Fudai's Seawall

[Grames]

Mayor’s Vision Saves Japanese Village from Tsunami

The story of how Fudai came to have such a high seawall begins with the great earthquake and tsunami in 1896, during Japan’s Meiji period. That year the village was struck by a 15-meter (49-foot) tsunami, and again in 1933, the village suffered another powerful tsunami. Altogether, 439 lives were lost.

Following those tsunami, village mayor Kotoku Wamura (和村幸得) pressed for a seawall at least 15 meters high, often repeating the tales handed down to him growing up: that the devastating 1896 tsunami was 15 meters.

The project was a huge one—a wall to hold back a surging wave five stories high and over 200 meters (650 feet) long. During the planning stage, there was strong opposition to building such an excessively high wall—after all, a 10-meter wall, dubbed “the Great Wall,” had protected parts of nearby Miyako City from the tsunami caused by a Chilean earthquake in 1960.

But Wamura did not budge, insisting on a 15-meter-plus wall. “明治に１５メートルの波が来た” (In the Meiji earthquake, a 15-meter wave came), he was fond of reminding skeptics.

Wamura prevailed, and the seawall was ultimately completed in 1967. Floodgates were added in 1984.

Owing to Wamura’s steadfast insistence—and a vision of the protection Fudai needed, based on stories and knowledge handed down to him—this tiny village was spared the great tsunami of 2011. 63-year-old Sadaji Oota, gazing out at the wall from a Fudai izakaya he runs, put it best: “If we didn’t have this wall, we’d all be dead.”

This is what government is good for: protection against physical threats. I can't see this being a private project. Aside from the funding issue and that there is no positive cash flow generated only ever expenses (unlike a toll road), it doesn't create a lake or dry up new land for use (unlike a dam), and the benefit it confers is uncertain, irregular in time and statistically likely (and in fact was) beyond the long range planning horizon of most individuals.

[2046]

Profit is not simply a monetary phenomenon, but a mental and personal one. Whether or not someone receives a positive revenue from undertaking any project depends on their personal values. There is therefore no profit issue preventing this from being a private project.

There is also no funding issue preventing this from being a private project. Quoting from Henry Hazlitt's “Public Works Mean Taxes” (Chapter 4 in Economics In One Lesson):

Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. […] We must apply the same reasoning, once more, to great projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority [or Fudai's Seawall]. Here, because of sheer size, the danger of optical illusion is greater than ever. Here is a mighty dam, a stupendous arc of steel and concrete, "greater than anything that private capital could have built," the fetish of photographers, the heaven of socialists, the most often used symbol of the miracles of public construction, ownership and operation. […]

We need not go here into the merits of the TVA or public projects like it. But this time we need a special effort of the imagination, which few people seem able to make, to look at the debit side of the ledger. […]

The thing so great that "private capital could not have built it" has in fact been built by private capital—the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes). Again we must make an effort of the imagination to see the private power plants, the private homes, the typewriters and radios that were never allowed to come into existence because of the money that was taken from people all over the country to build the photogenic Norris Dam.

It does not follow from the fact that the government built the seawall that it could not have been built in the absence of government intervention. The decision of what gets built and what doesn't get built is decided by the value judgments of the people involved, namely the mass of the sovereign consumers on the market. Now certainly, if people are short-sighted and do not see the long-range value in building any defenses from natural disasters, then they may suffer the consequences. But what you are suggesting is substituting Grames' judgment for their judgment, Grames' plans for their plans, by force. Grames might think that his judgment is better, and he may be right. He might also think that because of that, he is called upon to impose his set of values on the masses of people living in this village or area by the initiation of physical force, but then he should be plain enough to say so. There are plenty of other Grameses out there who think the same thing, with regard to their visions and plans for everybody else.

[Grames]

...

Mayor Wamura by persuasion and tax managed to inflict his will upon the village of Fudai, or 'initiate force' as you put it. Other villages did not suffer that aggression. Today Fudai stands and the other villages are swept away. Consider that as evolution in action. Reality is the final arbiter of what is better or worse. Your theory of good and bad, right and wrong in government is plainly wrong or at best misapplied.

Your response is also rather a non sequitur. Although it is almost a certainty that Fudai taxes its citizens (I don't know nor do I know Japanese to research the matter), it did not necessarily need to and I mentioned nothing about justifying coercive taxation in the original post. To be clear, I do not endorse coercive taxation. I merely identified the building of a sea wall as an activity justifiably with the scope of a government's proper function. It would be great if some rich benefactor or foundation took it upon itself to do so but in their absence the government is justified in taking on the project.

[2046]

But we are talking about governmental intervention into the choices of consumers, not a voluntary project undertaken by a government. Certainly, if government taxes away its citizens money, then at least it should protect them with it in some way (even though the reasons that give rise to the necessity of government is only due to the fact of human force, not mother nature), rather than denying it to them during crises. But this would not be necessary if the government did not tax. And that is the question presented us in political philosophy, no?

