The Essential Value of Incentives - For Kevin Vallier

Over at the Bleeding Heart Libertarian blog, the political philosopher Kevin Vallier recently called out the market economists Peter Boettke and Peter Leeson (CoordinationProblem.org)... The Essential Relationships Between Duty and Coordination – For Boettke and Leeson

The heart of his argument...

Here’s the problem. Many moral philosophers (including me) think a purely instrumental agreement is seriously deficient from a moral point of view. For one thing, instrumentally rational agreements might be subject to gross inequalities of wealth, and worse, inequalities of bargaining power. It might be instrumentally rational, for instance, for a drowning man to give up all of his money to the only person in a position to rescue him. But we think such an agreement would be unjust because the rescuer is exploiting the man who needs rescuing. The result is that instrumentalist contracts are not properly normative. They don’t give us the right reasons to comply with social and political rules.

Kevin Vallier, I'll be your huckleberry!  Let's see how much my response differs from those fine fellows over at CoordinationProblem.

Here's the bottom line up front...

Decreasing the amount of benefit that people can receive from being at the right place at the right time, decreases their incentive to make the effort to be at the right place at the right time.  Basically, incentives matter.

I'm going to attach two epiphytes to the same branch by sharing the rest of the lines sandwiched in the middle of this rather pretty decent discussion with Infactum...

Of course not. However, that sentence directly contradicts the claim that the following is proven: - Infactum

opportunity cost ensures the efficient allocation of resources - Xero

You're lumping two extremely different types of earmarking...

The standard normative "theory" of earmarking adopts the reference system of the budget-maker, the budgetary authority, who is, by presumption, divorced from the citizenry in the political community. An alternative working hypothesis of political order is the individualistic
one in which the reference system becomes that of the individual citizen. - James M. Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

The standard idea of earmarking is individual congresspeople allocating funds to specific programs. Buchanan discussed earmarking in terms of individual taxpayers allocating funds to specific programs. What do you think the difference is between the two types of earmarking in terms of opportunity cost?

Since economists do not agree, then we conclude that opportunity cost is not proven to ensure efficient allocation of resources (regardless of market). This logic only applies as of 1963, of course. It is possible that that statement was proven since then. - Infactum

So find a paper that substantiates your specific claim that opportunity costs do not ensure the efficient allocation of resources.

I'll admit, I had only read the first page since I dislike making more internet accounts. The paper was, however, disappointing in it's narrow applicability.

His argument, in The Economics of Earmarked Taxes (1963), was, essentially, that if you make enough assumptions, then earmarking is optimal. To do prove earmarking is optimal, he explicitly rejects strategic allocation by assuming that the good provided by a public service is directly proportional to the amount of funding that service receives (p.460). He himself admits (as I would expect most any self respecting economist to do) that these are just assumptions and the real world may behave far differently from his idealization. He especially focuses on the political nature of the actor as far from his ideal actor and the "decision making cost." See section V for his cautions on the applicability of the results. Note especially where he says that the violation of these assumptions might mean that a traditional allocation system could be better. I will note that all 3 of these things have been brought up in one way or another in this thread by me or others. - Infactum

You missed the point regarding bundles and preference revelation...

Institutionally, earmarking provides a means of compartmentalizing fiscal decisions. The individual citizen, as voter-taxpayer-beneficiary, is enabled to participate, separately, either directly or through his legislative representative, in the several public expenditure decisions that may arise. He may, through this device, "vote" independently on the funds to be devoted to schools, to sanitation, and so on, given the specified revenue sources. Only in this manner can he make "private" choices on the basis of some reasonably accurate comparison of the costs and the benefits of the specific public services, one at the time. By contrast, general-fund budgeting, or non-earmarking, allows the citizen to "vote" only on the aggregate outlay for the predetermined "bundles" of public services, as this choice is presented to him by the budgetary authorities. - James M. Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

Remember what I wrote in my original post? Our current system is based on the assumption that congresspeople are omniscient (True/False)...

