danw@oliven.UUCP (danw) (11/30/84)
======================================================================= > By the way, in a libertarian society, nothing would prevent people from > forming and joining compacts designed to result in enforced > Pareto-optimal outcomes among themselves. >>That's a valid point which Clarke discusses at some length. However, it >>would not work for large-scale externality problems like air pollution, >>national defense, research, and many others. Why not? danw
gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg) (12/02/84)
> > forming and joining compacts designed to result in enforced > > Pareto-optimal outcomes among themselves. > > >>That's a valid point which Clarke discusses at some length. However, it > >>would not work for large-scale externality problems like air pollution, > >>national defense, research, and many others. > > Why not? > > danw There is a clear failure of laissez-faire with shared resources, like air. Read "The Tragedy of the Commons." This is in fact the principal objection to socialism. National defense is one of the few enterprises for which a unified effort is far superior to a disjointed one. Therefore having two or more "national defense corporations" would be utterly disasterous. Furthermore, these companies could use their own resources to police the nation. I see no problem with applying libertarianism to research. In fact, I approve. --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "Eureka!" -Archimedes