Any way just have a read of her excellent work and try to make sense of it, she is up to something different and important, I feel.

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=52004#index-01-00-00-00 is a good summary.

Religion does a pretty good job of it.

Dinesh D’Sousa has a rather interesting take on this assertion, comparing religiously sanctioned deaths during the crusades and the inquisition to the scale accomplished by aethistic dictators. And all of this in the context of seeking a conservative rapproahment with Islam. It was a striking argument overall.

Have to second subpatre as Welker’s incredulity at the idea that anyone could attack the post office or government fire brigade.

Come to think of it, it was the government fire brigade at issue in Adler’s death penalty post that was recently offered as evidence of libertarian indifference to the death of innocents. Go figure. . .

The loss of forests, communities and lives to the politically driven Forest Service is legion. I would think Gifford Pinchot would be turning over in his grave, albeit you could have seen this coming from the beginning.

There is a reason we have a compound verb in the lexicon, “going postal”. There is also a reason when I really want something to get there that I send it UPS.

Brian

Once again, Welker illustrates an unhealthy obsession of ignoring obvious and dangerous consequences in favor of mundane, everyday tasks; tasks that could safely be replaced by private services.

And yes, the local emergency services here are volunteers; the really important letters —healthcare— are carried by couriers itching for an open market; and private forestry is superior to government ‘collective farm’ policies.

There are functions only government can do, or does best; but we can never get to those with absolutist apologists like Welker ignoring facts and realistic dangers. Death-by-government is not uncommon, from Mexico on our own border (~1.5 million killed) to our own government policies toward those fleeing from it.

Neither Somin nor Ostrom claims eliminating government is the solution; yet Welker claims the exact opposite, than any routine task —like the mail— justifies any extension and any added power of government.

That may be true; but nobody does awful like government. Nobody kills 3, or 12, or 50 million people the way government not only can, but actually does.

Do you really think you can argue against government institutions such as the Post Office, the Forest Service, and the local Fire Department by invoking Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?

I think that this is a perfect illustration of the weakness of libertarian arguments. They are far too over-generalized and fail to consider particular institutional contexts. I think the story of Stalin and his mass murders, for example, is a story about a deranged and paranoid dictator who had accumulated far too much power. Any linkage of this story to universal healthcare would be extremely far-fetched to anyone who hasn’t consumed too much libertarian Kool-Aid.

Religion does a pretty good job of it. And rentiers did a good job on Ireland.

That’s okay; I feel compelled to point out that Welker has a weird narcissistic streak which causes him to believe that anybody cares what he thinks of the bloggers here.

You must admit that this is an amusing and possibly self-contradictory quote. My views of the bloggers here do not matter–but my supposed narcissistic streak is something of interest and worthy of comment.

If something does not matter, it is best to ignore it.

That said, I feel compelled to reiterate that Ilya Somin is extremely biased. Everything is analyzed from an anti-government perspective. This is an unhealthy obsession, and it isn’t rational. I think Somin would praise nearly any idea that was not completely outrageous, if he found some way that it could plausibly be used to advance his obsessive views against government.

That’s okay; I feel compelled to point out that Welker has a weird narcissistic streak which causes him to believe that anybody cares what he thinks of the bloggers here.

subpatre: That may be true; but nobody does awful like government. Nobody kills 3, or 12, or 50 million people the way government not only can, but actually does.

While this may be true as a practical matter, I’m not really so sure it’s generally true at all. But this also just leads into the question of how does one differentiate between a corporation and a government.

Corporations (or “the market” if we’re talking in the abstract) have rarely had the power to accomplish such things because corporations have always operated under the power of the government. No government would allow a corporation to become so powerful as to effect mass murder because something so powerful would threaten the power of the government.

But when government is taken out of the picture (or is sufficently removed as to be powerless) what’s to keep actors in the “free” market from using force to amass sufficient power that they might be capable of such wrongs?

