How small is your small government?

[mrswdk]

So what would happen if the government were to cease to be involved in waste management and environmental protection? Where is your trash and sewage going to go? Who is going to keep your air clean?

Does anyone prevent monopolies from forming in this vision of minimal government?

[BigBallinStalin]

Monopolies can form from either, but government reinforces and supports monopolies--not just in the services it directly monopolizes, nor in its ability to use its coercive power to enforce intellectual property, but also in its ability to prop up regulatory bodies which raise the costs of competition, thereby better securing the monopolies/quasi-monopolies within the market. Of all the markets, some markets may tend toward monopoly, but it still depends on (a) the definition of monopoly, and (b) the barriers to trade and to produce within those markets.

The clearest 'monopoly' is the individual. Only mrswdk produces mrswdk goods (e.g. your posts). Shall we break up, nationalize, or shut you down? This is silly, but it's the clearest and most consistent definition of monopoly. So what is a "monopoly"?


'Monopoly' is a vague concept. A monopoly describes a sole producer who can produce a particular good which no one else can produce, so he can control its price, and allegedly consumers must buy that product. Then there's the issue of 'good' with its many varieties (e.g. 'food' is not a 'good' but many different types of goods). Then, every good is in varying degrees a substitute of another good.

However, this very restrictive definition means that no monopoly in a market has ever existed, and if it has, it only lasted for a very short time (e.g. the first business to extract oil or to make a pearl earring of particular characteristics). The implications of monopoly theory (e.g. the monopolist controls the market for his one good) don't follow. If you are the sole producer of one good, then you need to rely on other goods in order to sell it (labor, transport, factors of production) and you still have to compete against goods which can serve as suitable enough substitutes for your good.

[patches70]

Government has one of the ultimate monopolies, the monopoly on force. The only other monopoly that is more damaging is the monopoly on issuing currency, which requires someone having a monopoly on force as a partner.

[Phatscotty]

I always liked the honest duopoly fantasy, where there are 2 major forces in the market and they have to compete against each other (fantasy because it's only a matter of time before price fixing occurs) and 3rd and 4th and all emerging competitors will have to produce a unique or high quality or lowest price models and compete for market share.

Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues, lots of free market, lots of entrepreneurism, lots of satisfied customers agreeing to a product voluntarily and agreeing to the price and taste that is best for them

[Metsfanmax]

I always liked the honest duopoly fantasy, where there are 2 major forces in the market and they have to compete against each other (fantasy because it's only a matter of time before price fixing occurs) and 3rd and 4th and all emerging competitors will have to produce a unique or high quality or lowest price models and compete for market share.

Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues, lots of free market, lots of entrepreneurism, lots of satisfied customers agreeing to a product voluntarily and agreeing to the price and taste that is best for them

We have a two party system, and look where that got us.

[Phatscotty]

I always liked the honest duopoly fantasy, where there are 2 major forces in the market and they have to compete against each other (fantasy because it's only a matter of time before price fixing occurs) and 3rd and 4th and all emerging competitors will have to produce a unique or high quality or lowest price models and compete for market share.

Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues, lots of free market, lots of entrepreneurism, lots of satisfied customers agreeing to a product voluntarily and agreeing to the price and taste that is best for them

We have a two party system, and look where that got us.

Indeed!

Wait, where where did it get us?

[Metsfanmax]

I always liked the honest duopoly fantasy, where there are 2 major forces in the market and they have to compete against each other (fantasy because it's only a matter of time before price fixing occurs) and 3rd and 4th and all emerging competitors will have to produce a unique or high quality or lowest price models and compete for market share.

Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues, lots of free market, lots of entrepreneurism, lots of satisfied customers agreeing to a product voluntarily and agreeing to the price and taste that is best for them

We have a two party system, and look where that got us.

Indeed!

Wait, where where did it get us?

I'm not sure. I tried to listen to the news to find out, but it was too confusing.

[Phatscotty]

I always liked the honest duopoly fantasy, where there are 2 major forces in the market and they have to compete against each other (fantasy because it's only a matter of time before price fixing occurs) and 3rd and 4th and all emerging competitors will have to produce a unique or high quality or lowest price models and compete for market share.

Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues, lots of free market, lots of entrepreneurism, lots of satisfied customers agreeing to a product voluntarily and agreeing to the price and taste that is best for them

We have a two party system, and look where that got us.

Indeed!

Wait, where where did it get us?

I'm not sure. I tried to listen to the news to find out, but it was too confusing.

ok Symm...

I said 'honest' duopoly.

And really, over the last 80 years, it's basically been one party. Look where THAT got us!!!!

[mrswdk]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

[Phatscotty]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

[hahaha3hahaha]

-deleted-

[mrswdk]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

I never said China has the right model. I actually look at China's pollution and food contamination scandals and am glad that Western governments step in and regulate this shit (relatively) well.

I mentioned IPR because some amount of government intervention is necessary to protect innovators. Pharmaceutical products can easily take a decade to develop. Who is going to go to the huge expense of spending ten years developing new pills if a competitor is just going to come along and rip them off at the last minute?

[mrswdk]

for better or worse, we need worldwide governance

What if this world-wide government decides that:
- You are bound to one religion, and all apostates to this one religion will be executed ; or maybe
- There is no such thing as democracy anymore. World leaders are self appointed (by force) and each and every citizen is to be taxed 80% of their income ; or perhaps
- They decide that slavery is the best way to advance our infrastructure, ie. no wages at all to begin with?

These are only a glimpse of the possibilities really.

Of course, it's equally possible that a national government could do this...

[Metsfanmax]

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

Wait, so do you approve of government regulations that prevent pollution like that happens in China?

[BigBallinStalin]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

I never said China has the right model. I actually look at China's pollution and food contamination scandals and am glad that Western governments step in and regulate this shit (relatively) well.

I mentioned IPR because some amount of government intervention is necessary to protect innovators. Pharmaceutical products can easily take a decade to develop. Who is going to go to the huge expense of spending ten years developing new pills if a competitor is just going to come along and rip them off at the last minute?

Is it wise to compare the outcomes of the status quo and assume that the prices and production processes would be the exact same given different institutions?

[khazalid]

for better or worse, we need worldwide governance

What if this world-wide government decides that:
- You are bound to one religion, and all apostates to this one religion will be executed ; or maybe
- There is no such thing as democracy anymore. World leaders are self appointed (by force) and each and every citizen is to be taxed 80% of their income ; or perhaps
- They decide that slavery is the best way to advance our infrastructure, ie. no wages at all to begin with?

These are only a glimpse of the possibilities really.

well that would fall into the distinctly 'worse' bracket, wouldn't it?

i'd certainly not be silly enough to discount those possibilities. i wouldn't even like to venture any of my own; it's observation and nothing more. the nation state acts in the interests of the nation (theoretically). the global state? and therein lies the rub.

[mrswdk]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

f*ck China, and f*ck you.

I never said China has the right model. I actually look at China's pollution and food contamination scandals and am glad that Western governments step in and regulate this shit (relatively) well.

I mentioned IPR because some amount of government intervention is necessary to protect innovators. Pharmaceutical products can easily take a decade to develop. Who is going to go to the huge expense of spending ten years developing new pills if a competitor is just going to come along and rip them off at the last minute?

Is it wise to compare the outcomes of the status quo and assume that the prices and production processes would be the exact same given different institutions?

What do you imagine would happen in a scenario in which governments stopped policing intellectual property?

[BigBallinStalin]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

f*ck China, and f*ck you.

I never said China has the right model. I actually look at China's pollution and food contamination scandals and am glad that Western governments step in and regulate this shit (relatively) well.

I mentioned IPR because some amount of government intervention is necessary to protect innovators. Pharmaceutical products can easily take a decade to develop. Who is going to go to the huge expense of spending ten years developing new pills if a competitor is just going to come along and rip them off at the last minute?

Is it wise to compare the outcomes of the status quo and assume that the prices and production processes would be the exact same given different institutions?

What do you imagine would happen in a scenario in which governments stopped policing intellectual property?

It's a great question, and I'm not readily sure, so here's what I think:

(1) One way is to find out is to do a cross-country comparison of IP regimes. They vary in the duration of the patent, of copyright, and of trademark, and also their enforcement effectiveness. If the countries' are close enough economically and politically, then we may be able to discover the optimal patent time limit. In regard to your question, the countries with lesser effectiveness and/or lower time durations may reveal part of the answer.

