Fudai's Seawall

[Grames]

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.

I have not yet played the "emergency" card, but I will now to draw the line between what is and is not permissible. I alluded to some of these points in denying that a drought was an emergency, or at least not the type of emergency that merits a government response.

An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible—such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a ship-wreck. In an emergency situation, men's primary goal is to combat the disaster, escape the danger and restore normal conditions (to reach dry land, to put out the fire, etc.).

By "normal" conditions I mean metaphysically normal, normal in the nature of things, and appropriate to human existence.

By its nature, an emergency situation is temporary; if it were to last, men would perish. ...

Illness and poverty are not metaphysical emergencies, they are part of the normal risks of existence; ...

Government can act in the so-called metaphysical emergencies. Taking action to mitigate emergencies preventively is also justifiable while restricted by respect for rights, and cost has to be weighed against the result and risk and is affordable. The whole essay applies.

[2046]

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

This objection is equivalent to saying “Well gee, why hasn't private enterprise built all kinds of private roads, huh? It can't be done then!” We have a welfare state where FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers will do exactly what you recommend they are doing: publicly own and control flood defenses. We should rather be asking you why haven't our wise overlords saved us from all the flooding?

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.

Don't you think people are capable of understanding what their money is paying for and valuing it? Of course it's possible they stop paying for insurance, but then if disaster strikes, whose fault is it? There is no right to insurance protection.

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

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.

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?

Demand is an economic term. It does not mean simply wanting or wishing for something. It does not refer to the philosophic case of primacy of consciousnesses or “wishing will make it so.” It doesn't say that hunger will create profits. Demand is the desire to own anything, the ability to pay for it, and the willingness to pay. It means that which you have the means for and are prepared to use for the attainment of an end. It refers to the amount of units of a good or service consumers are willing to purchase at a given price. It assumes you have real purchasing power, which assumes productive capacity. Demand is created by supply, that is the essence of Say's law. For example, in Africa, demand is considered much lower than in the West, even though their wishing and wanting for goods may be the same or higher as anyone else. It refers to the real valuations consumers place on ends attainable to them and are prepared to expend means to achieve. If people value defenses from natural disasters, then they will be willing to pay for it, and there is no reason why they can't meet those demands without government. There's no economic reason why this can't happen. You have no economic argument, all you have is to argue that they won't be so wise as to make those valuations for whatever reason or another.

Entrepreneurs are subject to the demands of the consumers in directing production activities. The entrepreneurs plan production activities, order factors of production, equipment, tools, hire workers, buy land, and so on, and that is where part of the production comes from. The other part comes from consumers. Consumers are also producers, for in order to have the purchasing power necessary to demand something, they must engage in production. It's ludicrous to suggest there is wrong with the employment of the term “consumers” in regards to one the roles that people perform in the market economy. There is no entrepreneurial profit (as opposed to autistic profit) without consumers.

Sales trades create profit, but there is nothing automatic about sales. Sales are a result of the ever-changing valuations of the consumers. Shifts in consumer demand are responsible for profits’ emergence. When these shifts occur, production must be adjusted, and the entrepreneur who adjusts it most effectively to fulfill consumer preferences will get the largest profits. “Some goods are valued higher than previously, others lower. These alterations are the source from which entrepreneurial profits and losses stem.” (Human Action, p. 534).

People living in the town produce wealth. Then they trade some of this wealth to wall builders and wall maintainers. There's nothing you can say that will invalidate that, or say that that can't be the case. Production coordination in a market economy is by consumer demand directing entrepreneurial activity. It doesn't matter if people look and see the wall built and have to maintain it with continuing premiums. The fact that costs are quantified in money have nothing to do with whether or not the consumers of seawall protection consider it worth it. Your arguments for government control are nonsense, for if there were no means for building a wall, neither would there be any means for government to build a wall.

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?

Your making another equivocation. I used "gain" in terms of economic profit to rebut your allegation that the project couldn't happen because it is intrinsically unprofitable. Now you use the word gain in terms of objectively life-benefiting. This is a misleading and fallacious equivocation. Gains from trade are ex ante gains, and they are entirely from the point of view of the people involved. If they view having the wall as a gain, then they will be willing to keep it up. Of course they can be objectively wrong about whether the ends chosen will actually benefit them, and you are welcome to criticize them. But you confuse the value subjectivism of economic profit with political subjectivism. The term profit in economics does not equal the term eudaimonia in ethics. If someone profits, it's only because they offered something valuable to others, as they see it. It doesn't necessarily mean their wall is objectively high enough to stop any given wave.

