Fudai's Seawall

[RationalBiker]

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

So, using Rand's words to support an argument of what Rand said is "Argument from Authority"? Every user on this forum is likely guilty of that then. Or do you mean that I've taken what I've read and think I understand of what Rand said and used that to support my argument and that is an "Argument from Authority"? Again, probably every user on this board does that. Would I be arguing from authority if I said that according to what I've read from Rand, Socialism is outside the bounds of Objectivism?

Unanimous consent isn't necessary.

I think it would be necessary with respect to all those who actually fund the project. Clearly if you do not have to spend your funds on a project that you think is a waste of your money and you do not have sacrifice any of your property for it to be built on, than you would have little grounds to object.

Government needs only the same kind of majority sanction that it needs for any other action.

Do you see a Capitalist government still being a democracy?

Edited June 2, 2011 by RationalBiker

[Grames]

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?

Because the design standard they use is the two-hundred year flood to derive the height of water they need to stop. They do better in the Netherlands, which uses a highest-in-10,000 years standard. Infallibility is not an appropriate standard in any case.

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.

But the argument was "insurance can handle it". But insurance cannot and does not handle it. If your response is "So be it, better dead than red" then I disagree with both the categorization as red and therefore the acceptance of death.

Demand is an economic term. ... You have no economic argument,

I'm not making an economic argument, my argument is based in law. The emergence of the water boards as de facto governments in the Netherlands over several centuries of experience with dike building after originating in an entirely private dike and polder system ought to be regarded with the same degree of respect as a best practice as are many other results and practices of the common law tradition. The Netherlands and the Japanese tsunami zone may be special cases demonstrating a principle which is not generally applicable, but establishing the principle for those cases neutralizes what could otherwise be held up as refutations of the viability of capitalism.

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.

I followed your lead. As the gain of an unprofitable enterprise must be strictly non-monetary, and you kept talking about gain anyway even in the absence of profit, it was the only interpretation that made sense.

When a PBS station has a fund-raising pledge drive and they raise $4,310 over their $4 million dollar goal, calling the $4,310 a net profit is a fundamental mis-conceptualization of what happened.

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.

The rational actor hypothesis is implicitly involved in the non-consideration of the possibility that they can listen to reason and not build a seawall.

The view you hold to is that government should own and control great infrastructure projects

No. As neither a sea wall nor dike do anything beyond hold the water back, neither is actually infrastructure in the usual sense. They are not economically enabling, they merely negate destruction. The case I am making for government control of disaster prevention measures does not enable non-disaster measures such as a highway system or public education.

They have every economic incentive to plan on a long-range basis.

The implicit rational actor theory is what justifies this assertion. The peculiar idealistic (as in German Idealism) version of rationality is the problem behind the rational actor theory. But that is for a new thread.

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.

There is a residence requirement for nearly every government office and voter to counter exactly that incentive.

[Grames]

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.

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.

The words of Ayn Rand are the final authority determining what Objectivism is, but as concepts are open-ended in their number of referents and the referents' non-essential attributes there can be no final authority in applying Objectivism. I am going beyond anything Ayn Rand wrote but am being careful not to contradict the principles she identified and validated.

I am becoming more ambitious, I suspect there is a way to reduce the government's role in disaster mitigation to a strictly rights protection basis via property rights and tort law. I'll leave that to a fresh post.

[2046]

But the argument was "insurance can handle it". But insurance cannot and does not handle it. If your response is "So be it, better dead than red" then I disagree with both the categorization as red and therefore the acceptance of death.

It can, it might not. If you want to talk about inappropriate standards, then you can't demand that I provide an exact blueprint for you of an industry that isn't allowed to exist. I already said that seeing as how we live in a welfare state the government should at least use our loot to protect us, but if there were no welfare state there is no reason why and you haven't provide a reason why it “cannot.”

There is no acceptance of death. Only of reality and the objectivity of values. Since the nature of reality determines the nature of values, they can be discovered by man's reason and communicated. If someone chooses wrong, they pay the price from reality, not from your fist in their face. If government has the means to do it, then private enterprise can do it. If private enterprise doesn't have the means to do it, neither can the government. I don't need to be red or dead.