So if the government does not tax, then the government need not build a seawall. If it would be possible that the government undertakes the project with voluntary persuasion and funding, then it would be possible that a private person or group of persons forming a corporation to do the same thing. It would also be more prudent, given that the government is that organization with the monopoly on the use of physical force.

Edit: And in regards to your first paragraph, I think it is your version of political ethics that is wrong or at best misapplied. What you are advocating belongs under the category of “forcing the good onto someone else.” It is what Rand essentialized as “the attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.”

What we have in the absence of governmental planning for any lines of production is nothing more than the given resultant of individual valuations. Therefore, if we do not like the results, the fault lies with the valuations, not the nature of individual rights or the political system itself. It does not follow that the political system that imposes the valuations of other individuals is necessarily a superior system. What you are advocating is an intrinsic theory of the good. If someone is wrong about what is good for them, then reality will indeed be and should be the sole arbiter of that, not your fist in their face. If I do not judge it to be to my rational self-interest to contribute to your seawall, then I have that right. A value I am forced to accept by surrendering my judgment is not a value to me at all.

Edited May 28, 2011 by 2046

[RationalBiker]

But what you are suggesting is substituting Grames' judgment for their judgment, Grames' plans for their plans, by force. Grames might think that his judgment is better, and he may be right. He might also think that because of that, he is called upon to impose his set of values on the masses of people living in this village or area by the initiation of physical force, but then he should be plain enough to say so.

Off topic perhaps, but who the heck are you talking to in the above quote? It appears you are talking to the author of the book you quoted. Is he a hidden participant in this thread?

[2046]

Off topic perhaps, but who the heck are you talking to in the above quote? It appears you are talking to the author of the book you quoted. Is he a hidden participant in this thread?

I can see how it could be confusing because I used "you" [referring to Grames] and then used Grames' name right after, but it's all addressed towards Grames (or really towards his argument.) So in other words it should read like: What Grames is suggesting is substituting Grames' values for other people's values, etc.

[RationalBiker]

Thanks for clarifying.

[Grames]

But we are talking about governmental intervention into the choices of consumers, not a voluntary project undertaken by a government. Certainly, if government taxes away its citizens money, then at least it should protect them with it in some way (even though the reasons that give rise to the necessity of government is only due to the fact of human force, not mother nature), rather than denying it to them during crises. But this would not be necessary if the government did not tax. And that is the question presented us in political philosophy, no?

I find your thoughts and writing to be confused. First, you may want to talk about governmental intervention into the choices of consumers ("consumers"? what? why not taxpayers?) but I don't. "But this would not be necessary if the government did not tax" is quite unclear. I don't think you mean to say that not taxing prevents crises from occurring, but I can't get any other meaning out of it.

Set aside the taxation issue. If some private agent could get the wall built then theoretically the government could use a similar funding mechanism. Assume the land could be acquired by all voluntary transactions. What is the principle that allows or bars the government in the geographical context of Fudai from acting to build a seawall?

My answer is based in the principle of self-defense. All government action is based on delegated authority to act in self defense. Usually self-defense is directed at other men, but it is also self-defense to defend against nature. It is self-defense to shoot a wild animal that attacks you. If there is a bear in your suburban neighborhood turning over trashcans and terrorizing the neighborhood, you call the police to shoot it or capture it. A seawall is a defense against nature. A tsunami is both rare and far larger than an individual can defend against. The threat is of the type and scale appropriate for government action to be justified.

So if the government does not tax, then the government need not build a seawall. If it would be possible that the government undertakes the project with voluntary persuasion and funding, then it would be possible that a private person or group of persons forming a corporation to do the same thing. It would also be more prudent, given that the government is that organization with the monopoly on the use of physical force.

What has the government monopoly on force got to do with it? Should we be worried about the government establishing a coercive monopoly in the market for seawalls? It is entirely impractical for there to be more than one seawall per town anyway, so whoever builds it has a de facto monopoly.

[2046]

You said you couldn't see this as a private project. What is it about government that makes it different then? Obviously it is the power to arrogate funds to itself by means of taxation. If you are arguing that you don't support taxation, but some kind of voluntary funding and persuasion, then my argument regarding force is indeed a non sequitur. But then my argument about the imprudence of government undertaking a task not related to cracking down on criminals still has standing, along with the glaring fact that it then becomes entirely unnecessary, for it can just as well be a private corporation. Either way, your overall point that only government can build a seawall is still itself a non sequitur.

But about your general argument regarding self-defense and government (earlier you used the phrase protection from physical threats): I will argue the only proper criterion for government is protecting rights, not self-defense in the widest possible sense, as you argue. Rights mean the freedom to take actions in order to benefit my life due to the fundamental nature of human beings. The fundamental nature of man is a thinker and a valuer. Rights are not entitlements to life-benefiting action, they are moral sanctions on the freedom to take such actions, which means the freedom to think and value is a prerequisite, and thus we are limited to strictly forbidding the invasions of person and property.