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.

Life is full of irrational actors. Sometimes they do things that get themselves killed. Sometimes they listen to reason and build defenses. They will build a seawall if they think and value enough build a seawall with private capital and ownership. If not, and a tsunami comes, nature will take its course. There's no rational actor hypothesis involved.

Stupidity is the problem on your argument's own grounds. If rationality creates unrealistic expectations, then irrationality must be the realistic expectation. Your assumptions are based on an unjustifiably pessimistic “irrational actor theory.” There is no reason to assume government has any more long-range rational self-interest than private citizens. Rather the opposite. The view you hold to is that government should own and control great infrastructure projects because private individuals are short-sighted, stupid rubes really, whereas we the government are an institution with “a longer span of existence.” Wise government officials are far-sighted, they look at 200 years ahead, like wise gods upon Mount Olympus planning for generations and centuries, which the private individual does not. Your argument is no different from those claiming capitalist greed is inherently short-sighted and has no other incentive but to ravage the environment for short-term profits.

But just the reverse is true. Businessmen are not merely worried about current production, but future production as well. If their town is wiped out by a tsunami, that kind of hampers their long-range interests. Private citizens are interested in their children's lives, their homes and property, and generally interested in not being wiped out by a tsunami. They have every economic incentive to plan on a long-range basis.

On the other hand, government officials do not necessarily have any long-range interest in the capital value of public property. They don't own its capital value, after all, they are just temporary and interchangeable caretakers. They own only its current use, and so have an incentive to exhaust resources in the long-run. They don't have to preserve anything. Democratic government officials generally have only one interest, which is getting re-elected. They have the economic incentive to exploit and make use of public property to their own political advantage, to be short-sighted and wasteful. Public works “projects,” quoting Hazlitt again, “have to be invented. Instead of thinking only where bridges must be built, the government spenders begin to ask themselves where bridges can be built. Can they think of plausible reasons why an additional bridge should connect Easton and Weston? It soon becomes absolutely essential. Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries.” If you then say, well now I rely on the rationality of government officials and the voting public to not do this. If they are virtuous, then they won't do this, as your argument on the same point vis-a-vis taxation went. But then you must ditch your pessimism.

Edited May 31, 2011 by 2046

[Grames]

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.

Public Goods Theory

In economics, a public good is a good that is nonrival and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good.[1] In the real world, there may be no such thing as an absolutely non-rivaled and non-excludable good; but economists think that some goods approximate the concept closely enough for the analysis to be economically useful.

Good government is a public good in the sense of nonrival and non-excludable and which cannot possibly be privately produced, and by definition good government bans the initiation of force. So much for that critique of public goods theory.

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.

Did you miss the part about farmers in the Netherlands that lived next to the dikes once being saddled with their upkeep? Villainy is not the only cause of failure. Once there is a man-made disaster prevention measure in place, it comes within the government's legal scope because failure due to intent or incompetence or bankruptcy can lead to large scale death and destruction, which would be a tort to say the least. It would be stupid to wait until after everyone is dead so possibly some traveler might return and have standing to sue a defendant who is also dead or penniless.

I am coming to understand that in practice it is the legal liability issue that forces such constructions into the arms of the government. Even when such projects are undertaken privately, in the course of time some liability problem will arise and the project will go bankrupt and no one steps forward to be the next Atlas to shoulder the burden. The project then defaults into the possession of the state. The case of the Netherlands followed that pattern and the sheer necessity of maintaining the dikes at all costs entailed the water boards becoming governments unto themselves. The advantage of government control of the project is sovereign immunity. Dissolving the liability problem by sovereign immunity makes sense for a republican form of government for the following reason: The people are held to be the sovereign, the source of all legal authority behind the government. The people harmed or at risk of harm by a failure form a class of plaintiffs against ultimately themselves. (Individual administrators are still subject to criminal justice for neglect or corruption.)

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.

A dike or sea wall is man-made once it exists.

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!

So it is better to let the dikes fail and leave the sea walls unbuilt and then die rather than be immoral by initiating force? My life is the standard of my morality so that doesn't make sense to me. But you go ahead and do what you think is best in your sea-town. I'll make a (cheap) memorial stone for you and your town after you are gone to immortalize the lesson for posterity.