I'm not making an economic argument, my argument is based in law. The emergence of the water boards as de facto governments in the Netherlands over several centuries of experience with dike building after originating in an entirely private dike and polder system ought to be regarded with the same degree of respect as a best practice as are many other results and practices of the common law tradition. The Netherlands and the Japanese tsunami zone may be special cases demonstrating a principle which is not generally applicable, but establishing the principle for those cases neutralizes what could otherwise be held up as refutations of the viability of capitalism.

I followed your lead. As the gain of an unprofitable enterprise must be strictly non-monetary, and you kept talking about gain anyway even in the absence of profit, it was the only interpretation that made sense.

When a PBS station has a fund-raising pledge drive and they raise $4,310 over their $4 million dollar goal, calling the $4,310 a net profit is a fundamental mis-conceptualization of what happened.

No, no, you were making an economic argument that it is intrinsically unprofitable. When I rebuffed you that consumer demand is the judge of what is profitable, you told me that using the words consumer demand constituted a primacy of consciousness error. I mean, lol. The fact that you're getting a bill for something doesn't mean you're incurring a loss, or else no one would ever make any exchange. If the consumers value their lives and property being defended in the form of a dam, then they will be willing to furnish the replacement capital necessary for its upkeep. The consumers have the final word on whether or not a given possible project is economically gainful through their valuations. To say this is “primacy of consciousnesses” is to confess economic ignorance, for this is nothing more than what Rand explained in “What is Capitalism?”: The economic value of a man’s work is determined, on a free market, by a single principle: by the voluntary consent of those who are willing to trade him their work or products in return. There's no right to public radio, and there's no right to a public seawall or dam or levee or whatever.

The rational actor hypothesis is implicitly involved in the non-consideration of the possibility that they can listen to reason and not build a seawall.

Reality is the judge of the rational, so I don't see how this entire line of objection works.

No. As neither a sea wall nor dike do anything beyond hold the water back, neither is actually infrastructure in the usual sense. They are not economically enabling, they merely negate destruction. The case I am making for government control of disaster prevention measures does not enable non-disaster measures such as a highway system or public education.

And socialized medicine negates my illness and protects me from physical threats. It's self-defense. You may conceive of limitations, but since you've expanded the role of government, the logic just isn't there.

The implicit rational actor theory is what justifies this assertion. The peculiar idealistic (as in German Idealism) version of rationality is the problem behind the rational actor theory. But that is for a new thread.

There is no assumption of intrinsic rationality. Capital value incentivizes property owners to be long-range oriented. If not, then they will not reap these benefits. Again, reality is the arbiter.

There is a residence requirement for nearly every government office and voter to counter exactly that incentive.

In the long run, they are dead, a mere residence requirement doesn't make a difference.

Edited June 3, 2011 by 2046

[Grames]

If government has the means to do it, then private enterprise can do it. If private enterprise doesn't have the means to do it, neither can the government.

And if private enterprise does have the means to do it, the government can use the same methods. I agree with this, but it only establishes that means are not the issue.

No, no, you were making an economic argument that it is intrinsically unprofitable.

Unless you are using profit in broad life-benefiting sense, I still am. The only value of a sea wall is to prevent destruction, and it only performs that function at intermittent intervals (once or twice within a human lifespan.) It does not itself aid production in any way. The return on investment is the indirect value of the double-negative, of not being destroyed. This is value but not in cash.

There is no assumption of intrinsic rationality. Capital value incentivizes property owners to be long-range oriented. If not, then they will not reap these benefits. Again, reality is the arbiter.

In the long run, they are dead, a mere residence requirement doesn't make a difference.

These two comments contradict. A resident of the town will have hard (physical) capital investments in terms of property such as a home, and soft capital investments in terms of relatives and friends. These ties will incentivize property owners to be long-range oriented.

[2046]

And if private enterprise does have the means to do it, the government can use the same methods. I agree with this, but it only establishes that means are not the issue.

Yeah exactly. So why again cannot private enterprise do it? There is no reason.