(2) Another question is rather than asking about government, suppose Nothing was enforcing IP. Of course, that would be disastrous (no contract enforcement!). Another alternative is that businesses can maintain trade secrets, and this is a form of intellectual property enforcement--not done by government. They reinforce this through contracts enforced in courts (so we bring in the judicial aspect), but how strong is this ability to enforce IP compared to the more arbitrary standards of IP law imposed by the legislature? Again, it's hard to say. It's an empirical matter.

(3) If government stopped enforcing IP law, there would still remain a demand to enforce IP law because it's profitable to do so; therefore, I don't why service providers wouldn't step up and provide the necessary laws and enforcement capabilities over various areas or for particular companies.

[mrswdk]

2) I am also referring to the IP theft that happens the moment a new product hits the shelves, at which point much of the companies trade secrets can now be stolen by purchasing a single unit of their product. I mean, I can buy a pair of Beats for $7 in my local supermarket in Beijing. The week Django Unchained hit the cinemas I bought it on DVD for $1, from a store. Ain't no way I was gonna buy the properly licensed versions for a total of nearly $300 when I could get the unlicensed versions for a total of $8.

3) sounds a little like we're in danger of running a vigilante system. What would a private enforcer do if it caught IPR being violated? What legitimate actions could this private enforcer take?

[Phatscotty]

Who will protect IPR?
Who will keep your air clean?

Nobody, we are all going to die tomorrow. I dare to dream that if the government would only get out of the way, people and business would be able to innovate at twice the speed and we would be allowed to start tackling the issue, rather than letting the government make a fortune off us with taxes and restrictions and limitations and regulations and bureaucrats. And we have some other issues over here, mainly a government that repeatedly says they will do one thing but does another, along with a steady stream of new citizens who repeatedly swallow the bullshit without even chewing and immediately asking for seconds.

By the way, China has a government, right? So that automatically means you have clean air, right?

I never said China has the right model. I actually look at China's pollution and food contamination scandals and am glad that Western governments step in and regulate this shit (relatively) well.

I mentioned IPR because some amount of government intervention is necessary to protect innovators. Pharmaceutical products can easily take a decade to develop. Who is going to go to the huge expense of spending ten years developing new pills if a competitor is just going to come along and rip them off at the last minute?

Why does USA or the West have the right model? In what ways does the Western model work better?

I hear you there on the pharma and innovation, but imo that falls more under protecting our rights ie the courts, not so much 'gov't intervention'

[BigBallinStalin]

2) I am also referring to the IP theft that happens the moment a new product hits the shelves, at which point much of the companies trade secrets can now be stolen by purchasing a single unit of their product. I mean, I can buy a pair of Beats for $7 in my local supermarket in Beijing. The week Django Unchained hit the cinemas I bought it on DVD for $1, from a store. Ain't no way I was gonna buy the properly licensed versions for a total of nearly $300 when I could get the unlicensed versions for a total of $8.

3) sounds a little like we're in danger of running a vigilante system. What would a private enforcer do if it caught IPR being violated? What legitimate actions could this private enforcer take?

(2) Sure, trade secrets can be discovered through reverse-engineering, but this only applies to x-amount of products--not all of them. However, there's 'backup' systems for this which mitigate some of the negative consequences. With some products, even if they could be reverse-engineered, their quality may be less. In short, the substitute/knock-off version might still be of lesser value than the original product.

Of course, some products like dvd's and ebooks can be replicated at very low or practically zero costs without any loss in the quality. One way DVD distributors and producers of the context get around this is by selling special artwork, pamphlets, and what not which only come with their DVD. People can knock off the DVD itself, but it's usually never worth their time to scan each page and print it themselves to sell with the knock-off DVD. So, some people will buy the knock-off, and some will value the original. The main point is that it's not just the product that matters, but also the additional services and goods which can come with a product. In short, sellers can compete on a variety of margins.