That critique doesn't make sense even if there was an initiation of force at work with coercive taxation, but there doesn't need to be coercive taxation.

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.

Oh I can now imagine it built as a private project, but it won't stay a private project. Even if it takes two hundred years or more it will eventually become a government project. That is what happens when a project is "too big to fail" or "failure is not an option".

[RationalBiker]

Oh I can now imagine it built as a private project, but it won't stay a private project. Even if it takes two hundred years or more it will eventually become a government project. That is what happens when a project is "too big to fail" or "failure is not an option".

And we all know governments don't fail. And we all know that governments will use our voluntarily offered "fees" to do only those things which will objectively benefit everyone.

Argument by imagination... it's hard to lose.

[Grames]

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.

And you are suggesting there were no rational people among the many tens of thousands of people affected by the tsunami. They were not irrational, they were wrong. Being irrational almost always leads to being wrong, but being wrong is not proof of irrationality. Rational people can be wrong.

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?

1) Whatever the private entity can do to raise funds, the government could also do.

2) The government can allocate funds that it has from fees-for-services.

3) The government won't have a liability issue due to sovereign immunity.

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.

They just get replaced by the people who don't move. The replacements may not be convinced of the threat but they won't be detached observers with no personal stake in the issue. Institutional continuity is preserved.

[2046]

A dike or sea wall is man-made once it exists.

And to the extent that nothing involving the dike involves the issue of rights, then it's out of the province of governmental interference.

So it is better to let the dikes fail and leave the sea walls unbuilt and then die rather than be immoral by initiating force? My life is the standard of my morality so that doesn't make sense to me. But you go ahead and do what you think is best in your sea-town. I'll make a (cheap) memorial stone for you and your town after you are gone to immortalize the lesson for posterity.

False dilemma.

That critique doesn't make sense even if there was an initiation of force at work with coercive taxation, but there doesn't need to be coercive taxation.

If there doesn't need to be coercive taxation, then there doesn't need to be socialist ownership.

[Grames]

If there doesn't need to be coercive taxation, then there doesn't need to be socialist ownership.

Since it is not true that coercive taxation necessarily entails socialist ownership (it could all go straight to redistributive entitlement payments), the absence of coercive taxation does not necessarily entail anything either.

Is all government property necessarily evidence of the socialist principle in action? Do you hold the position that a government can exist which does not have ownership of property in exactly the same way a person or corporation can own property? Neither of these are defensible positions because of the law of identity. If there is a government at all, then it will exist in some specific form, at particular locations and as particular facilities and instruments and persons. If all government property is by nature socialist, government by nature is socialist. That conclusion is false.

[Grames]

And we all know governments don't fail. And we all know that governments will use our voluntarily offered "fees" to do only those things which will objectively benefit everyone.

Argument by imagination... it's hard to lose.

Do you realize these are arguments against any government at all, and against even trying to make a government work? It is also an argument against living: why bother to get out of bed when it is inevitable that you will die someday?

Yes, governments fail. They don't fail as often as people die and companies dissolve.

[RationalBiker]

Do you realize these are arguments against any government at all, and against even trying to make a government work? It is also an argument against living: why bother to get out of bed when it is inevitable that you will die someday?

No, they are not. Nice distortion though.

Yes, governments fail. They don't fail as often as people die and companies dissolve.

Do you realize this is a good argument for handing over responsibilities to the government for a whole lot of "needs" for people that are not within the province of a proper government?

I have to agree with 2046 here. 1) The building of the wall is not within the realm of protecting individual rights; and 2) I do not think you have successfully demonstrated why the government in a true Capitalist society (one with VOLUNTARY monetary support of the government) would necessarily be more successful in handling this than a private entity.

[2046]

Since it is not true that coercive taxation necessarily entails socialist ownership (it could all go straight to redistributive entitlement payments), the absence of coercive taxation does not necessarily entail anything either.

Is all government property necessarily evidence of the socialist principle in action? Do you hold the position that a government can exist which does not have ownership of property in exactly the same way a person or corporation can own property? Neither of these are defensible positions because of the law of identity. If there is a government at all, then it will exist in some specific form, at particular locations and as particular facilities and instruments and persons. If all government property is by nature socialist, government by nature is socialist. That conclusion is false.

Right, you're just repeating what I said, but conveniently leaving out the entire question at hand, which is what socialist ownership does entail: government intervention into the market production of goods and services. Rights protection, justice, law, fraudulent or violent conflict, etc. is the province of the state. Dam building is the province of capitalst entrepreneurship.

