The Logic of Collective Action was fundamental in beginning the study of special interests. In it, Olson began to open questions about the nature of groups, including their lack of incentive to act with a lack of organization and free-rider problems of these larger groups upon specialized group’s actions.[[20]]❌(http://localhost:6571/reader-mode/page?url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice&uuidkey=FEB3EED4-8EA7-409E-BBE6-78DB25DF38A0#cite_note-Olson-20) Due to the incentive for concentrated groups (such as farmers) to act for their own interest, paired with a lack of organization of large groups (such as the public as a whole), legislation implemented as a result benefits a small group rather than the public at large. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
—-
While good government tends to be a pure public good for the mass of voters, there may be many advocacy groups that have strong incentives for lobbying the government to implement specific policies that would benefit them, potentially at the expense of the general public. For example, lobbying by the sugar manufacturers might result in an inefficient subsidy for the production of sugar, either directly or by protectionistmeasures. The costs of such inefficient policies are dispersed over all citizens, and therefore unnoticeable to each individual. On the other hand, the benefits are shared by a small special-interest group with a strong incentive to perpetuate the policy by further lobbying. Due to rational ignorance, the vast majority of voters will be unaware of the effort; in fact, although voters may be aware of special-interest lobbying efforts, this may merely select for policies which are even harder to evaluate by the general public, rather than improving their overall efficiency. Even if the public were able to evaluate policy proposals effectively, they would find it infeasible to engage in collective action in order to defend their diffuse interest. Therefore, theorists expect that numerous special interests will be able to successfully lobby for various inefficient policies. In public choice theory, such scenarios of inefficient government policies are referred to as government failure
—-
Its basic thesis is that when both a market economy and government are present, government agents may rent or sell their influence (i.e. a vote) to those who are seeking input into the lawmaking process. The government agent stands to benefit from support from the party seeking influence, while the party seeks to gain benefit by implementing public policy that benefits them. This essentially results in the capture and reallocation of benefits, wasting the benefit and any resources used from being put to a productive use in society. This is since that the party attempting to acquire the benefit will spend up to or more than the benefit accrued, resulting in a zero-sum gain, or a negative sum gain. The real gain is the gain over the competition. This political action will then be used to keep competition out of the market due to a lack of real or political capital.
sourceType:: podcast author:: Max Borders sourcePublication:: Jim Rutt Show ref:: https://overcast.fm/+S_7cdNyNo noteTitle:: Decentralism; Max Borders. (podcast)
Decentralism; Max Borders. (podcast)
propensity to addiction has a lot to do with people’s discount rate.
Collective action
collective action is the action of many individual actors. but we are interdepenent, and collective action / collective action problems are not the same as individual actions/problems.
Full-on Decentralization (ultra-pluralism) vs Game B’s “coherent pluralism”. humanity must be about human wellbeing and capacity, and whatever we do must be done in balance with nature.
pluraism, syndicates
normative pluralism: we ought to be able to self-organize into distinct tribes where our values overlap more.
(game b might be a variant on anarcho-syndicalism. syndicalism from Chomsky.)
Morality should be practiced, like a martial art. something you get more excellent at. This is kind of eastern, or maybe greek/roman - as the Virtues. in opposition to “bloodless liberalism”. A consent-based society is about an active discovery process of real people - not abstractions..
Achieving a consent-based society forces active discovery.
deflationary currencies incentivize hoarding (counter to economic growth). inflationary currencies incentivize relentless spending and no saving.
the bar for exercising compulsion over someone who has done nobody wrong needs to have an extremely high bar for justification.
political “contracting and authority” is different than business contracting because it’s tied to a particular piece of land.
asymptotic anarchy: get closer and closer to anarchy without ever actually getting there. decentralize until you find somewhat stable equilibria. using the principle as a north star, but you know you never really get to it (this is literally what I was saying to jai-lee the other day about having a grand meta plan for humanity and aligning towards it, knowing you may not reach it - or may not reach it in your lifetime, or 100 lifetimes.)
Rutt: “there’s no reason a town of 25,000 shouldn’t be able to make their own decisions about say, drinking on the street (beyond whatever the town’s state says).” Subsidiarity.
Can you get a, say, polluting factory that is externalizing their harm outside of their community, to cease and desist without a giant leviathan state? through some sort of decentralized process?
we have examples of this right now with the international sphere and the common law.
decentralized enforcement doesn’t mean no enforcement, it means it looks a little different and it likely isn’t about some final leviathan power that is required to be “with the angels”, because it almost never is.
jim says we need something “state-like” and non-consensual to deal with stuff on the ground (like pollution). max says maybe, but hopefully not. they agree about subsidiarity.