dh003i (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dh003i) wrote,@ 2005-11-28 21:05:00 |
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The "Holdout Problem" For Private Roads
In response to this blog on Mises.org about Walter Block's response to the holdout problem for private roads, Jim Bradly had various objections (you can see them by clicking on the link). My response is as follows.
Jim Bradley,
One thing that has characterized your postings on Mises.org has been raw assertions, unbacked by praxeological analysis or empirical evidence.
1. Call options (that is, buying from land-owners an option to buy their property at a specified price) are something that is easily doable. They impose no violations of private property rights. The entire point of call options is that current property owners would not be forced to implement the plan. Those property owners who voluntarily agreed to be on the short side of a call option for their property have agreed to sell their property to a certain company at a specified price, should that company choose to exercise their option. The company could cheaply buy options for various pivitol plots of land along multiple routes.
2. Companies building roads can always burrow under the property of hold-outs (provided it isn't so close under as to cause collapse), if need be, or build bridges over their property.
3. It is not even entirely clear that the need for dealing with holdouts in the aforementioned manner would be necessary. Companies could buy property in secrecy, and not commence building the roads until they owned all of the property. This could be done through various trusts and shell-companies. If I buy property in a straight line from NYC to Miami, there is nothing about that property after my buying it that in any way would indicate to anyone that it's to be used as a road, vs. before I bought it. I could even buy it and allow the current residents to stay there for a time, provided that they maintain the property and pay for maintenance expenses. Or I could rent it out until I have all of the property to build my road.
4. You make the unbacked assertion that it's justified to violate private property rights, if the majority wants to. This is humbug. If the majority wants to violate property rights, they're nothing but a bunch of criminals, and their valuations are to be ignored. Why is it so difficult to understand this? If 9 people get together and "vote" to steal from the remaining 1 person for the "common good", they'd be laughed out of court if they tried the defense that they "voted on it", and did it for the "common good". Yet, as Rothbard noted, when the numbers are 9 million to 1 million, how the wool is pulled over people's eyes!
5. As for a defense of private property rights, see Rothbard's For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty. Also see Hans Hermann Hoppe's argumentaiton ethics. In short, by engaging in any sort of argument at all, you're implicitly assuming that private property rights are valid. Oh, a few other sources of defense on private property rights: The Bible -- Thou shall not steal; do unto others as you'd have them do unto yourself; etc.
6. As for interpersonal utility comparisons, the point is that you can never say that coercive force is socially beneficial, because you can't compare utility between different persons. We can, however, say that every transaction which is voluntary, benefits both parties. As for the objection of envy or malice by third parties (who dislike the fact that such a transaction occurs), this is irrelevant, because they do not demonstrate said preference in action (hence, it is only psychological, and is irrelevant for praxeology). Rothbard's welfare analysis realizes the key insight that all voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial ex ante, whereas all non voluntary transactions are not. As to the benefit of the person who engaged in coercsion, who cares? This person is a criminal, and their value scales are not to be considered.
The alternative is the Coasian crap on societal welfare. That is, according to that theory, we don't say that the mass gang-rape by Japanese soldiers of Chinese women was "morally wrong" and something to be punished and prohibited. Instead, we have to look at the utility and disutility, of each party. It becomes an issue of comparing the disutility of mass rape for Chinese women being raped (the physical pain, the lasting psychological problems) vs. the utility gained by the Japenese soldiers who raped those women. The Coasian analysis argues that there are declining marginal disutilities for each additional rape, thus gang-rape is justified.
The more perverse an action, and the more morbid and repeated the crime is against a victim, the more Coasian analysis supports that crime. Indeed, under the Coasian framework, the perversion of the criminal benefits him in the analysis. For, a person who would participate in a gang-rape is surely a totally depraved and disgusting person; such a person may get a kind of "life-long" satisfaction out of the memory of exercising such violence against a helpless women. Hence, the more anti-social the criminal, the more perverse and sick his mind, the better he is under the Coasian analysis. This is the system that those who advocate the "greater good", soial welfare, democracy, or any other such similar tripe are advocating.