[Grames]

Do you realize this is a good argument for handing over responsibilities to the government for a whole lot of "needs" for people that are not within the province of a proper government?

Rights are always the limit on what the government can do. If a project does not violate rights, then some other test would have to forbid it or else it is permitted.

Thomas Jefferson took the line that what was not permitted was forbidden until he became President. He came around to the True Religion when presented with the opportunity to make the Louisiana Purchase.

Yours is the Calvinist principle of interpretation. The opposite is the Arminian principle, a.k.a. Methodism.

"The Reformed principle is that the acceptable way of worshipping God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his revealed will that he may not be worshipped in any other way than that prescribed in the Holy Scripture, that what is not commanded is forbidden. This is in contrast with the view that what is not forbidden is permitted." John Calvin (Collected Writings, I.167-68 citation not verified)

This class of dispute is old, and appears to have a bright future on new grounds.

[RationalBiker]

Yours is the Calvinist principle of interpretation.

If you mean that I agree with Rand's idea that the proper province of government is limited to the protection of individual rights, then yes, you are right. Up until now, I thought you agreed with that as well. Now that i see your view of government goes beyond that, I'm kind of surprised.

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according toobjective law." - For the New Intellectual, Ayn Rand.

I'm sure you are capable of looking up any number of quotes that demonstrate what Rand intended government to be. Should you do so, you should see where you are in disagreement with Rand. Now personally, I don't mind if your individual philosophy differs, as all men must think and reason for themselves - I support that as much as anything Rand said. However, I think you should truthfully distinguish when you go outside the bounds of Objectivism so as not to confuse others by what set of ideas you are representing to them.

[Greebo]

If you mean that I agree with Rand's idea that the proper province of government is limited to the protection of individual rights, then yes, you are right. Up until now, I thought you agreed with that as well. Now that i see your view of government goes beyond that, I'm kind of surprised.

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according toobjective law." - For the New Intellectual, Ayn Rand.

I'm sure you are capable of looking up any number of quotes that demonstrate what Rand intended government to be. Should you do so, you should see where you are in disagreement with Rand. Now personally, I don't mind if your individual philosophy differs, as all men must think and reason for themselves - I support that as much as anything Rand said. However, I think you should truthfully distinguish when you go outside the bounds of Objectivism so as not to confuse others by what set of ideas you are representing to them.

So what in the above prohibits a people from delegating additional tasks to Government, so long as the execution of those tasks is not done in a manner which violates rights?

Recall:

The source of the government’s authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose.

I do not see a conflict here. So long as a Government can perform such a task without violating the rights of others - so long as the funding is voluntary and approved for that specific purpose - the question now becomes, by what right do you deny the freedom of the people of a community to choose to task Government with building a flood wall?

Edited June 1, 2011 by Greebo

[2046]

There's government and there's government. The government of a free society is a non-coercive government (coercion here meaning initiation of force, not just any force.) So long as a government is a non-coercive government, there technically is no stopping point, vis-a-vis individual rights, to what it can do. Only so long as it has the funds and the will for doing so, and any one of its citizens as principals can say “I have delegated my agents to do thus.” It then is like any other company eager to satisfy consumer demands and make profits, or a non-profit organization that does whatever its donors want. It can provide electrical services, power supply, water supply, medical services, life insurance, park services, air traffic control, disaster insurance, flood-control, it can build roads, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, news media, banking, housing, etc., so long as it also secures the legal system necessary to protect individual rights at the same time.

But there are problems with this. Don't you think it might be a bit dangerous for the organization in society with a legal monopoly on the use of physical force to be engaged in so many functions not at all necessary for or related to that task, and which is a matter solely for entrepreneurship? Technically we can end up with a situation exactly the same as we are now, or worse. We can imagine a government which is one giant monopoly, with socialist ownership of all means of production, allocating all goods and services and employing everybody in society, so long as everybody voluntarily funds this and delegates these functions (or is claimed to.) Is that moral? Is that necessary? Is that practical?

This is also a problem with the anarchists' “free market defense agencies.” In fact, this is the attempt to reduce government to the same level as a “voluntary club” with “club dues” who engages in whatever activities members of the club want. There's nothing on these terms that could, in principle, prevent the above from happening, say via mass “mergers” for example.