It seems then that what you are advocating is nothing more than welfarism. To say it is right to force someone to support your seawall is to say that some other people have an entitlement to seawall protection. Having free health care is also beneficial. Reality will “kill me” if I don't buy it when I need it. Some people who do not suffer physical aggression will be dead, some who do will be alive and standing, just like the dramatic image you presented of your city. But I don't have any moral sanction to possess health services expropriated from someone else, for where would I get such a right? I only have the moral sanction to take those actions which will procure me health services, otherwise an inexorable logical contradiction arises. Rights as you would have them would lose their “compossibility” and thus collapse into absurdity. Anyone has a right to take or do anything so long as he can prove having that thing would be by its nature life-benefiting to someone.

If you then go, well clearly I'm only talking about the government voluntarily doing things that will protect people against physical threats as being within its proper scope. I could argue being protected from the physical threat of illness is within the proper scope, then and you would have no way to answer this. You obviously have abandoned the meaning and distinction of protection and physical threats. The thing that gives rise to the need of governmental protection is the fact that some other humans can use physical force. Physical threats from other human beings, not physical threats as such, is the criterion for proper government action. A tsunami, though a physical threat, isn't a murderer. Nobody this side of the Garden of Eden can claim a right to protection from the physical threats of weather or plate tectonics, only the right to take those actions which will secure protection from nature without invading someone else's body or property.

Therefore we can only conclude that there is and can be no right not to suffer physical damage due to nature. There can be no right to never make any mistakes regarding the use of my property in protecting me from physical damage due to nature, and no right not to suffer the consequences regarding such damage by externalizing the costs of my poor decisions onto other people, nor to force my wise decisions about such uses onto other people who are making poor decisions regarding such physical threats of nature [except insofar as they are causing the threats and the threat extends to someone other than themselves]. Only the right to be free from other men, wise mayors and would-be philosopher-kings who know what's best for me included.

Edited May 29, 2011 by 2046

[Dante]

My answer is based in the principle of self-defense. All government action is based on delegated authority to act in self defense. Usually self-defense is directed at other men, but it is also self-defense to defend against nature. It is self-defense to shoot a wild animal that attacks you. If there is a bear in your suburban neighborhood turning over trashcans and terrorizing the neighborhood, you call the police to shoot it or capture it. A seawall is a defense against nature. A tsunami is both rare and far larger than an individual can defend against. The threat is of the type and scale appropriate for government action to be justified.

I'm trying to think through what a principle of 'self-defense against nature' as justification for government action would mean. So let's say there was an immense drought that hit a big farming region of a country, and the government decides to 'defend' those farmers against that natural disaster by sending them tax money to compensate for the drought. Essentially this is just coercive redistribution, but its occurring in response to a natural disaster (a large-scale natural disaster). Would you judge this as covered by your principle of self-defense against nature?

[Grames]

You said you couldn't see this as a private project. What is it about government that makes it different then? Obviously it is the power to arrogate funds to itself by means of taxation.

No, it is that government projects need not make a profit in terms of cash flow. The other collective defense effort government provides, the armed forces, is also a money loser while remaining a wise expenditure.

If you are arguing that you don't support taxation, but some kind of voluntary funding and persuasion, then my argument regarding force is indeed a non sequitur. But then my argument about the imprudence of government undertaking a task not related to cracking down on criminals still has standing, along with the glaring fact that it then becomes entirely unnecessary, for it can just as well be a private corporation.

A private corporation that loses money year after year. Good luck with that. Charity can work, but it is not a secure foundation for something your life will depend upon.

Because armed forces employ force they clearly belong under the government's command. A seawall is not by definition an employment of force against people, so theoretically it could be done apart from government if the project can find funding. But it would be better to look at history to see how things actually work out between real human beings rather than deducing it all.

More historical context on how this problem has been solved in the past can be gleaned from the dikes of the Netherlands. From Flood Control in the Netherlands:

Water control boards

Main article: Water board (The Netherlands)

The first dikes and water control structures were built and maintained by those directly benefiting from them, mostly farmers. As the structures got more extensive and complex councils were formed from people with a common interest in the control of water levels on their land and so the first water boards began to emerge. These often controlled only a small area, a single polder or dike. Later they merged or an overall organization was formed when different water boards had conflicting interests. The original water boards differed much from each other in organisation, power and area they managed. The differences were often regional and dictated by differing circumstances, whether they had to defend a sea dike against a storm surge or keep the water level in a polder within bounds. In the middle of the twentieth century there were about 2700 water control boards. After many mergers there are currently 27 water boards left. Water boards hold separate elections, levy taxes and function independently from other government bodies.

The dikes were maintained by the individuals who benefited from their existence, every farmer having been designated part of the dike to maintain, with a three-yearly viewing by the water board directors. The old rule "Who the water hurts, who the water stops" (Dutch: Wie het water deert, die het water keert) meant that those living at the dike had to pay and care for it. This led to haphazard maintenance and it is believed that many floods would not have happened or would not have been as severe if the dikes had been in better condition.[1] Those living further inland often refused to pay or help in the upkeep of the dikes though they were just as much affected by floods while those living at the dike itself could go bankrupt from having to repair a breached dike.