The basic argument assumes a full range of possible baskets of public goods available at the start. But how is this spectrum of opportunities established? Two possibilities come to mind: some central authority or auctioneer could set up different local communities and clubs with different baskets of public goods and inform all potential citizens of the characteristics of each community club. There are two obvious difficulties to this resolution of the problem, however. First, assuming a central authority knows what baskets of public goods must be supplied disposes of a large portion of the preference revelation problem, which the model is supposed to solve. If the central authority knew which people had which preferences, it could simply assign individuals to the appropriate club or local polity. Second, even if it is to some extent feasible, this solution to the preference-revelation problem violates the decentralized spirit of the Buchanan and Tiebout models. - Dennis C. Mueller, Public Choice III

Scholars have examined a number of factors that are taken to be structural components of governmental systems and that are presumed to induce utility losses. Among them is the "bundling" of goods and services, that is, the provision in a single package of a number of goods and services. Yoram Barzel (1969) has shown that bundling can impose utility loses on citizens. - Albert Breton, Competitive Governments: An Economic Theory of Politics and Public Finance

Every year, 100 million homes pay for a bundle of cable channels. Like any bundle, it's hard to see exactly what they are paying for. That is somewhat the point of bundling -- to disguise the true cost of the constituent items. - Derek Thompson, The End of TV and the Death of the Cable Bundle

Bundling...

1. assumes omniscience on the part of congresspeople
2. decreases utility for citizens
3. prevents citizens from being aware of the (opportunity) costs

Your argument is largely centered around the idea that taxpayers will have an incentive to conceal their true preferences if they could choose where their taxes go. Buchanan argued against this in his paper...

Under most real-world taxing institutions, the tax price per unit at which collective goods are made available to the individual will depend, at least to some degree, on his own behavior. This element is not, however, important under the major tax institutions such as the personal income tax, the general sales tax, or the real property tax. With such structures, the individual may, by changing his private behavior, modify the tax base (and thus the tax price per unit of collective goods he utilizes), but he need not have any incentive to conceal his "true" preferences for public goods. - James M. Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

This substantiates my claim that taxpayers would allocate their taxes according to their preferences. If you claim otherwise, then the responsibility is on you to find any papers that substantiate your claim. Just like if you claim that opportunity costs do not ensure the efficient allocation of resources, then the responsibility is on you to find any papers that substantiate your claim.

Opportunity cost is the difference in value derived from one choice versus the best of the choices not picked. - Infactum

You derive x amount of value from replying to this thread (1st best option) and y amount of value from reading your book (2nd best option). The opportunity cost of replying to this thread is not x - y...it's simply y. It's the value that you would have derived from reading your book.

In theory, if everyone is rational (i.e. makes no "mistakes"), then they will pick the option with the least opportunity cost. - Infactum

People pick the most valuable option, which requires the sacrifice of the second most valuable option. The value that you would have derived from the second best option is the opportunity cost.

I honestly cannot find a discussion of this concept with relation to multiplayer games, but that is quite important, as the opportunity cost of defecting in the prisoner's dilemma is dependent on the other player's action. This prevents the analysis from extending to collectively funded public goods IMO. My claim, however isn't that strong.

[...]

1) "If you're not willing to cooperate with your coconspirator, then clearly you'd prefer to sit in jail for 3 years instead of 1." Is that a true statement in your opinion? Can you see this as a valid analogy?

[...]

Opportunity cost is not well defined in (some) multiplayer games. That was the point of the second sentence. You can't tell me my opportunity cost for defecting in the prisoner's dilemma/Chicken/etc without information on another actor. This means that, even if I were a homo economicus, I would have insufficient information to determine the magnitude of my opportunity cost. How do you expect poor little normal me to do so? If I cannot determine the magnitude of my opportunity cost, I cannot determine how much I am sacrificing. If I cannot determine how much I am sacrificing, then I cannot compare the value of different options. If I cannot compare the value of different options, I cannot choose the one I prefer. Do you disagree with anything in that logic chain? - Infactum 

Imagine a river right next to a soup kitchen. When you arrive at the soup kitchen to volunteer you notice that there's a group of people picking up trash along the river. How is the prisoner's dilemma relevant/applicable?

My original guess was that you were going to claim that the private sector was more complex, and therefore people ought to have an easier time deciding what was of value to them in the public sector. After tracing the thread of conversation back a bit, it seems more likely that you intend to show that (government provided?) public goods tend to compete with each other far less, so it is much more important to choose one over the other. Was I even close? - Infactum

Not really. My point was for you to explain why there's such a greater diversity/variety of goods in the private sector. What do you attribute this to?