Since resources are scarce, including the government's funds and number of employees available, then it has to choose between alternative plans for execution of its duties. The more it spends on public works projects, such as building giant walls on the coast, the less it has available for protecting rights. The means for expanding operations in one area can only be had be curtailing operations in the other, most vital area. It also just so happens that this area is its entire raison d'etre. The natural laws and facts about the world, man's nature and functioning in human society that give rise to the necessity for government in the first place involve only the necessity to secure our natural rights. This is what Locke had discovered, and what the Founding Fathers had given as the reason for their rebellion and setting up of new government.

So, as long as we need this institution, then it should be restricted to only engaging in those acts which make it necessary to exist in the first place. It should be limited to the protection of person and property, not from mother nature, but from the coercive and fraudulent acts of other human beings. It is practical, necessary, and moral to limit it only to establishing and maintaining the legal order that secures justice. This forms the institutional foundation of the capitalist state and the market economy which allows entrepreneurship to recognize the opportunities for profit in our environment and to exercise creative and coordinating power in order to adjust the state of the world accordingly. It allows peaceful human co-existence and interaction, including the right to co-operate with other humans to build cities, and to protect those cities by building various defenses against the elements. It does not require that the capitalist state engage in ownership and production of any such things as cities and infrastructure, but that it stay only within the confines of protecting the rights of person and property from fraudulent and violent human aggression so as to facilitate, not hamper the working of the market.

The same, only in the opposite way, could be said about the “right to counsel.” You have no natural right for an attorney to work for you at the state's expense. But it is wise and prudent to do so in protecting liberty during the legal process as a general part in ensuring a fair trial, for a part of the mission to protect individual rights includes the proper kind of legal framework. It only facilitates and doesn't violate the protection of rights.

[RationalBiker]

- the question now becomes, by what right do you deny the freedom of the people of a community to choose to task Government with building a flood wall?

I haven't claimed any right to deny anyone anything. What I've claimed is that the Rand designated what a proper government consisted of and that what Grames is describing is outside of that bounds. I haven't even claimed that Grames cannot extrapolate whatever he thinks would be consistent with Objectivism outside of those bounds, I've merely asked him to distinguish between what Rand described as proper government roles and what he believes are proper government roles.

In theory, I suppose the community of people could delegate any task to government they wanted under the provisions you mention (although 2046 offers why this would probably be a bad idea in the long run). In reality however, I've never seen nor heard of any political election, referendum or vote that had a 100% unanimous support with 100% of the population actually voting. Sure, that does not prove it has not happened, but I'd doubt it. Is it remotely possible? I suppose.

As I have alluded to before, it's always easy to make claims in theory, but the reality is often quite another matter. In reality, we do not even have an example of how a voluntarily funded government would perform in this area (or any other area) particularly versus a private entity. What I've challenged from the beginning of my participation is Grames' claim that a voluntarily funded government would be a better choice for this concern than a private entity. In a proper capitalist government, the financial and legal situation would be so significantly different from what it is now that all we can do is "imagine" how things would be.

Edited June 1, 2011 by RationalBiker

[RationalBiker]

And just for the record, it should be noted that despite its success, many people did not want the seawall in Fudai built at the time. There was no concern for the "consent of the governed" in that instance.

[Greebo]

I haven't claimed any right to deny anyone anything. What I've claimed is that the Rand designated what a proper government consisted of and that what Grames is describing is outside of that bounds.

Careful - you're in danger of committing an argument from authority fallacy here.

It is, indeed, beyond the three governmental functions defined by Rand. And without doubt, she explains quite well why those three functions *must* be run by Government in a rational society. Remember as well, those three functions are reactive - they levy force only in retaliation.

However, what I have never found is a case where Rand explicitly defines that Government may not do anything BUT those three things, or why. She has also stated in several interviews that Government could raise revenue on a fee-for-services basis which would *augment* personal right protection without any actual violation previously have taken place. By definition, such services are proactive and under O'ism must be voluntary. Formal registration of marriages, titles, property deeds, and the like would serve to augment the protection of property, survival rights, etc - but are NOT necessary and are NOT reactive in a rational society.

In theory, I suppose the community of people could delegate any task to government they wanted under the provisions you mention (although 2046 offers why this would probably be a bad idea in the long run). In reality however, I've never seen nor heard of any political election, referendum or vote that had a 100% unanimous support with 100% of the population actually voting. Sure, that does not prove it has not happened, but I'd doubt it. Is it remotely possible? I suppose.