Unless you are using profit in broad life-benefiting sense, I still am. The only value of a sea wall is to prevent destruction, and it only performs that function at intermittent intervals (once or twice within a human lifespan.) It does not itself aid production in any way. The return on investment is the indirect value of the double-negative, of not being destroyed. This is value but not in cash.

Yes, that's exactly the point. Profit is not defined in strictly monetary terms, so there is no profit issue stemming from "no positive cash flow generated" like you posited in your first post. Whether consumers consider something beneficial to them (subjectively) does not depend on positive cash flow generated. It can cost them cash, and they will still do it so long as it perceived beneficial, and since it is objectively beneficial, you can convince them with persuasion to do it and there is no problem.

These two comments contradict. A resident of the town will have hard (physical) capital investments in terms of property such as a home, and soft capital investments in terms of relatives and friends. These ties will incentivize property owners to be long-range oriented.

Yes, however, to be fair, I thought you were talking just in general, not specific to the sea wall vis-a-vis this one town. In that case, everybody is incentivized not to be hit by a tsunami, but that only bolsters the case that there is no incentive issue lacking for the private construction of flood defenses.

[Grames]

Yeah exactly. So why again cannot private enterprise do it? There is no reason.

No reason at all. I've never stated that a private enterprise should not try or should be barred.

Yes, that's exactly the point. Profit is not defined in strictly monetary terms, so there is no profit issue stemming from "no positive cash flow generated" like you posited in your first post. Whether consumers consider something beneficial to them (subjectively) does not depend on positive cash flow generated. It can cost them cash, and they will still do it so long as it perceived beneficial, and since it is objectively beneficial, you can convince them with persuasion to do it and there is no problem.

The viewpoint here is that of the end-user of the service provided, the consumer. What about the producer? The sea wall takes up land, valuable built-up land between the town and the sea. That land could be put to use with parking garages, grocery stores, or any number of a variety of businesses that will generate a cash-flow and a clear profit. The producer of the sea wall is accepting the opportunity cost of foregoing those rent paying tenants. Why? How well will the public appeal for donations work when the stated goal is to "meet expenses and make a profit"?

[Tanaka]

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.

You really think that your claim that "building a seawall would be beyond the long range planning horizon of most individuals" is sufficient justification for using force to collect those individuals' money and build it for their own protection?

I disagree that it couldn't be built privately, by the way. If the government got out of the way and allowed towns and cities to be build and administered by private entities (corporations, associations, etc.), they would protect themselves better than short sighted politicians would protect them. Citing a single exception, where a single politician out of thousands actually had some foresight, doesn't change that.

The fact still remains that all the other government run settlements in the region were washed away by the tsunami, despite the fact that Japan has one of the best funded and least corrupt governments in the World.

[Greebo]

You really think that your claim that "building a seawall would be beyond the long range planning horizon of most individuals" is sufficient justification for using force to collect those individuals' money and build it for their own protection?

I'm with Grames - you should actually bother to read the thread before spouting off.

[Grames]

... using force

I insist, read the thread. And then apologize.

I disagree that it couldn't be built privately, by the way.

When I say "I can't see how" that is not an assertion of impossibility, but an acknowledgement of the obstacles and motives against it.

If the government got out of the way

Anarchist. The government is not going away and only it can perform any needed administering. The only question is if a sea wall requires government administration, or does government administration merely give large advantages over private administration, or are there no advantages at all or even government disadvantages.

The fact still remains that all the other government run settlements in the region were washed away by the tsunami, despite the fact that Japan has one of the best funded and least corrupt governments in the World.

But if there were non-government run settlements, things would be different? Maybe, if we could populate those settlements with New Objectivist Man, infinitely rational and infinitely far sighted in planning. But the communist aspiration to mold a New Soviet Man didn't work out so well, and this won't either. There is such a thing as human nature, and it is an immovable obstacle to all rationalist utopian dreams.

The only successful sea wall is built by government, so it doesn't count? On the contrary, a single counter-example disproves the generalization that government is by nature short-sighted and incompetent. And if you had read the thread you would know that there is not just a single counter example but the entire country of the Netherlands carved out of the sea by thousands of small governments. Discount that, I dare you.