On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 9:58 PM, David B. Shemano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> To get to the point, and I think your response proves my point, you (and I > assume most people on > this list), don't really give a crap about methodology or theory. You don't > reallly care about > whether N/C assumptions are right or wrong, good or bad, useful or nonuseful. > You only care > about such assumptions to the extent they favor or disfavor policies you > support. Pot:Kettle, it seems. I mean the whole object of PC is to replace constitutional politics with privatized market mechanisms qua "incentives." So instead of ever discussing situations where the former produces situations that more people find beneficial, but which disturb the neo-classical definition of growth, progress, "Freedom," etc. they pick evidence carefully. Buchanan and Tullock begin "Calculus of Consent" by basically bracketing off any attempt to produce an empirical or even mildly historical understanding of the state (both of which would likely be far too socialist for their taste), instead preferring to "define quite specifically, what [they] think a State ought to be." i.e. they only care about any evidence or assumptions in so far as they are in support of their basic model of the state--which, incidentally, is therefore the only model that should ever exist in any historical or cultural context. In defending this tradition, I don't know why you feel so able to talk down to the people on this list with this thinly veiled air of smug superiority. > PC does not deny that we engage in collective activities. For goodness > sake, Mancur Olson > entiled his book "The Logic of Collective Action." PC argues that there is > no basis for the > assumption that collective decision-making through government will be more > benevolent, beneficial > or less self-interested than collective decision-making through markets, and > that the constitution > of government decision-making should keep that in mind. I'm sure there are moments when PC (and other proto-Austrians) must put on the air of balance in order to keep from being completely disregarded by people who spend part of their time in the real world, but be honest about the goals here: the goal is not just to show that either model has flaws, it is to promote the understanding, in as deep and robust a fashion, that the only workable model is collective-decision making through markets. This in turn, is based on the assumption that, "the economist does not need to say that the individual 'should' or 'ought to' maximize his own utility; he starts from the assumption that the individual does so, and that is all there is to it" (Buchanan and Tullock, p. 295). This goes the same for any government bureaucrat or member of the voting public, so why not just replace the constitutional method of government with some sort of market mechanism--like futures trading (i.e. what GMU's Hanson calls "Futarchy.") Likewise, Unions of any kind should be seen in such a way as should just about any attempt at collective action which is in resistance to the market or powerful capitalist interests. It is basically a gussied up version of the message that the Emperor gives to Luke in the Star Wars saga: "Your hate has made you powerful. Now fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!" (Or in the proper rhetoric it says, "Your natural, inherent self interest has corrupted your collective action with the very motivations you intended to resist. Now fulfill your destiny by dissolving your archaic political institutions into the smoothly functioning mechanisms of the free market!") One could also speak in terms of Foucault who talks about power being everywhere, and resistance only being constituted by power, but he's a little too dialectical for the Public Choice crowd and, unlike them, is at least mildly interested in the historical development of this so-called human nature of theirs as a social norm. In any case, the idea that there is really only one mode of being, only one index of motivation, only one definition of "utility," seems to also have little interest in methodology or theory except to prove the practice its interested in promoting. So to dismiss the views of people on this list as being somehow closed minded or biased is unfair. I'm sure there are many valid observations you could produce from a Public Choice perspective, but that doesn't mean they are the only valid ones or that they explain human behavior completely and universally. They may admit in private that they are just trying to give a more balanced understanding of government efficacy, but when they are given reign over some arm of public policy (such as when Buchanan worked for Thatcher) they are not only narrow minded and biased: they actually attempt to shape human behavior to fit into their preconceived understanding of what was supposedly a kind of human nature. In other words, they really aren't a whole lot different than their communist counterparts, they are just absolved from taking responsibility for any suffering they cause since it can simply be blamed on the impersonal forces of the market. We see this in the US where people die on a regular basis of treatable illnesses despite having some form of health insurance because their treatment simply doesn't fit into the profit/loss equation of the health care corporations given the authority of this judgment. The answer, of course, is that the market needs to have greater reign: some people don't have health care (i.e. they don't pay the exorbitant fees of the for profit corporations that don't really guarantee care) and hence are free riding; other people who were given insufficient or negligent care (or who were convinced by craven, corrupt lawyers that they were) are responsible for driving up the fees since insurance corporations have to worry about "frivolous" lawsuits. The answer is to make everyone pay these corporations (except, of course, those who have conditions that would actually cost money to treat, in which case they should be denied care) and to make it impossible to hold either the corporation or the medical care providers responsible for negligence, malpractice, death, etc. These, it seems, are just the nature of the industry. This is something that, thirty years ago, would not have flown and would have sounded completely obtuse to anyone talking about a national health care system. But all Public Choice is saying is that there is no real difference in whether a government or a market would provide a different outcome (except, of course, that the market is better.) Medical care, after all, like the law, is just as uniformly populated with self interested humans as any other profession: and it would only take a few years of market discipline to convert the handful of "unnatural" holdouts. s _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
