Nice little article introducing neuro-economics

[Propertarian]

Perhaps the free rider problem is good then? Or perhaps we'd have a society with all worker controlled and owned firms if it were not for the free rider problem. Or perhaps people think both violence and inequality are wrong?

Anyway, here's a question for you and HMK: Did the civil rights movement occur in the 1950s and 1960s (as opposed to sometime during the previous 90 years) because A) Minority groups were not hopping mad about segregation and discrimination until the 1950s or B) Some other reason?

I rest my case.

[hmkpoker]

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However, it is still pretty obvious to me that people are much more likely to do something if no collective action problem is involved. For example, I'm willing to type this because I know nobody else has to do anything in order for it to be posted. But if I had to get 5,000 other people to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I'm going to write up this post.

Another example: I'd much rather have a more egalitarian society than a night on the town. But since all I have to do in order to go out is to walk into a bar, I do that.

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C'mon, you're smarter than that. I would prefer a Mercedes to a convenience store meal. Duh. Who wouldn't? But it costs a lot more. If I could get 8,000 or so people to pitch in the amount of money I'd otherwise spend on my hoagie, I'd have my new car. The obvious problem with that is, I'm not going to find 8,000 people who want to buy me a goddamn Benz. It people were hell-bent on my happiness, or if I was content to own 1/8,000 share of the Benz, the situation would become a reality. But it's not.

You can't compare political movements to hobbies. Anyone would prefer their ideal society's implementation to their favorite activity. It's like comparing apples to washing machines.

You also need to violate the rules of the freerider problem in order to effectuate democracy, btw. See my post here.

[hmkpoker]

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Perhaps the free rider problem is good then? Or perhaps we'd have a society with all worker controlled and owned firms if it were not for the free rider problem. Or perhaps people think both violence and inequality are wrong?

Anyway, here's a question for you and HMK: Did the civil rights movement occur in the 1950s and 1960s (as opposed to sometime during the previous 90 years) because A) Minority groups were not hopping mad about segregation and discrimination until the 1950s or B) Some other reason?

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I said before that oppression of the masses is unstable because it tends to lead to class conflict until some sort of social homeostasis is achieved. Just how much oppression and for how long it must occur is required before society hits "critical mass" is something I can't even begin to describe. It seems obvious that it doesn't happen immediately, but beyond that, I doubt anyone has the necessary understanding of social science to come up with an accurate prediction. The French and Russians, to the best of my knowledge, were oppressed for even longer before they said "we're not gonna take it."

[Propertarian]

I don't think that we should think of it as something that is simply ended when it goes on for a long time or gets too bad. In the 1870s blacks were as opressed as they were in 1950s, and there wasn't really any reason to think that some end point was in sight.

We also need to consider how likely it is that the opression will be ended; people need hope that a social movement will occur or be sucessful before engaging in one/starting one.

[Propertarian]

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C'mon, you're smarter than that. I would prefer a Mercedes to a convenience store meal. Duh. Who wouldn't? But it costs a lot more. If I could get 8,000 or so people to pitch in the amount of money I'd otherwise spend on my hoagie, I'd have my new car. The obvious problem with that is, I'm not going to find 8,000 people who want to buy me a goddamn Benz. It people were hell-bent on my happiness, or if I was content to own 1/8,000 share of the Benz, the situation would become a reality. But it's not.You can't compare political movements to hobbies. Anyone would prefer their ideal society's implementation to their favorite activity. It's like comparing apples to washing machines.


[/ QUOTE ] I suppose I didn't make my point clear enough with that example. It would have been better if I had simply sad "If 5,000 other people had to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I am going to post it"; leaving out the part about me having to do something to convince them to do it.

That is the problem with public goods and collective action; that other people also must contribute for them to be sucessful AND that your own contribution is not the deciding factor. Assume that it did take 5,000 people making a post for that post to be created. I wouldn't consider making that post; if 5,187 (12,000) people made that post, it would get posted regardless of whether or not I personally made one of the posts. If 3,150 people made the post, it would not be posted regardless of what I did.

The same logic apples to actual public goods (e.g. avoiding crime in an area, not overfishing the oceans). However, if people do something primarily because they think it is the right thing to do-as opposed to for instrumental considerations- then the public goods problem is avoided-this is the case with voting.

Edit: using your example I might be able to better illustrate this. A man walks up to you and a group of 999 other people. He says: If 800 of you contribute $1,000 bucks to me secretly, I will buy one of you a mercedes. Which one of you that will get the Mercedes will be decided by a lottery. The lottery will include all of your names i.e. you can win the car whether or not you contribute the 1,000$ or not, as long as at least 800 people contribute. Assume you know the dealer is telling the truth. Do you contribute 1k to him?

[hmkpoker]

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I suppose I didn't make my point clear enough with that example. It would have been better if I had simply sad "If 5,000 other people had to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I am going to post it"; leaving out the part about me having to do something to convince them to do it.

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That's extremely misleading, because you're aligning the action that one takes to undergo a large reformation (one requiring the consent of 5,000) with a result that obviously doesn't justify it. Large, cooperative reformations carry higher transaction costs. Duh. But they do so in a democracy just as in a free market; read my last post in the freerider problem.

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I suppose I didn't make my point clear enough with that example. It would have been better if I had simply sad "If 5,000 other people had to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I am going to post it"; leaving out the part about me having to do something to convince them to do it.

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More ridiculous analogy. You're assuming that no one incurs any cost to producing the post, because there is none (so who cares if there's a freerider?) A better analogy would be to say that a certain public good would be great for a certain small democracy. The good costs $100,000, there are 500 people in the democracy, so each has to pay $200. But alas, no one's going to pay it individually.

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?

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Edit: using your example I might be able to better illustrate this. A man walks up to you and a group of 999 other people. He says: If 800 of you contribute $1,000 bucks to me secretly, I will buy one of you a mercedes. Which one of you that will get the Mercedes will be decided by a lottery. The lottery will include all of your names i.e. you can win the car whether or not you contribute the 1,000$ or not, as long as at least 800 people contribute. Assume you know the dealer is telling the truth. Do you contribute 1k to him?

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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.

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I don't think that we should think of it as something that is simply ended when it goes on for a long time or gets too bad.

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It ends when the oppressed finally value their revolutionary action more than the benefits of their consent. That's all there is to it.

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We also need to consider how likely it is that the opression will be ended; people need hope that a social movement will occur or be sucessful before engaging in one/starting one.

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When the oppression gets bad enough, individuals will start sending signals of their wilingness to cooperate via activism. If half this country suddenly went anarcho-capitalist overnight, the ancaps would all rapidly become aware of each others' preferences and revolution would break out.

[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."