Although slavery was the first example that popped into my head, a better example might be the British East India Company. Although it was granted a monopoly by the crown, the Company’s dominance in India through the 1700′s was not truly supported by British forces, but by their own mercenary forces within India. You can pretty easily make the case that the Company was also a government, but it was still a market actor driven primarily by profit.

Ilya Somin: On the surface, the smaller communes she analyzes look a lot like what the end state of Marxism/Communism was supposed to look like – except that people like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the North Korean Kims, Castro, etc. seem to always be getting in the way!First, her approach does not require “communes,” in the sense of societies with no private property. Second, as I noted in the last comment, it doesn’t require any kind of centralized apparatus of coercion. That is a fundamental difference between her and Marx, to say nothing of Lenin, Stalin, et al.

In my admittedly limited understanding of classical Marxism, once the capitalists had been smashed and private property abolished, the state would “wither away” and people would cluster in smaller communes to govern themselves.

That it was all a fantasy was due to the inevitable Lenin/Stalin/Mao/Castro and his minions who had no intention of ever lettting the state “wither away.”

But perhaps Ostrom’s work is in a way a validation of at least part of the Marxist utopia, and proof that it might in some ways work.

But I really should read her work before I pontificate further.

That may be true; but nobody does awful like government. Nobody kills 3, or 12, or 50 million people the way government not only can, but actually does.

In essence, Welker’s statement is: ‘Most things in the world are neither wonderful or dreadful’ while ignoring the not-common atrocious and deadly things. He disregards the reality that government does dreadful. Welker would have us concentrate on ‘the majority of things’ —the daily minutia— in order to ignore the genocides, massacres, deliberate starvations, and wars.

So when David Welker said “I feel compelled to reiterate that Ilya Somin is extremely biased. Everything is analyzed from an anti-government perspective. This is an unhealthy obsession, and it isn’t rational.” it isn’t Somin who has an unhealthy obsession and is irrational .

It is Welker who is irrational —completely and objectively irrational— by ignoring known, foreseeable consequences while concentrating on the mundane and inconsequential. That is obsessive.

I am surprised, though, that the committee could not find a grad student with lots of potential to give it to.

Albeit, I’m ambivalent about whether citation to Ostrom is the real thing in terms of suspicion of government, esp. because most of her writing seems to be behind academic firewalls. Her philosophy does, as Steve pointed out, pose the risk of simply representing federalism gone wrong unless the institutional customs around which this self-management regime is built are somewhat constitutional in nature, protecting the individual from the excesses of tribal democracy.

But one must set skepticism of a new feudalism against the equally distinct possibility that these self-emergent management regimes provide for collective action in an environment where a group of citizens may exert rights as against the government to maintain an emperical approach. This would look more like privitization, in that it relies on their manifest self interest to balance resource exploitation and exhaustion, and is guided by custom that might [and I stress might] transcend the habit of mob rule that can also attend these unions.

I have examined some of these arguments in the fisheries contexts and can recommend Folk Management in the World’s Fisheries (how about underlining? what is the html for that or is that something that could be inserted in the comments toolbar?) one of whose editors is a good friend and great thinker in this area, Christopher Dyer.

Currently, self-management seems to sit almost astride the gap between government control and privitization. It seems to me that outcomes measured in the independence and productivity of participants may indicate the utility of this third way for those committed, like Somin, to solutions that elevate rational self interest over government’s purported version thereof.

Brian

Read her 2003 Science article here: http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/handwerker/389readings/Deitz%20Ostrom%20Stern%202003%20Commons.pdf

This is another way in which Ostrom’s work has a Marxist air about it, though you could equally well say that it has an Aristotelian air.

That said, I feel compelled to reiterate that Ilya Somin is extremely biased. Everything is analyzed from an anti-government perspective. This is an unhealthy obsession, and it isn’t rational. I think Somin would praise nearly any idea that was not completely outrageous, if he found some way that it could plausibly be used to advance his obsessive views against government.

So, I am not sure what Somin’s praise of Ostrom’s work really means. Does it mean the work is good? Or does it mean that Somin is excited by any idea that he might spin in some way to advance his own idiosyncratic views?