Unanimous consent isn't necessary. We didn't even have unanimous consent for independence or the Constitution. Ratification only required a 2/3rds majority.

If the Government does not use force to build a levy wall and no person presents a justified claim as to why such a construction would directly harm them, Government needs only the same kind of majority sanction that it needs for any other action.

What I've challenged from the beginning of my participation is Grames' claim that a voluntarily funded government would be a better choice for this concern than a private entity. In a proper capitalist government, the financial and legal situation would be so significantly different from what it is now that all we can do is "imagine" how things would be.

Indeed, and I do not suggest that Government *would* be better at it - in fact I think building and maintaining such a levee wall would be a potentially profitable enterprise - since proper construction and maintenance would potentially open up new lands not previously usable, which in turn could be utilized for production. Meanwhile the property owners protected against overflow flooding would be wise to also contribute to the funding of the wall.

[Greebo]

And just for the record, it should be noted that despite its success, many people did not want the seawall in Fudai built at the time. There was no concern for the "consent of the governed" in that instance.

But did those people have a legitimate claim to halt its building?

If I want a cell phone tower in my back yard and you live 2 doors down and don't want to see it - what real basis would you have to stop me?

"We don't want to see a seawall" isn't the same as having a right to force building to stop.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Greebo

[2046]

If I delegate only the right to self-defense and Grames delegates the right to build dams, how does a government go about deciding how much of its limited resources to allocate to either task? For you can always spend more on the dam, and you can always spend more on protection. There is not one desire which additional units of a given good or service cannot satisfy. You can always have a better dam than you otherwise would have, or train more detectives or increase patrols, or have some newer car or gadget. It's only a matter of opportunity costs you then must pay in what you cannot do. The government will then have to make trade-offs between protecting rights and something else. If I have only given funds on the condition that they be used strictly to protect me and Grames has granted funds on the condition they be used to build a dam, it would seem unjustified to use any of the funds coming from me or others like me in the same pot to do something other than what they were intended for.

So the question is not whether or not the people have the right to delegate building something to agents or officers or attorneys to execute on their behalf. A non-coercive or proper government hypothetically has the right to build or produce anything because the people have the right to build and produce. The point is whether the government should accept such a delegation, for they have the right to refuse as well. The entire question at hand is whether they ought to do these things. Grames, if he is serious about it being a non-coercive government (and I have my doubts to this), is saying there ought to be delegated one thing, myself and Rationalbiker say there ought to be delegated something else.

First the idea was that if the government didn't build the dam, no one would because it is somehow intrinsically un-economic, but I guess we've gotten past that. Now is only the idea that the people are stupid rubes who are too dumb to know what's good for them, as versus the wise and eternal institution of government. I seem to recall some thread a while back that debated this topic, on whether a proper government technically can but practically ought not get involved in some business which is not related to protection of rights, but I can't find it.

[Greebo]

If I delegate only the right to self-defense and Grames delegates the right to build dams, how does a government go about deciding how much of its limited resources to allocate to either task?

Non-sequitor.

The same question exists regarding the funding they bring in no matter what tasks they perform.

The same question exists for ALL entities - individual or business or Government.

Possible solution: In the case of a special project, Gov't could accept specifically earmarked donations.

[2046]

Non-sequitor.

The same question exists regarding the funding they bring in no matter what tasks they perform.

The same question exists for ALL entities - individual or business or Government.

Possible solution: In the case of a special project, Gov't could accept specifically earmarked donations.

That's hardly a non sequitur. The entire question is what claim do citizens have to opposing such operations, and that is an answer. The same question exists within any task they perform, but since the task they are supposed to perform is protection of rights, then adopting other tasks in addition to that forces them to make trade-offs between protection of rights and something else.

As far as specifically earmarking funds, they could do this (though that suggestion was explicitly rejected by Grames earlier in the conversation). But that still doesn't satisfy the question of why this task ought to be delegated to the government in a free society.

[Greebo]

That's hardly a non sequitur. The entire question is what claim do citizens have to opposing such operations, and that is an answer. The same question exists within any task they perform, but since the task they are supposed to perform is protection of rights, then adopting other tasks in addition to that forces them to make trade-offs between protection of rights and something else.

Even if Government DOES limit itself only to the explicit three functions, they still have to determine how to apply resources - your argument could equally be used as justification to not provide police because there isn't enough money for police AND the military.