It's up to the seller to entice people away from the knock-off, and this is done without any need of government. For example, suppose a Chinese company can rebuild the Chevy Volt and sell it for 50% the price. We may say, "omg, that product will drive away Chevy's customers," but the product itself is not the only thing of value. Chevrolet can provide superior overall quality through additional means like customer service, warranties, and so on. The Chinese company might be able to match that, but it's not as easy as simply reverse-engineering a product.

(3) So, now we're getting into anarchy and the law. There's plenty of evidence where people have resolved disputes peacefully without government (Order without Law; The Enterprise of Law). There's plenty of sound theoretical work on this (Anarchy and the Law provides a nice overview), and there's more. This requires a lengthy post which at the moment I'm not quite interested in undertaking. One interesting model is FOCJ (functional overlapping competing jurisdictions), where you have 'governments' offering a variety of services in different quantities to different areas. Another is market-preserving federalism which retains a national, limited government while leaving most of the public policies to each State.

Those are the alternatives, and some scenarios within some of them can be characterized as 'vigilante-esque', but that's not entirely correct. In short, if private courts and private security companies require voluntarily given profits in order to remain in business, then it's not profitable for it to engage in wars or vigilante conflicts. Other companies would respond accordingly, and on net both lose. It's cheaper to resolve issues through contracts and through adjudication. (This is why you see some companies in today's political economy engaging in price wars, but then agreeing not to do that because in the end it's not profitable. Of course, antitrust laws and 'predatory' pricing nonsense limit options and contribute to inefficiency, thus waste, in our world, but that's how it's been going). There's plenty of caveats and modifications I should add to that, but I'm keeping it brief.

And, as always it helps to frame these alternatives with our current system--which is essentially based on theft and coercion while promoting and reinforcing incompetence, corruption, and rent-seeking with its short-sighted politicians and chief bureaucrats. Many people have yet to mature from their fundamentally socialist views on a variety of goods and services (you'd think the Soviet experiment was enough evidence, and it was for many, but some are hopelessly ignorant). For me, I am still largely of the opinion that international security is a public good, thus requires socialization, but that's about it.

[crispybits]

Now there's a decent number of votes come in (at least 12 people) it makes some interesting reading.

Only 2/3 as many people who think that the government should provide domestic securty think it should provide international security.

Nearly twice as many people think that taxes are well spent on marquee events such as the olympics as think that there should be a state provided pension facility for poor elderly people.

Two and a half times as many people think the government should provide public spaces such as parks as think the government should provide shelter for the people currently sleeping in them.

Only 75% of the amount of people who believe in government provided healthcare for adults believe that children should receive the same.

I must say that personally I just find these proportions somewhat imbalanced when compared to human social needs. Maybe more of you than I thought are confident in the ability of communities (via charities, churches, etc) to fill in some of the holes left behind if government was to withdraw from certain areas. Having worked for over a decade for a charity I know how much of our funding HAS to come from government grants or we'd not be able to offer a quarter of what we can now, maybe that spins me off too far in the opposite direction...

[hahaha3hahaha]

-deleted-

[BigBallinStalin]

I must say that personally I just find these proportions somewhat imbalanced when compared to human social needs. Maybe more of you than I thought are confident in the ability of communities (via charities, churches, etc) to fill in some of the holes left behind if government was to withdraw from certain areas. Having worked for over a decade for a charity I know how much of our funding HAS to come from government grants or we'd not be able to offer a quarter of what we can now, maybe that spins me off too far in the opposite direction...

Well, charity would have to adopt new techniques, e.g. more efficient marketing. Maybe even the point that funding from government is no longer available would entice people to step up--for what they actually believe in (taxation and voter cheerleading does not accurately reflect this). You'd also get the rebirth of mutual aid societies since they'll become more important, and given the general inefficiencies of government planning, these methods would be comparatively more efficient, thus providing 'more bang for your buck'.

Also, charity is not the main driver from poverty to prosperity. It's trade and a minimal set of rules traditionally provided by government and reinforced and also provided within civil society. With the reduction in taxation toward lesser valued uses (not goals--e.g. charity), then greater income allows greater demand and supply for more valued goods. Gains in opportunities and wealth would arise from greater efficiency and more accurate reflection of people's desires and abilities. In contrast, government fails to excel in these areas, and if it does push positively in one direction, it hardly corrects for its (un)intentional push into negative directions.