The separate article on Water Boards (Netherlands) states that historically the waterboards effectively became governments unto themselves, having the power to fine and even mete out death sentences for "serious offenders who threatened dike safety". All of the little governments were decentralized and had to remain so because the dikes were decentralized. Today all of the water boards are integrated into the rest of the government. If that is the eventual destiny of all such administrative bodies, it would be best to make them government functions from the beginning to keep them under objective control.

But about your general argument regarding self-defense and government (earlier you used the phrase protection from physical threats): I will argue the only proper criterion for government is protecting rights, not self-defense in the widest possible sense, as you argue. Rights mean the freedom to take actions in order to benefit my life due to the fundamental nature of human beings. The fundamental nature of man is a thinker and a valuer. Rights are not entitlements to life-benefiting action, they are moral sanctions on the freedom to take such actions, which means the freedom to think and value is a prerequisite, and thus we are limited to strictly forbidding the invasions of person and property.

Your argument reduces to anti-tax. This is not a tax thread, nor am I putting forward a pro-tax argument. You seem to be unable to imagine any government funding method other than charity which is not strictly ruled out as immoral.

Furthermore, there is a force issue involved. When a town is at the mercy of the sea, the town is at the mercy of he who holds back the sea. Imagine a villainous administrator holding a town hostage, demanding donations or else he will flood the town. That would be a threat of force. The dikes of the Netherlands illustrate the general principle in favor of government control of action against a continuous threat, and it is an application of that principle to Fudai for an intermittent threat.

It seems then that what you are advocating is nothing more than welfarism. To say it is right to force someone to support your seawall is to say that some other people have an entitlement to seawall protection. Having free health care is also beneficial. Reality will “kill me” if I don't buy it when I need it. Some people who do not suffer physical aggression will be dead, some who do will be alive and standing, just like the dramatic image you presented of your city. But I don't have any moral sanction to possess health services expropriated from someone else, for where would I get such a right? I only have the moral sanction to take those actions which will procure me health services, otherwise an inexorable logical contradiction arises. Rights as you would have them would lose their “compossibility” and thus collapse into absurdity. Anyone has a right to take or do anything so long as he can prove having that thing would be by its nature life-benefiting to someone.

The objective criteria that differentiates an inherently collective benefit from a merely socialized benefit is that everyone benefits simultaneously in a way that makes it impossible to discriminate between individuals. Medical emergencies and medical aid occur individually, but an entire town floods at once or is saved at once. The collective protection benefit of a sea wall or dike is similar to the collective safety benefit created by the armed forces. There is no redistribution of benefits, all protected get the same benefit. Redistribution is "taking from Peter to pay Paul", but here Peter pays to save himself first of all and Paul is at worst a free rider. Free riders are not a problem.

If you then go, well clearly I'm only talking about the government voluntarily doing things that will protect people against physical threats as being within its proper scope. I could argue being protected from the physical threat of illness is within the proper scope, then and you would have no way to answer this.

Actually I do have an answer: I would agree. I point to the government power of quarantine used to protect people from illness. Quarantine has been defended by both Peikoff and Hsieh (see thread Forced Quarantine and Forced Vaccination). In quarantine we have a government taking action against a collective existential threat to those not yet ill by taking extraordinary actions against the ill or merely possibly contaminated that under other circumstances would unjustifiable rights violations. That is a far stronger government intervention than the fund raising for a sea wall entails.

You obviously have abandoned the meaning and distinction of protection and physical threats. The thing that gives rise to the need of governmental protection is the fact that some other humans can use physical force. Physical threats from other human beings, not physical threats as such, is the criterion for proper government action. A tsunami, though a physical threat, isn't a murderer. Nobody this side of the Garden of Eden can claim a right to protection from the physical threats of weather or plate tectonics, only the right to take those actions which will secure protection from nature without invading someone else's body or property.

Any person or organization that does tame the threat of flood or earthquake creates an entity which ought to be regulated or controlled outright by the government because of the massive indiscriminate force that could be unleashed. So if it is a good idea for Fudai to have a 50-foot sea wall, and it is, then it ought to be at least under some government supervision and even direct ownership.

Therefore we can only conclude that there is and can be no right not to suffer physical damage due to nature.

Correct. Tsunamis don't care about rights, and will not constrain themselves or heed restraining orders. There is no deductive argument leading from rights to building sea walls. But it does not follow that "therefore, it should not be done." If we followed that principle to the end we have to give up much real value that government provides us.

