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Oh dear me posted:As for another 'rational' principle - wouldn't it be better to try to get the maximum possible benefit from our resources? This would probably allow total private control of some resources - staplers, for example - and forbid it for others (land, uranium mines, etc). We could even have some clearly understood system of elections to determine who has the final say over a resource! For example, individuals could disagree on which use of a forest would be considered "maximally beneficial". One might feel it should be immediately cut down and turned to lumber, another desires paper, another wants firewood more than lumber or paper. Someone else may want the trees cleared for farmland, while another may wish to see it left alone as a natural habitat, another would like it maintained as a tourist destination, and another would have it cultivated for use by a future generation. I feel that no individual or group can ever formulate an "objectively correct" answer as to what decision is the "greatest good for the greatest number". Individuals can act on their own limited information and their own ordinal economic preferences to strive for their own desired outcomes. This relates to the economic calculation problem. My understanding is that the free market, with individual ownership of property and voluntary exchange, is the system that best facilitates the allocation of resources and factors of production to satisfy the various wants of individuals, respecting their individual choices. The economic calculation problem thwarts central planning, no matter how well-intentioned or noble the central planners may be. Electing central planners democratically doesn't resolve the economic calculation problem.
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Aug 11, 2014 15:52
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Little Blackfly posted:Total central planning is an impossibility, therefore all forms of collective decision-making will fail, and the market, despite repeated failures throughout its history, will always succeed. Except for any corporate governance structure in existence. Most major corporations do not run on individual preference, or the wants and desires of individuals, and they remain the most efficient economic actors. I agree that total central planning is probably not possible, but the idea that a collective decision to limit the holdings of land, say, that an individual can acquire is a wholly different argument. As to your wholly different argument about "collective decisions", the question then becomes whether the individual chooses to associate with others on the basis of voluntary agreement and trade, or to impose their individual preference on others against their will by force, (or accepts other individuals imposing their will by force). I consider it preferable to seek mutually beneficial ways to satisfy my wants, I respect and tolerate others' right to have peaceful goals and wants that differ from mine (or any arbitrarily defined "majority") and I reject the initiation of force as a means to any end. Ultimately only individuals are capable of acting, and the concept of "collective action" is an illusion often used to justify harmful non-consensual actions. That's why I asked the previous poster how "us" and "our" can be properly defined when talking about resources in general. I find the concept of limited liability corporations and "corporate personhood" very problematic, and I understand those things as legal fictions enforced by state power.
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Aug 11, 2014 16:28
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