I'll admit, I hadn't considered "voting" as asking people how much things are worth to them with the understanding that that will be how much they pay. When we vote we have the opportunity to make other people pay for things we value. I know this is a problem you have with the system, but it means that our method of voting is not exactly a contingent valuation system.

[...]

No, it's not. The reason people like Hitler become powerful is that they are able to change others' preferences. Hitler could easily have risen to head of government. If he could get any small fraction of the people to give their taxes to his military, he could seize power.

Clearly you believe that voting adequately allows people to communicate their true preferences/values. So please substantiate your claim.

No, but Congress does have access to experts and (in theory) studies the issue constantly. Now you are pretty much requiring that everyone do some fraction of this if they want to allocate to the best of their ability. I believe this is what Buchanan referred to as "Decision cost." Perhaps their will be a new industry of allocation advisers spawned, if so that would cut down, but not remove this decision cost. It also wouldn't get rid of the incentive to "defect". - Infactum

Keep climbing the mountain by reading up on rational ignorance...

This greater complexity of political choice is compounded by an inability to gain from any investment in knowledge. In a market setting, a person can gain by storing food during the boom periods; it is a simple task to profit directly from knowledge. In a political setting, however, even if a person has acquired knowledge about the more complex question of "why," there is no way that he can profit from his knowledge because a change in policy will take place only after a majority of people have come to the same conclusion. Consequently, it is rational to be considerably more ignorant about general policy matters than about matters of market choice. - James M. Buchanan, The Theory of Public Choice: II

We all gain as a society when we incentivize people to be at the right place at the right time. Being at the right place at the right time requires doing homework. But there's no point in doing homework if there's absolutely no benefit from being at the right place at the right time.

Consider this recent blog entry over at the Bleeding Heart Libertarian blog...

Here’s the problem. Many moral philosophers (including me) think a purely instrumental agreement is seriously deficient from a moral point of view. For one thing, instrumentally rational agreements might be subject to gross inequalities of wealth, and worse, inequalities of bargaining power. It might be instrumentally rational, for instance, for a drowning man to give up all of his money to the only person in a position to rescue him. But we think such an agreement would be unjust because the rescuer is exploiting the man who needs rescuing. The result is that instrumentalist contracts are not properly normative. They don’t give us the right reasons to comply with social and political rules. - Kevin Vallier, The Essential Relationships Between Duty and Coordination – For Boettke and Leeson

Clearly Vallier needs to read Bastiat...

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil. - Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

It might seem morally wrong for Dave to exploit (take advantage of) Bob, who's drowning. But the fact of the matter is, nobody else was around. If we limit/restrict Dave's ability to benefit from his effort/research/luck/insight/foresight, then we decentivize people to be where we need them most. It's the equivalent of removing sirens and flashing lights from emergency vehicles. If we don't know how valuable all the different uses of society's limited resources are...then it's impossible for resources to flow to where they create the most value. Without this essential information, it's a given that resources will flow the wrong directions and we will all be worse off.

So you feel secure placing our future in the hands of 300 congresspeople and their entourage of experts. But I would feel infinitely more secure if everybody could receive the benefit of their accurate estimates of future value.

If the socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is, however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it. - Frédéric Bastiat

given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow - Linus's Law

Right now in this thread there are numerous people looking for the bugs in pragmatarianism. Clearly they are finding bugs. Maybe the bugs are imagined rather than real, but they should be allowed to allocate their resources accordingly. This is exactly how the public sector should work as well. Let many people look for the bugs in public programs and allocate their taxes accordingly.

Earlier you said that how much I sacrifice is the same as how much I valued something. If this is true, then no value is created in trades, as I am sacrificing something to receive something of equal value (and so is "Trusty"). Do you believe value is created in trades? - Infactum

People only sacrifice something if they suspect that what they receive in return will be more valuable than what they have to give up. Otherwise they'll simply suffer a loss. Given that nobody intentionally wants to suffer a loss, the more that somebody is willing to sacrifice, the more they value what they are trading for.