The vast majority of things that government does are neither perfectly good nor perfectly awful. That is true of actions in the private sector as well. A little more balance would greatly improve the persuasiveness of Mr. Somin’s arguments. But of course, such balance should not be a matter of rhetoric, but substance.

That said, it is perfectly possible that Ms. Ostrom’s ideas could be really great, despite Somin’s praise. I will just have to read them myself. =)

That said, I feel compelled to reiterate that Ilya Somin is extremely biased. Everything is analyzed from an anti-government perspective. This is an unhealthy obsession, and it isn’t rational. I think Somin would praise nearly any idea that was not completely outrageous, if he found some way that it could plausibly be used to advance his obsessive views against government.

So, I am not sure what Somin’s praise of Ostrom’s work really means. Does it mean the work is good? Or does it mean that Somin is excited by any idea that he might spin in some way to advance his own idiosyncratic views?

The vast majority of things that government does are neither perfectly good nor perfectly awful. That is true of actions in the private sector as well. A little more balance would greatly improve the persuasiveness of Mr. Somin’s arguments. But of course, such balance should not be a matter of rhetoric, but substance.

That said, it is perfectly possible that Ms. Ostrom’s ideas could be really great, despite Somin’s praise. I will just have to read them myself. =)

But few (no?) libertarians would object to freely constituted groups of people choosing with whom and how to associate. For example, shunning and refusing to do business with someone whose actions offend your morals seems like a perfectly reasonable right of an individual. If many people choose to thus punish a certain kind of behavior, avoiding that behavior become a norm, with shunning and exclusion from business with those who uphold the norm the consequence. Yet this is clearly not government; it’s free individuals choosing whom they wish to associate and do business with….

But you fail to understand that when the libertarians rule the world, everyone will think like them, and no one will do such dastardly things as shun others for doing what they themselves are also doing. Since everyone will toe the libertarian party line, there will be no such disagreements, and everyone can go on merrily screwing each other and stabbing them in the back every chance they get….

Cheers,

Either Ostrom’s “informal institutions” will impose rules which carry some penalty for violation, or not. If there’s no detriment to breaking the rules, then you’re right back in the tragedy of the commons where selfish behavior is rewarded. If there is a sanction, then at best you have something marginally more creative than the penalty of fines/jail that government typically imposes.

It depends on the nature of the penalty, I think. Of course it depends on your brand of libertarianism, but most libertarians object mainly to the coercion involved in application of force— the government may lock you up, execute you, etc. But few (no?) libertarians would object to freely constituted groups of people choosing with whom and how to associate. For example, shunning and refusing to do business with someone whose actions offend your morals seems like a perfectly reasonable right of an individual. If many people choose to thus punish a certain kind of behavior, avoiding that behavior become a norm, with shunning and exclusion from business with those who uphold the norm the consequence. Yet this is clearly not government; it’s free individuals choosing whom they wish to associate and do business with.

Taxation is obviously a red herring. As to the other two elements, which share the common denominator of force, the difference is less than meets the eye. Either Ostrom’s “informal institutions” will impose rules which carry some penalty for violation, or not. If there’s no detriment to breaking the rules, then you’re right back in the tragedy of the commons where selfish behavior is rewarded. If there is a sanction, then at best you have something marginally more creative than the penalty of fines/jail that government typically imposes.

Libertarians like to speak of government as though it’s something uniquely pernicious, but it’s really just one variant of collective action.

First, her approach does not require “communes,” in the sense of societies with no private property. Second, as I noted in the last comment, it doesn’t require any kind of centralized apparatus of coercion. That is a fundamental difference between her and Marx, to say nothing of Lenin, Stalin, et al.

Since her recommendation requires neither 1) centralized coercion, 2) taxation, or 3) a territorial monopoly of force, I fail to see how it is “a government solution.”

On the surface, the smaller communes she analyzes look a lot like what the end state of Marxism/Communism was supposed to look like – except that people like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the North Korean Kims, Castro, etc. seem to always be getting in the way!