Limited Democratic Socialism

[tongodeon]

I've previously written about libertarianism. About how their first principles seem quite reasonable on paper, but not always in practice. The seems to be true of socialism. They start from very different first principles which sound nonetheless quite reasonable, but the conclusions that are drawn from them are not always correct

Comments

[loic]

It sure sounds like you're a Socialist to me. At least to the extent that I self-identify as a Socialist.

[mmcirvin]

The word has different meanings in different places. I call myself a social democrat; in France I'd be Socialist Party.

The difficulty of capturing important externalities through simple individual-responsibility mechanisms like tort is a large part of the reason I'm not a libertarian. It seems to me that the response of too many libertarians to this kind of problem is just to deny that the really tough externalities (environmental problems, reduced biodiversity, secondhand smoke) even exist.

[tongodeon]

It seems to me that the response of too many libertarians to this kind of problem is just to deny that the really tough externalities (environmental problems, reduced biodiversity, secondhand smoke) even exist.

And to be fair, they have a point. There is a spectrum of social costs which are variously severe and variously recoverable. Society makes a subjective decision when to decide that there needs to be a socialist program. We could take this too far, recognize that if even one person dies from unsafe underwear the social costs to this person's family and co-workers ripple through society, and end up with a national socialist underwear safety program.

[mmcirvin]

I am personally uncomfortable with heavy-handed interventions to bully people into living individually healthy lives, even though there are very real externalities involved.

On the face of it, this is an argument against government health insurance: a body with, as libertarians like to put it, the power to force you to do stuff at gunpoint then has a motive to force you at gunpoint to exercise more and stop drinking soda pop.

On the other hand, HMOs could probably do this too through conditions on coverage, and they don't, particularly. Nor is there all that much forcible pro-health bullying in countries that actually have socialized insurance or medicine. I suppose one reason could be that maybe the incentive isn't actually that great: it could be cheaper for the system in the long term if you don't live long enough to get into the regime of busted hips and degenerative diseases.

[rocza]

In natural monopolies like water and sewer services where choices are limited and failure is catastrophic, those services should be managed publicly and democratically, but those are exceptions to the rule.

I'm not sure that they count as exceptions to the rule, when you frame the rule in terms of public health. If the waterways become contaminated, the effect is greater than the possibility of "capturing the externalized costs".

The same public health logic works for sewer systems - and is in fact why the government took over sewer systems to begin with (once the realization occurred of the health costs of open, untended sewers). Actually, we can probably thank John Snow for the government control of water supplies, too.

[tongodeon]

I'm not sure that they count as exceptions to the rule

I phrased this poorly. I meant that *Libertarians* have a rule that everything should be privatized to maximize personal liberty, but most libertarians would still agree that natural monopolies like water and sewers are the exception. They, very at least, should be socialized for the reasons you and I agree on.

[rwx]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/4/907568/-Houses-should-be-small-enough-to-drown-in-a-bathtub,-if-necessary

this is an article about a recent fire in rural tennessee that deals with this idea, a local's house (who hadn't paid the firefighting fee) caught on fire, and a neighbor's house (who had) was damaged.

[flwyd]

Weights and measures is a system that works much better with a centralized universally-acknowledged authority organization than with a whole bunch of competing organizations. It can be governmental like the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NGOs like the International Organization for Standards or a designated corporation like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Regardless of the exact structure, the United States was able to fare better than Europe in part because every state meant the same thing when they said "Foot" or "Pound" and a wrench made in New Hampshire could turn a nut made in South Carolina. A similar argument holds for currency

[mmcirvin]

You know, people still make fun of the US Postal Service, but I've usually had better luck with them than with the fully private delivery services. UPS is particularly maddening, with their often inaccessible distribution centers and their tendency to tell untruths about whether or not packages went out on the van again.

[tongodeon]

Weights and measures is a system that works much better with a centralized universally-acknowledged authority organization than with a whole bunch of competing organizations.

It "works better", yes, but that's not Wolff's argument. He's saying socialism is necessary where individual choices create non-recoverable social costs which are unavoidably externalized. I see that argument applying a lot more to disease or fire than some abstract definition of mass.

[bradipo]

And weights and measures is a perfect example of that.

Suppose each time you went to pump gas you first had to ask (or check on the internet) to see what definition of gallon the station used, so you could calculate if their posted price was a good deal or a rip-off? Multiply that by every person and every transaction on every item sold by weight or volume, and you're talking about an awfully lot of non-recoverable costs. Bringing your own scales and graduated flasks whenever you go shopping is hardly a low-cost alternative.