In response to this blog on Mises.org about Walter Block's response to the holdout problem for private roads, Jim Bradly had various objections (you can see them by clicking on the link). My response is as follows.
Jim Bradley,
One thing that has characterized your postings on Mises.org has been raw assertions, unbacked by praxeological analysis or empirical evidence.
1. Call options (that is, buying from land-owners an option to buy their property at a specified price) are something that is easily doable. They impose no violations of private property rights. The entire point of call options is that current property owners would not be forced to implement the plan. Those property owners who voluntarily agreed to be on the short side of a call option for their property have agreed to sell their property to a certain company at a specified price, should that company choose to exercise their option. The company could cheaply buy options for various pivitol plots of land along multiple routes.
2. Companies building roads can always burrow under the property of hold-outs (provided it isn't so close under as to cause collapse), if need be, or build bridges over their property.
3. It is not even entirely clear that the need for dealing with holdouts in the aforementioned manner would be necessary. Companies could buy property in secrecy, and not commence building the roads until they owned all of the property. This could be done through various trusts and shell-companies. If I buy property in a straight line from NYC to Miami, there is nothing about that property after my buying it that in any way would indicate to anyone that it's to be used as a road, vs. before I bought it. I could even buy it and allow the current residents to stay there for a time, provided that they maintain the property and pay for maintenance expenses. Or I could rent it out until I have all of the property to build my road.
4. You make the unbacked assertion that it's justified to violate private property rights, if the majority wants to. This is humbug. If the majority wants to violate property rights, they're nothing but a bunch of criminals, and their valuations are to be ignored. Why is it so difficult to understand this? If 9 people get together and "vote" to steal from the remaining 1 person for the "common good", they'd be laughed out of court if they tried the defense that they "voted on it", and did it for the "common good". Yet, as Rothbard noted, when the numbers are 9 million to 1 million, how the wool is pulled over people's eyes!
5. As for a defense of private property rights, see Rothbard's For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty. Also see Hans Hermann Hoppe's argumentaiton ethics. In short, by engaging in any sort of argument at all, you're implicitly assuming that private property rights are valid. Oh, a few other sources of defense on private property rights: The Bible -- Thou shall not steal; do unto others as you'd have them do unto yourself; etc.
6. As for interpersonal utility comparisons, the point is that you can never say that coercive force is socially beneficial, because you can't compare utility between different persons. We can, however, say that every transaction which is voluntary, benefits both parties. As for the objection of envy or malice by third parties (who dislike the fact that such a transaction occurs), this is irrelevant, because they do not demonstrate said preference in action (hence, it is only psychological, and is irrelevant for praxeology). Rothbard's welfare analysis realizes the key insight that all voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial ex ante, whereas all non voluntary transactions are not. As to the benefit of the person who engaged in coercsion, who cares? This person is a criminal, and their value scales are not to be considered.
The alternative is the Coasian crap on societal welfare. That is, according to that theory, we don't say that the mass gang-rape by Japanese soldiers of Chinese women was "morally wrong" and something to be punished and prohibited. Instead, we have to look at the utility and disutility, of each party. It becomes an issue of comparing the disutility of mass rape for Chinese women being raped (the physical pain, the lasting psychological problems) vs. the utility gained by the Japenese soldiers who raped those women. The Coasian analysis argues that there are declining marginal disutilities for each additional rape, thus gang-rape is justified.
The more perverse an action, and the more morbid and repeated the crime is against a victim, the more Coasian analysis supports that crime. Indeed, under the Coasian framework, the perversion of the criminal benefits him in the analysis. For, a person who would participate in a gang-rape is surely a totally depraved and disgusting person; such a person may get a kind of "life-long" satisfaction out of the memory of exercising such violence against a helpless women. Hence, the more anti-social the criminal, the more perverse and sick his mind, the better he is under the Coasian analysis. This is the system that those who advocate the "greater good", soial welfare, democracy, or any other such similar tripe are advocating.