This category of optional government activities seems to be troublesome. Another optional government activity is enforcement of contracts. Contract law is a recent legal innovation justified by reconciling property theory with the governmental monopoly on force to permit the government to enforce contracts. A sea wall is a collective defense effort and government is the best vehicle for providing collective defense whether the invader is other men or insentient nature, because the countermeasure to force is itself a force and so should be under objective control. Within the nature of government as the monopoly on retaliatory force there is no necessity for the government to enforce contracts, no necessity that it grant patents and copyrights, no necessity that it be the official registrar of deeds of land ownership, no necessity that it build dikes or sea walls. Humanity has existed for thousands of years without any of those things and would continue if they all disappeared today. But life is better if government does those things and there is really no better way to go about achieving the benefits of those measures except through government action.

In the above paragraph the sense of necessity I was using was logical necessity. There is no deductive argument for those measures that derives from the definition of government. Those measures are necessary if one wishes to live a flourishing life with ever increasing wealth, justice for innovators, peace among neighbors and a house by a dangerous seashore. There is necessity in the sense of causation: if one wishes the effect, then enact the cause. Find causation by looking at reality, not deductive arguments.

[Grames]

I'm trying to think through what a principle of 'self-defense against nature' as justification for government action would mean. So let's say there was an immense drought that hit a big farming region of a country, and the government decides to 'defend' those farmers against that natural disaster by sending them tax money to compensate for the drought. Essentially this is just coercive redistribution, but its occurring in response to a natural disaster (a large-scale natural disaster). Would you judge this as covered by your principle of self-defense against nature?

No. Despite the hype, it is not a disaster. Nobody got killed, the farms are still there undamaged for next year's crops, the loss of one year's income is not equivalent to losing your life, the whole drought unfolded very slowly over a long period of time permitting cost-saving countermeasures (stop fertilizing dry fields), previous years' savings can see you through. There is no agency with the power to prevent a drought, so no one can be charged with a failure and held responsible.

As a drought is a purely financial misfortune, it could be addressed with an insurance company. However, insurance companies are not preventive measures because they pay out after the damage is done. A sea wall is preventive.

And the only thing that would make this an example of coercive redistribution would be coercive taxes. If the government is limited and funded as a free society's government ought to be funded this is not an applicable argument.

[RationalBiker]

If the government is limited and funded as a free society's government ought to be funded this is not an applicable argument.

A government that is funded in the manner it ought to be funded is a charity. How can you be certain that a government with voluntary taxation would be more reliable for your life to depend upon building that seawall than a private charity with voluntary funding?

Edited May 30, 2011 by RationalBiker

[Grames]

A government that is funded in the manner it ought to be funded is a charity.

I reject that assertion. Fees for services is not the charity model, and fees for services is what Rand suggested.

[RationalBiker]

I reject that assertion. Fees for services is not the charity model, and fees for services is what Rand suggested.

Okay, what if someone doesn't want to pay the wall fee? What if most don't pay the wall fee? It's still voluntary, right?

Edited May 30, 2011 by RationalBiker

[Grames]

Okay, what if someone doesn't want to pay the wall fee? What if most don't pay the wall fee? It's still voluntary, right?

The model of government financing I have in mind is the same as Rand's. Government raises it moneys by various fees for services including the contract/credit fee, and then allocates its' money to spend as required. There would be no specific fee for the armed services (how could there be?) or criminal courts, and there needn't be one for a sea wall.

[2046]

Non-profit corporations can operate within the limits of their budget the same as a government operating within the limits of its budget. They (non-profit organizations) raise their money by the voluntary choices of those concerned and allocate money as required. For-profit corporations can charge fees to the various people living in the area for building defenses against natural disasters. They raise their money by various fees and then allocate money as required. Imagine a city located on a coastline that every so often experiences tsunami, which kill large amounts of people and causes large amounts of property damage. To cope with the risk of such disasters, people purchase insurance for their lives and property. Policyholders pay a fixed premium, while the insurance agencies pledge to indemnify the estates of anyone who suffers bodily or financial harm during an earthquake or tsunami, according to the precise terms specified in the contract. The insurance company can then build various tsunami defenses, including seawalls so long as the expected reduction in liability claims is sufficient to justify the expenditure.

Either way if the mass of the consumers of a given area value defenses from natural disasters, then they will be ready to fund it, and entrepreneurs will be willing to invest the necessary capital equipment. The fact that the maintenance and upkeep of a big wall costs them money every year is no reason why it can't be built. Profit does not necessarily require any interest being earned on capital employed. Profit and loss are generated by success or failure in adjusting the course of production activities to the most urgent demand of the consumers. The demands of the public are the final word on whether or not there is a gain from any project. If there is no welfare state or social engineering coming to take care of the people by taxing everyone, then there is no reason to assume people would be so stupid as to not be willing to build any defenses. If the market can provide for private roads, dams, levees, earthquake defenses, tornado defenses, flood defenses, or your local fire department, then it can provide for tsunami defense. If you are seriously supporting persuasion and voluntary funding, then there is no reason in the world why it could not work.

Edited May 30, 2011 by 2046

[RationalBiker]

The model of government financing I have in mind is the same as Rand's. Government raises it moneys by various fees for services including the contract/credit fee, and then allocates its' money to spend as required. There would be no specific fee for the armed services (how could there be?) or criminal courts, and there needn't be one for a sea wall.