Thus - it was and is a non sequitur exactly for the reason I gave - the same question of how to allocate resources applies to everything any entity does.

As far as specifically earmarking funds, they could do this (though that suggestion was explicitly rejected by Grames earlier in the conversation). But that still doesn't satisfy the question of why this task ought to be delegated to the government in a free society.

I am not Grames, and I do not agree with his rejection. If I give money to an organization, I am free to earmark its use - and if they refuse to accept the earmark, I'm free not to give - same is as true of the Red Cross as it is the United Oist Government.

As for why they ought to - I have not said they ought to, I have said they can. Since I *don't* think they ought to, I'm hardly going to argue against that point.

But just because you and I agree that the WISER course of action is to keep Government out of the seawall building business doesn't mean that we have any right to prevent a people from choosing to task Gov't with the job except by way of voting on the issue, and of course, arguing against it.

[2046]

Even if Government DOES limit itself only to the explicit three functions, they still have to determine how to apply resources - your argument could equally be used as justification to not provide police because there isn't enough money for police AND the military.

Thus - it was and is a non sequitur exactly for the reason I gave - the same question of how to allocate resources applies to everything any entity does.

Then what we have on our hands is a straw man. The argument was not "any old thing that requires trade-offs shouldn't be done" as that would be an argument against taking any action whatsoever. The argument had to do with Rationalbiker's observation that in the real world not all people agree with having their funds used for any given thing. Having to choose between police protection and military protection, or between undercover officers and uniformed officers is a decision made between two alternatives within the category of protection of rights. A decision made between building various public works and between various uses of police, legal, or military protection is a decision made between the category of protecting rights and something else. The people who pay for government with the intention of paying for rights protection find themselves paying for something that goes beyond that, and consequently receive less rights protection than they may have intended to pay for.

I am not Grames, and I do not agree with his rejection. If I give money to an organization, I am free to earmark its use - and if they refuse to accept the earmark, I'm free not to give - same is as true of the Red Cross as it is the United Oist Government.

Well, technically here, they are also free to accept donations unconditionally and reject your earmarks without infringing upon your freedom to give. It's always a two-way street.

As for why they ought to - I have not said they ought to, I have said they can. Since I *don't* think they ought to, I'm hardly going to argue against that point.

But just because you and I agree that the WISER course of action is to keep Government out of the seawall building business doesn't mean that we have any right to prevent a people from choosing to task Gov't with the job except by way of voting on the issue, and of course, arguing against it.

Then this is also a straw man, for we have not disagreed that a non-coercive government hypothetically has the right to do X, so long as the people have the right to do X, but whether or not it is right for a government to do X. Try reading post number 44 again.

---

Also, I just want to point out that Rationalbiker is hardly close to arguing from authority above. Simply citing or referencing someone is not appealing to authority as a source of truth. He's making a branding point about representing our versions of politics as Rand's point of view when it was not something to be found in Rand. Rand is pretty clear that, in her thought, the only proper functions of government were related to securing rights:

“The only function of government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man's rights...”

“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights... A proper government is only a policeman...”

“This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification...”

“Such, in essence, is the purpose of a government... combating the evils which men cause to one another. The proper functions of government fall into three broad categories, all of them involving the issue of physical force and the protection of men's rights...”

“...a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted.”

And the “weird absurdity” of anarchy which accepts “the basic premise of the modern statists—who see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of business...”

So when Grames tries to claim that Rationalbiker is being a dogmatic Calvinist for interpreting Rand as a strict laissez-faireist, we may dismiss this. The entire point of the thread is not in regards to how shall we interpret Rand's politics, such as one might argue whether Aristotle should be considered a constitutional monarchist or compatible with democratic republicanism. The argument is regarding whether Rand had it wrong, and that we may offer an improvement on her theory by expanding the proper purpose of government to include the wider function of “protection from all physical threats” and “self-defense from natural disasters and the like.” On the latter, I remain unconvinced.

Edited June 2, 2011 by 2046

[RationalBiker]

If I want a cell phone tower in my back yard and you live 2 doors down and don't want to see it - what real basis would you have to stop me?

Are you using any of my money to build your cell tower?

[Grames]

Catching up on the thread, but just a quick note on this comment:

I am not Grames, and I do not agree with his rejection.

I agree with Greebo, and reject Grames' rejection.

Wait a minute. I'm Grames. When did I do that?