A Penguin Introduces Henry Farrell To Ronald Coase

I'm a penguin.  I do normal penguin things... like swimming and fishing.  But I also appreciate Ronald Coase.  So I took a break from my normal penguin activities and read Henry Farrell's recent blog entry... Why Coase’s Penguin didn’t fly.  Who was Coase's penguin?  Am I?

The entry has a couple of main characters in it... Alex and Pat.  We don't actually know their gender.  As a penguin I find this to be a problem.  But it's easy enough to fix... Alexander and Patricia.

The couple wants to do something together.  She would prefer to watch a movie while he would prefer to take a walk in the woods.  Here's what does not happen in Farrell's entry.  She gets her phone out, opens the relevant app, finds Alex, clicks on his name, clicks "New" and then enters the two options...

1. Movies
2. Walk

After doing so she clicks "Create".  Alex's phone goes *bleeeling!* and he gets it out.  He opens the app and decides how much he'd be willing to pay to have his way.  She decides how much she'd be willing pay to have her way.  When they are both finished the app displays the result...

1. Movies: $3
2. Walk: $7

Alex is willing to pay more.  Therefore, the most valuable option is for them to go for a walk.  Since Pat isn't getting her way the app doesn't transfer $3 from her account to his.  But it does transfer $7 from his account to hers.

The couple bared their hearts to each other.  This is Ronald Coase.  He's a really great guy.

Admittedly, I do have a bird brain.  So maybe I'm misunderstanding that the problem with social cost is that it's hidden.  Maybe Coase didn't perceive that costs need to be seen and known in order for mutually beneficial decisions to be made.  And maybe I can't fly.

Ouch, My Most of Me!!

When I was growing up I faithfully read the comic strip section in the Los Angeles Times.  I remember my grandfather once asked me if they were funny.  I responded that they were...and he asked, "so how come you're not laughing?"

For some time now I've been faithfully reading the Crooked Timber Liberal blog.  So far there have been only two instances where something that I've read has made me actually laugh out loud.  Well...perhaps more like chuckle out loud.  Nothing too maniacal.

Both instances revolved around David Graeber's book on Debt.  The first instance occurred when I read Daniel Davies making a point regarding a wife swapping economy and the second instance occurred today when I read David Graeber's response to all the Crooked Timber Liberals that reviewed his book.  Seminar on Debt: The First 5000 Years – Reply.  Here's the punchline from his response to Henry Farrell's critique (see my post on Economic Fairytales)...

Again—I’m sorry to be rude, but I didn’t start this thing—one really wonders what this has to say about Prof. Farrell’s professional qualifications. After all, he is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations. Prof. Hudson’s work falls under his supposed area of expertise, not mine. Yet I, a lowly anthropologist, managed to figure out pretty easily what Hudson is saying, and Farrell, the man who receives a salary based on his presumed understanding of such matters, comes up with interpretations of Hudson that make the man himself laugh in disbelief.

Did Henry Farrell say "Ouch, my most of me!!" when he read this?  It's probably what I would have said...in reference to Episode 8 of Teen Girl Squad.  "Ouch, my most of me!!" is what you say when your bass guitar turns into a shark and then chomps off more than half of your body...or when somebody lobs a decent insult at you.

Over on the Ron Paul Forums I have my own critics to deal or not deal with.  Probably my most enthusiastic and creative critic is noneedtoaggress.  Here's what he posted in the thread with a decent amount of consequentialist discussion...

"Ouch, my most of me?"...yeah, not so much.  To drive the point home he created a new account on the Ron Paul Forums ("Pragmatarian") and then pretends to be my first follower..."We're All Pragmatarians Now": My Journey to Pragmatarianism.  Interestingly enough...David Graeber's lengthy response had this somewhat relevant tidbit...

This I guess is why I’m a radical, and not a liberal. Don’t get me wrong. Liberals have made magnificent contributions to the world. I might be an anarchist, but I have no desire to see anyone privatize the NHS—nor, interestingly, do any other anarchists I am aware of (though granted, I don’t know many anarcho-capitalists. I suspect it’s because they largely don’t exist, except on the Internet, which is crawling with them.)

This point is a bit confusing isn't it?  David Graeber says he might be an anarchist...but then he goes on to say that he doesn't want to privatize the NHS...unlike the anarcho-capitalists...who only exist on the internet.  Here's the rest of the paragraph...

But this is because as an anarchist, I see states as bureaucracies of violence, and make a distinction between state institutions, and public or better, common institutions, that happen to be run by the state because states rarely allow anyone but themselves to manage collective resources (unless it be for private profit.) There are collective institutions that cannot be run without recourse to violence—where you need to be able to call up the guys with sticks and guns or it all wouldn’t work. There are collective institutions—and I suspect large communal health arrangements are one—that could. I tend to see a collective health system as falling into the latter category so it never occurs to me it should be eliminated, even if currently run by the state.

What does David Graeber think the large majority of anarcho-capitalists crawling around the internet are actually saying?  Perhaps he should read my post on anarcho-capitalism and pragmatarianism.  Here's his conclusion...

What’s important to me is how to do it with as broad an alliance as possible—as anarchists such as myself who have been involved with OWS have consistently tried to do. How to find a common ground to push things further towards a free society, without any sort of consensus of just how far we can ultimately go?

After he reads my post on anarcho-capitalism then he should definitely read this post...Tax Choice - A Strategy for the Occupy Movement.