So, we can assume that there will be enough money voluntarily provided by rationally self-interested people to support the police, the courts, the military, the wall, and whatever else was deemed necessary by the government. However, should such an important project as the Fudai Seawall be left to a private entity, there would not be enough rationally self-interested people to support that endeavor.

What is it about the government that will be more likely to have enough voluntarily provided fees that could not be as easily assured by a private entity given that the gravity of the project is equally important to a rational man's interests no matter which entity builds it? Surely rationally self-interested men would see the importance of the seawall either way, right?

[Mikee]

I'm not sue if government would be better off than private investments on this issue Grames. Recently in Australia the evnironmental minister refused to build a damn because of irrational concerns for some extinct species

[2046]

Your argument reduces to anti-tax. This is not a tax thread, nor am I putting forward a pro-tax argument. You seem to be unable to imagine any government funding method other than charity which is not strictly ruled out as immoral.

My argument is anti-tax, but also the disagreement is about where to confine the proper scope of governmental action. Your argument reduces to “public goods theory,” which means initiating force at the end of the day. No matter what obfuscations you put forth, nothing can change that.

But just to correct you, I never contended that anything outside of “charity” (I'm assuming you mean direct donations) would be immoral. There a plenty of ways one could imagine outside of direct donations, but ultimately it doesn't matter. People living in the town produce wealth. Then they give some of this wealth to the government. There are plenty of ways to get money from A to B without force. And also they might then trade some of this wealth to wall builders and wall maintainers. I don't see what's so hard about this. There is no “collective benefits” conundrum.

Furthermore, there is a force issue involved. ...Imagine a villainous administrator holding a town hostage, demanding donations or else he will flood the town. That would be a threat of force... I point to the government power of quarantine used to protect people from illness.

Your two “force issues” are straw men based on equivocations. In every argument we've engaged in, you've displayed a remarkable ability to ignore something your opponent says and argue against your own version of it. Why, of course the government can intervene in medical threats! There are contagious diseases! Hah, you're wrong! Grames: Did you miss the part about retaliation being limited to invasions of person and property? Obviously if I am emanating harmful diseases, then we have a threat of force from a human. Same thing with an evil Lex Luthor type villain who threatens to drown the town if they don't pay him some ransom. But we immediately run into problems if I am claiming that I have a right not to get diabetes, that this constitutes a physical threat, that I have a right to self-defense from that physical threat, and that someone other than me should pay for it [again, since you'll probably bring it up, we presume he didn't get diabetes as a result of an attack from someone else, if that's even possible]. If the threat of force is from an actual person, be it an environmental, medical, or other kind of threat, then it properly involves the legal restraint of that person. There is no such criterion in the case of tsunami or earthquakes or hurricanes or typhoons or tornadoes or any other natural disaster not caused by an actual force initiating person. The distinction involves the metaphysical versus the man-made. Justice involves the man-made. Government involves the dispensing of legal justice.

The objective criteria that differentiates an inherently collective benefit from a merely socialized benefit is that everyone benefits simultaneously in a way that makes it impossible to discriminate between individuals. Medical emergencies and medical aid occur individually, but an entire town floods at once or is saved at once. The collective protection benefit of a sea wall or dike is similar to the collective safety benefit created by the armed forces. There is no redistribution of benefits, all protected get the same benefit. Redistribution is "taking from Peter to pay Paul", but here Peter pays to save himself first of all and Paul is at worst a free rider. Free riders are not a problem.

Surely you would not contend that an act which would be an initiation of force if it only benefits a specific group, but as long as we can demonstrate that it will benefit the entire collective, then it magically turns force into non-force? If the government forces the citizenry, all of it, to pay for a seawall, why, then it is not force. If A will benefit, it is held, at B's expense by aggressing against B's property, why then it's illicit. But if A, B, and C benefit simultaneously as a result of A's initiations of violence, why then it's collective protection, a natural public good we might say, and hence the proper scope of government. Just like the military!

Of course it is redistribution: from taxpayers to government and its connected retailers. Anything that forces you to forgo your property where you have not initiated any force is coercive redistribution, regardless of services claimed to be rendered in your own good. That is the pith of all kinds of tyranny and the excuse of all kinds of criminals.

Any person or organization that does tame the threat of flood or earthquake creates an entity which ought to be regulated or controlled outright by the government because of the massive indiscriminate force that could be unleashed. So if it is a good idea for Fudai to have a 50-foot sea wall, and it is, then it ought to be at least under some government supervision and even direct ownership.

Your argument that owning a seawall represents “massive indiscriminate force that could be unleashed” is just a rehashing of your imagined Lex Luthor villain scenario. Only, you seem to think that imaginary villains who might in some comic book be able to control a dam, or nuclear plant, or some “big dangerous thing” means that socialist public ownership is justified. But someone may have their property seized by the state only when an actual overt threat is present (based on actual evidence and proof in accordance with due process), not an imaginary one which would justify pre-crime.

