., if I tell you I want to lose weight, but I spend my time lounging around and pigging out, then I've demonstrated that, whatever I say to you, I really prefer lounging around and overeating to losing weight. E.g., if I tell you or even think in my mind that I want to be a nice person, but am cruel and mean to everyone, then you should question whether I really want to be a nice person.

> They vote to be taxed, so they believe, whether
> rightly or
> wrongly, that taxation will cause them less suffering than
> the alternative.

Actually, not all people vote and not all those who do vote vote to raise taxes. Even among those who might vote for the representative -- since almost all voting is NOT for policies but for a particular person -- who raises taxes, they might not have voted for the taxes (or other programs), but merely be choosing among constrained choices. By this is meant someone might vote for, say, Obama, because she's anti-war and doesn't really buy into the whole Obama agenda. In that case -- and this seems typical, as many Americans voted for Obama as a sort of nay vote for the Iraq war -- the voter isn't really say Yes to taxes, but that gets bundled with the anti-war vote.

And, again, you have yet to show why a vote should bind anyone else.

> Some would prefer not to be taxed, but a voluntary tax
> won't work since no-one would pay it (not even those who
> want to be taxed).

This is no argument at all. The point is it's coercive period. The coercion can't be justified because your pet projects won't be funded.

> So the alternative is to allow a policy which most
> people,
> perhaps even all the people, believe will cause them more
> suffering on
> the grounds that implementing the policy will be coercive
> and that coercion is bad because it causes suffering.

If they truly believe in lowering suffering and they believe a specific project will do that, then one must ask why they don't voluntarily support the project? The truth is since they would act against the project -- i.e., since they won't fund it unless forced -- then they must not be for it. The only beliefs here that matter, really, are the ones people act on.

> Another question to ask is, Where does your non-coercion
> principle
> come from and why is it invulnerable to criticism while you
> can easily
> dismiss other ethical principles that many people hold
> dear, such as
> the right of the weak to be cared for by their society or
> the right of a worker to get the full value of his labour?

I don't see how the non-coercion principle is immune from criticism. All principles are open to reasonable criticism, but some survive it and others don't. The principle of helping the weak doesn't necessarily clash with non-coercion, though non-coercion means you can't force someone else. (It's strange you'd argue this way. After all, someone who can be forced is obviously weak. The state is strong and while it might help out some of the weak it only does this by harming others of the weak. After all, if someone's strong enough to truly resist the state and doesn't want to pay taxes or obey other whims of the state, the state will not be forcing him to do anything.)

But you actually bring up "society" caring for the weak. What does this mean? Society as society doesn't care for anyone; individuals care for other individuals. It's merely so much rhetoric to pretend that when I care for my neighbor that society is caring for him. Surely, too, when I donate money or clothes to some group, pooling my meager resources to help someone or some group of people, it might seem like it's society caring for someone. But it's not. It's still one or more individuals caring for other individuals. Talk of society doing it is merely a way to cover coercion or just to make people feel like they're part of some superorganism.

As for the worker getting the "full value of his labour," there's a simple way to do this. Have no coercion in labor markets. Workers would then be free to sell their labor at the market price. Note: in this respect, value here is always voluntary and always involves a trade, so there's an "of value to whom" aspect. Just like with anyone else or any other trade, there is no full value for a trade apart from what someone else consent to give for it. If the trading parties can't agree to trade, then one can only speculate what would have been the right amount for the trade. Thus, there is nothing to say apart from what freely interacting parties are willing to trade -- at least, not in terms of their values.

Or have you an objective theory of economic value? If so, please elaborate it! If your view can survive criticism, you'll be hailed as probably the most important economic thinker of this century. :)

Regards,

Dan

* Böhm-Bawerk refuted Marxist views of exploitation, value, and labor in the late 19th century. His _Karl Marx and the Close of His System_ is available online at:

http://hussonet.free.fr/bohm.pdf