On Mar 7, 2009, at 5:35 PM, Stefano Mori wrote: > > I invite everyone to the premise of this thread that some things are > best handled by government and some things are best handled by > individuals and corporations.
As Krugman points out, there used to be an area of consensus: "But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government." The notion that nonrival and nonexcludable goods are "public goods" that should be provided by government goes back to "The Wealth of Nations". These days one encounters supposedly educated people who are innocent of the concept. As Krugman says "The intellectual incoherence is stunning". <http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/what-should-government-do-a-jindal-meditation/ > -- Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