Within the nature of government as the monopoly on retaliatory force there is no necessity for the government to enforce contracts, no necessity that it grant patents and copyrights, no necessity that it be the official registrar of deeds of land ownership, no necessity that it build dikes or sea walls. Humanity has existed for thousands of years without any of those things and would continue if they all disappeared today. But life is better if government does those things and there is really no better way to go about achieving the benefits of those measures except through government action.

In the above paragraph the sense of necessity I was using was logical necessity. There is no deductive argument for those measures that derives from the definition of government.

As I'm sure you're aware, successful deduction depends on successful induction. So it does follow deductively that if government's sole purpose is to protect individual rights, then it should do some of those things you listed, which are required for the protection of individual rights. There is no justification at all why only government can build a seawall, which was your original statement that you couldn't imagine it, and now I assume you've taken that back.

The fact that a seawall has positive externalities is totally irrelevant and proves nothing with regard to the market's ability to build one. And there's no "troublesome" problems with "optional government services" if we confine government to protecting rights. Once we figure out what rights are, and that a tsunami doesn't violate them, then it's only a matter of figuring out what does and what protecting them includes.

[Craig24]

The model of government financing I have in mind is the same as Rand's. Government raises it moneys by various fees for services including the contract/credit fee, and then allocates its' money to spend as required. There would be no specific fee for the armed services (how could there be?) or criminal courts, and there needn't be one for a sea wall.

Excellent point. The question is whether protection against natural disaster is a proper govt function. The Declaration states that "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.." and Rand would agree. Is a natural disaster or emergency a rights violation? Is a rethinking in order here? How much further can we go with this? Do we make the leap from protection against nature (floods, hurricanes, tonadoes) to protection against economic deprivation (poverty, unemployment)? What measures would that require? Do you then have to concede that some forms of govt welfare are justified? I'm just throwing this out there.

[Grames]

So, we can assume that there will be enough money voluntarily provided by rationally self-interested people to support the police, the courts, the military, the wall, and whatever else was deemed necessary by the government. However, should such an important project as the Fudai Seawall be left to a private entity, there would not be enough rationally self-interested people to support that endeavor.

You make it sound like that is a contradiction or a ridiculous scenario, but that actually happened in all the sea-towns along the same stretch of coastline as Fudai. No sea walls were built by private entities in other towns, and even the few government-built sea walls were too short even though the same facts were available to all of the town governments. Netherlands has a history of leaving the dikes to private individuals several hundred years ago and it worked somewhat but left much room for improvement.

What is it about the government that will be more likely to have enough voluntarily provided fees that could not be as easily assured by a private entity given that the gravity of the project is equally important to a rational man's interests no matter which entity builds it? Surely rationally self-interested men would see the importance of the seawall either way, right?

It is not all about the money, but I will address that first. Assuming the government has or can get the funds required, the only obstacle to getting the project started is persuading them of the threat and the effectiveness of the solution. Funds are raised from all those doing business with the town while the funds can be allocated to construction with a less than unanimous agreement. That is a form of leverage.

Any individual that becomes convinced of the long term threat of a tsunami can simply move away. That is much easier and more certain to succeed than the prospect of convincing the neighbors of the threat and also getting them to agree to what to do about it. The local government is bound to its location and cannot move. It can never simply give up and move away regardless of the difficulty of persuading the public about the threat and getting agreement on what to do. The local government can have an advantage over private actors in terms of commitment and motivation to succeed because the individuals who constitute that government are all local residents as a condition of holding office.

Its been nearly eighty years since the last tsunami at Fudai in 1933, and 110 years to last 50-foot tsunami. Human lives are shorter than that, and businesses on average don't do much better. But so long as the town exists there will be a local government. Such continuity makes it possible to plan and act on the long term basis of the tsunami threat. Mayor Wamura did not live to see the sea wall save Fudai but he could trust his successors to keep it maintained out of common interest. The water boards of the Netherlands have been overseeing the dikes for hundreds of years.

So there you have it. Leverage, commitment and continuity.

[Grames]

Non-profit corporations can operate within the limits of their budget the same as a government operating within the limits of its budget. They (non-profit organizations) raise their money by the voluntary choices of those concerned and allocate money as required. For-profit corporations can charge fees to the various people living in the area for building defenses against natural disasters. They raise their money by various fees and then allocate money as required. Imagine a city located on a coastline that every so often experiences tsunami, which kill large amounts of people and causes large amounts of property damage. To cope with the risk of such disasters, people purchase insurance for their lives and property. Policyholders pay a fixed premium, while the insurance agencies pledge to indemnify the estates of anyone who suffers bodily or financial harm during an earthquake or tsunami, according to the precise terms specified in the contract. The insurance company can then build various tsunami defenses, including seawalls so long as the expected reduction in liability claims is sufficient to justify the expenditure.

