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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Seatbelts for passengers (micromotives & macrobehavior)
Message-ID: <1344@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 21:29:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1344
Posted: Thu Aug 22 21:29:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 10:40:44 EDT
References: <535@brl-tgr.ARPA> <987@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <160@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Followup-To: net.politics.theory
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 20
Keywords: net.legal removed from distribution

In article <160@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>...  Such patterns are common in interactions among people (they are
>often called Prisoner's Dilemma or Free Rider situations), and in
>general, individual rationality does not lead to a collectively
>optimal situation.  The free market is a special case: the market
>"works" (in the sense it may be said to work) because each agent
>enters the marketplace *voluntarily*.  But this is not the general
>case with social interactions.

Indeed, Free Rider situations are a systematic problem for libertarianism,
which can at best take care of negative impacts inadvertantly inflicted
by everyone on others (e.g. pollution), not positive impacts (e.g. the
benefits one gives others by contributing to national defense).  It
cannot even handle all the negative impact situations adequately.  Liber-
tarian arguments on such issues falter and must ultimately fall back on
a fanatic insistence on the non-initiation principle, which, unfortunately,
is completely without ground in logic or fact.

--Paul V Torek, Iconoclast for all seasons  
(coming soon to this theater near you: torek%umich-ciprnet@csnet-relay.arpa)