Nice little article introducing neuro-economics

[Propertarian]

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All one has to do is set up a conditional contract, an agreement to pay a certain amount upon fulfillment of the condition that everyone else has paid. If the public good is genuinely desirable, there should be no problem. The only people who aren't going to sign are those for whom it isn't worth $200 for them (in which case, why should they have to pay?) If you're concerned about a few sticklers who don't want to pay for it, simply raise the cost and lower the conditional requirements to compensate. If you still can't get enough signatures, well your public good is probably not that valuable now is it?

[/ QUOTE ] You still don't understand public goods. A public good is something that everyone gets regardless of whether or not they contribute to the fund; hence no individual has an incentive to even enter into this conditional contract, because they are going to get a share of it whether they pay for it or not. Hence, regardless of whether or not someone wants the public good in question , if they are rational they will not agree to one of these conditional contracts. This does absolutely nothing to solve the public goods problem.

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No, because I can calculate EV and no mercedes is worth $800,000. I'll say yes if what I'm winning is worth more than $800,000 to me. This is a lottery, totally different. Lotteries flourish in the free market. That should seem obvious. The only thing stopping them from flourishing now is government. I don't see what your point is.

[/ QUOTE ] No, this isn't a lottery: you've missed the key point. In a lottery, a person must actually buy a ticket in order to win. In this case, a person can win the car regardless of whether or not they buy a ticket, which is what makes this a public goods problem. Given that buying a ticket doesn't increase your chances of getting the Mercedes, it makes no sense to buy one.

BTW-I should have said $100 bucks.

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When the oppression gets bad enough, individuals will start sending signals of their wilingness to cooperate via activism.

[/ QUOTE ] History simply betrays your viewpoint. The opression of blacks in the U.S. was not worse in the 1950s than it was in the 1870s. The fact of the matter is that in the 1950s blacks belived that they had a chance of ending that opression, contra what people belived in the 1860s and 1950s.

The sad reality is that people are just as likely to lay down and die when confronted with opression such as this, given the difficulties of collective action.

[hmkpoker]

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You still don't understand public goods. A public good is something that everyone gets regardless of whether or not they contribute to the fund; hence no individual has an incentive to even enter into this conditional contract, because they are going to get a share of it whether they pay for it or not. This does absolutely nothing to solve the public goods problem.

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Public goods have to come from somewhere. The measurement of whether they are in fact worthwhile (economically preferable) or not is blurred; contrast this with the market where valuable goods are voluntarily chosen. If there is genuinely enough want in society for a certain good, even if it confers some benefit upon those who are not willing to pay the full price, there is an incentive to create a conditional contract to ensure compliance in a free market. Moreover, the proposition of a democratic offer must originally be voluntary and conditional anyway, as I mentioned throughout the freerider problem thread. All the freerider problem does is ignore the possibility of conditional contracts, which is why it's invalid. I don't see what your point is.

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No, this isn't a lottery: you've missed the key point. In a lottery, a person must actually buy a ticket in order to win. In this case, a person can win the car regardless of whether or not they buy a ticket . Given that buying a ticket doesn't increase your chances of getting the Mercedes, it makes no sense to buy one.

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This is pathological. Why would anyone set this up? If you want to make an analogy to a public good, you should suggest that, upon the distribution of a certain number of signatures, a communal Benz will be provided. Of course, this also makes no sense, because no one's going to pay for a [censored] communal Benz. It's a highly privatizable good. However, if enough people want a public park, and the park requires a conditional contract with a high number of signatures and a low cost, there is a high incentive to sign so that the park actually has a shot in hell of coming into existence. Your situations always assume that everyone believes the resulting good is inevitable, which is not the case. Participation in conditional contracts is instrumental in the acquisition of the good.

The belief that any good can be fully publicized (with no additional reward incentives to be bestowed upon those that directly support it) is also ridiculous.

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History simply betrays your viewpoint. The opression of blacks in the U.S. was not worse in the 1950s than it was in the 1870s. The fact of the matter is that in the 1950s blacks belived that they had a chance of ending that opression, contra what people belived in the 1860s and 1950s.

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Uh, yeah. Same with any revolution. Revolution is more likely when people are more able to send signals about their intentions, and thereby adjust their own accordingly into beneficial behavior. I said before in this thread that greater availability of information tends to cause better decisions (just like in the market). You didn't say anything about that, other than "it's complicated."