And yet we do not find insurance companies selling flood insurance and then building flood control dams with the proceeds. Why is that?

When you are thinking economically you need go several steps ahead. Consider the sequence:

1) You sell insurance.

2) Customers buy the insurance, make premium payments.

3) You build an anti-disaster measure. With reduction in payouts being greater than the expense of construction your (long term) profitability increases. Yay!

4) People see the massive construction completed and decided they no longer need insurance. Premium payments are reduced. Is the anti-disaster measure still profitable? Because we don't see flood insurers building flood control dams, I would infer the answer is "no". Also, taking on responsibility for a dam is a open-ended legal liability to people who are not even customers.

Insurers are in a profit making enterprise. Reducing risks is profitable to a point, which is why you can get insurance discounts for fire insurance for smoke detectors, life insurance discounts for not smoking, etc. But if your risk is reduced to zero you have no need for insurance at all, and the insurance business model does not work.

(Do not conclude insurance businesses are evil. They, like everything and everyone else, are merely finite in the range of what they can accomplish.)

Either way if the mass of the consumers ...

Rand greatly disliked the term "consumers" used as a stand-in for entire persons.

... of a given area value defenses from natural disasters, then they will be ready to fund it, and entrepreneurs will be willing to invest the necessary capital equipment. The fact that the maintenance and upkeep of a big wall costs them money every year is no reason why it can't be built. Profit does not necessarily require any interest being earned on capital employed. Profit and loss are generated by success or failure in adjusting the course of production activities to the most urgent demand of the consumers.

And this is why she hated it. Meeting the demands of consumers does not create profits because demand is not the same as payment. Profits are the remains of revenues after deducting expenses, nothing else. Hunger does not create food or pay for it, thirst does not create water or pay for it, urgent demand does not create purchasing power. Production creates purchasing power. Sales then are trades of production power.

The demands of the public are the final word on whether or not there is a gain from any project.

Is this statement compatible with objectivity, the acknowledgement of a mind-independent reality to be grasped by observation and logic? Or is this more like political subjectivism? And since the "demand of the public" came to agree with Mayor Wamura in the case of Fudai, is the final word then that the sea wall project was a gain? Is the gain at Fudai the same gain as at Miyako, now swept away because their sea wall was not tall enough to stop the tsunami but was tall enough to meet the public demand?

If there is no welfare state or social engineering coming to take care of the people by taxing everyone, then there is no reason to assume people would be so stupid as to not be willing to build any defenses.

Stupidity is not the problem, the "rational actor theory" is the problem because it causes unrealistic expectations. It can be rational to not plan for the long term, and all long term planning must have some limit for beings with finite knowledge, finite attention and finite life span. As an institution with a longer span of existence and a strictly limited scope of action, a government is servant of the citizens that can provide value by being an agent designed to look to the future within its narrow scope and on a longer term than an individual or business. Government can fail, but it works better than the alternative for some things.

[RationalBiker]

You make it sound like that is a contradiction or a ridiculous scenario, but that actually happened in all the sea-towns along the same stretch of coastline as Fudai.

I make it sound like the scenario hasn't happened yet because it hasn't in the way I'm considering it. In any of the examples you provided, were government funds based on voluntary fees or donations? In all the sea towns that did not build a wall, where were there rationally self-interested people that would have made this work without with coerced taxation, much less with coerced taxation? Your examples suggest these rational people were out to lunch.

It is not all about the money, but I will address that first. Assuming the government has or can get the funds required, the only obstacle to getting the project started is persuading them of the threat and the effectiveness of the solution.

Well, it is all about the money before anything else can be done. Also, you didn't answer my question; What is it about the government that it will be more likely to have enough voluntarily provided fees that could not be as easily assured by a private entity given that the gravity of the project is equally important to a rational man's interests no matter which entity builds it? You addressed the money by simply glossing over it with; "Assuming the government has or can get the funds required,..." That's the heart of my question, why do you (appear to) assume it is more stable for the government to be able get this funding than private entities IF taxation is voluntary?

What I'm suggesting is that under Capitalism with a government whose services are reduced to their proper roles (thus reducing taxes - an assumption I know), people will be more reliant on private solutions to many of the problems the government handles now, and I think people would be more inclined to give money to charities or private entities that served their interests. I don't see how you are making the argument that the government would provide a better solution to the problem than a private entity IF both received their funding from voluntary sources AND government responsibilities were reduced to their proper roles.

At best, your examples demonstrate how governments funded by coerced taxation are better suited to handle the job than private entities, as those are the applicable facts of the examples you provided.

Edited May 30, 2011 by RationalBiker

[RationalBiker]

The local government is bound to its location and cannot move. It can never simply give up and move away regardless of the difficulty of persuading the public about the threat and getting agreement on what to do

On the contrary, the local government consists of individuals who can decide to resign and move away should they believe the threat is imminent and real and the bunch of dunderheads around them are too stupid to want to act against the threat. They may choose not to, to go down with the ship as it were, but they can by all means bail out.