Libertarians: Stop Using Logic

[adanthar]

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Risks like those you cite will be either be borne by the business owners and investors or will be transferred in manageable chunks to insurance companies, much like is done today. I think that the overall size of companies would be limited as the costs of insurance would go up quickly for large and complex businesses.

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Welcome to the Middle Ages*, enjoy your stay.

*anyone wanna think about the liability cost of running a power plant?

[adios]

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I guess the implication is that the U.S. not only needs to regulate labor practices within it's borders but also needs to regulate labor practices within other countries borders that export products to the U.S. Don't see that as workable but could be convinced otherwise.

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Who needs to regulate other countries? Most of the 'no child labor in our shoes' movement has been the US prodding Nike to do it, not Malaysia. The corporation is the one doing the bad thing here, which leads us back to 'why is the CEO of Nike, being the perfectly rational and well informed consumer that he is, employing children in his factory when that's bad for him and clearly bad for the company's PR?'

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So you're saying that Nike couldn't hide the fact that they're employing children in the production of their shoes? Especially with the help of a cooperative Malaysian government? One of the reasons that Nike could hire child labor is due to the cooperation of the local government. Kind of interesting since you basically said that Nike is lying when they say they're using child labor and that you'd have to go over to Malaysia to prove that wrong.

I assume you're ok with offering consummers choices with full disclosure.

[IsaacW]

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No, but I might invest $900 and spend the other $100 of my available capital on an insurance policy against that $1m judgment coming in. Policies for investment in dangerous (in this sense of potential liability) businesses would cost more so I would be less inclined to invest in those companies.

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How do you even have a clue about what's dangerous? Obviously, we're never ever having a > 1 man shop that makes explosives in Libertopia, because for liability purposes, that's suicidal. But how about food (always prone to that pesky e-coli), or drugs? Is there a pharmaceutical company in this brave new world? Anybody wanna imagine the type of venture capitalist that puts 10 million dollars into research knowing that, if the drug turns out to have unforeseen side effects in a decade, it'll cost him a hundred?

What's with this whole "I'm Superman, but when I'm not, I'm perfectly willing to have 4 different layers of insurance companies riding herd over every action I take" mindset?

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Government cannot reduce the costs of my actions. It can only move those costs from the liabilities section of my balance sheet to that of another through the wonders of taxation. I don't think it's fair that you should have to pay for my follies.

It happens to be that the alternative to government forcing my costs on others that I envision has a lot of insurance companies being willing to trade these risks in manageable chunks. It might work out this way in practice or it might not.

[adanthar]

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I guess the implication is that the U.S. not only needs to regulate labor practices within it's borders but also needs to regulate labor practices within other countries borders that export products to the U.S. Don't see that as workable but could be convinced otherwise.

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Who needs to regulate other countries? Most of the 'no child labor in our shoes' movement has been the US prodding Nike to do it, not Malaysia. The corporation is the one doing the bad thing here, which leads us back to 'why is the CEO of Nike, being the perfectly rational and well informed consumer that he is, employing children in his factory when that's bad for him and clearly bad for the company's PR?'

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So you're saying that Nike couldn't hide the fact that they're employing children in the production of their shoes?

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They did for a while even though they weren't doing anything illegal, didn't they? But in Libertopia, blah blah the rational consumer should instantly know that and change blah blah.

I live in Libertopia and I want to stop supporting a bunch of people doing things I don't like with my wallet. How do I go about doing this?

[adanthar]

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It happens to be that the alternative to government forcing my costs on others that I envision has a lot of insurance companies being willing to trade these risks in manageable chunks. It might work out this way in practice or it might not.

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Could you please go ahead and figure that out before you tell the rest of us to live in Ancapland, Paulmerica, or Libertopia?

[IsaacW]

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Risks like those you cite will be either be borne by the business owners and investors or will be transferred in manageable chunks to insurance companies, much like is done today. I think that the overall size of companies would be limited as the costs of insurance would go up quickly for large and complex businesses.

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Welcome to the Middle Ages*, enjoy your stay.

*anyone wanna think about the liability cost of running a power plant?

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Who bears this liability cost today?

[adios]

I'm not sure that the Libratarian position is that they'd change if they knew FWIW. I'm fairly certain that there are people (not necessarily Libratarians btw) that would say it's up to the government of Malaysia to regulate their labor practices, all I care about is getting the best deal for my money.

[IsaacW]

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It happens to be that the alternative to government forcing my costs on others that I envision has a lot of insurance companies being willing to trade these risks in manageable chunks. It might work out this way in practice or it might not.

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Could you please go ahead and figure that out before you tell the rest of us to live in Ancapland, Paulmerica, or Libertopia?

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Classic. If I could figure that out, you should support my installation as World Controller. If I could figure that out, I'd have a paramount argument for central planning.

[adanthar]

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Who bears this liability cost today?

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It's a large mix spread out between some private concerns, the government, and externalities passed on to the public (coal pollution, nuclear waste disposal) that isn't factored in your bill but the government accepts as a cost of having electric power.

And now, we're in Ancapland, with no government (a hijack but let's go there just this one time.) Who wants to run, insure, or have anything else to do with a nuclear power plant? Let's say we switch to coal, instead - who wants to calculate the bill we pay for polluting the surrounding environment? How much should it be, and what type of discount would we get for environmental controls?

But okay, there's a government enclave around the power plant that ensures the power is produced and nothing else because they're just that cool. Who wants to take care of the electricity wires? That's a problem in most of Africa, you know - those things are valuable. You'd need a labor force of thousands just to keep them on the poles, which, coincidentally, doesn't work in Ancapland, since it's a large business and all.

Ancapland sounds fun and exciting and I really wanna live there, or at least read about it on the Internet.

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Classic. If I could figure that out, you should support my installation as World Controller.

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So why the hell are you arguing that Ancapland is awesome?

[IsaacW]

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Who bears this liability cost today?

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It's a large mix spread out between some private concerns, the government, and externalities passed on to the public (coal pollution, nuclear waste disposal) that isn't factored in your bill but the government accepts as a cost of having electric power.

And now, we're in Ancapland, with no government (a hijack but let's go there just this one time.) Who wants to run, insure, or have anything else to do with a nuclear power plant? Let's say we switch to coal, instead - who wants to calculate the bill we pay for polluting the surrounding environment? How much should it be, and what type of discount would we get for environmental controls?

But okay, there's a government enclave around the power plant that ensures the power is produced and nothing else because they're just that cool. Who wants to take care of the electricity wires? That's a problem in most of Africa, you know - those things are valuable. You'd need a labor force of thousands just to keep them on the poles, which, coincidentally, doesn't work in Ancapland, since it's a large business and all.

Ancapland sounds fun and exciting and I really wanna live there, or at least read about it on the Internet.

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These are all questions for the free market to answer, not World Controller IsaacW.

Maybe someone would develop a way to generate electric power in a distributed fashion so that you wouldn't need all the wires. Then all the copper and steel that would have gone into the distribution network could be put to better use.
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Classic. If I could figure that out, you should support my installation as World Controller.

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So why the hell are you arguing that Ancapland is awesome?

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Because I'd rather be left to my own devices (and leave everyone else to theirs) than try to figure out exactly what are the right amounts of every type of investment and production.