The exsistence of a costless exit is not even obvious. "Cost," can only be defined relative to other things (as you assert when talking about oppurtunity cost). Therefore, the existence and placement of a zero (i.e. "costless") is at best arbitrary. - Infactum

There's a difference between internal "barriers" and external barriers. Costless exit just means that I'm not preventing you in any way shape or form from leaving this discussion. With our current system, it's very costly for a pacifist not to fund the DoD. They can either avoid making enough money to pay taxes or risk going to jail or try to move to a country where they aren't forced to fund war.

I tend to think abundance has to do with how well society uses societies limited resources. There is so much aping and riffing on eachothers' ideas in industry that it is basically impossible to define who is responsible for a given business practice. And make no mistake, it is technological innovations and business practices that are responsible for the abundance, as they are what allow us to multiply our labor.

And you haven't answered my question. If, say, the poorest third of the people on SNAP (5% - 15 Million people) starved to death after implementing tax choice, would you say the market valued them more dead than alive? - Infactum

You agree that abundance depends on how well society's limited resources are being used. Yet, you want me to address an unrealistic scenario with millions starved to death because we implemented tax choice. It reminds me of these anarcho-capitalists who critiqued pragmatarianism using a pragmatarian system with a 100% tax rate as their example. If you want me to address your unrealistic scenario, then please provide a detailed and credible explanation of how we arrive at your scenario.

Step 1: Implement pragmatarianism
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Millions starve to death

I can't be certain that P doesn't lead to pragmatarianism. In principle, I could if I could show some kind of contradiction, but I would prefer things be better defined before attempting that again. It may not lead to anywhere interesting or useful on it's own. That's just the nature of logic. You still have to rigorously show it leads to pragmatarianism; logic isn't a Bayesian analysis. - Infactum

You're defending the current system, and you agree that values are subjective (P). Please give me an example rigorously showing that P leads to our current system. Or acknowledge that you hold my arguments to a far higher standard than you hold your own.

John Holbo's Critique of Libertarianism

For those of you who haven't been following along at home...John Holbo is a liberal philosopher over at the Crooked Timber website.  He's kind of a tricky guy...but in a fun way.  For example...he tricked me into believing that he supported allowing people to sell their votes.  It turned out that he really didn't support the idea...but I enjoyed our discussion nonetheless...especially when he shared his critique of pragmatarianism.

Holbo's most recent trick was to pretend that he was a Bleeding Heart Libertarian (BHL)...I’m a bleeding-heart libertarian!  He didn't trick me this time though because I had already read on the BHL website that he was planning on doing a guest post.  Learning that he was scheduled to write a guest post was the highlight of my day.  Not trying to take credit here...but a while back I had encouraged him to write a post on the BHL project.  Unfortunately, I can't really say it was the highlight of my day when I finally got a chance to read it.

Did he go in there with guns blazing?  Yes...very yes.  Holbo was spraying snarky bullets everywhere.  Fortunately, he stuck around to respond to many of the comments and the subsequent discussion was far more constructive.  You can read more of the discussion on Jacob Levy's really admirable response...Further to Holbo.

Despite the snark, I gotta give Holbo props for jumping into the lion's den...so to speak.  But the fact that he was invited to write a guest post in the first place...reflects extremely well on the BHL project.  And honestly...I would be willing to bet $20 that the Crooked Timber blog would not invite Peter Boettke, Steven Horwitz, Gary Chartier, Andrew J. Cohen, or Jessica Flanigan to write a guest post there.  This came to mind when I read this comment in response to Holbo's post on the Crooked Timber website...

While I agree with the cheering here, it was a great minefield over there. I kinda agree with the commenter there that says something about guests pooping on our doorstep. So… I am looking forward to the upcoming Libertarian guests here on CrookedTimber. - seth

Ok, so enough back story...and onto my response to Holbo's critique.  I'm not going to pull any punches...it was light on specifics and heavy on paranoia.  This makes it a bit difficult to respond to.  So I've just been gathering a bunch of passages from here and there...and I honestly kind of doubted that I'd really ever organize them and it would just end up as one of my many unpublished drafts.   

Today though, a liberal shared this comment in response to a post of mine...

We know what causes recessions (at least big ones). The income gap produces a small class of very wealthy people who engage in high risk nonproductive "investing", also called bubbles, leading to inevitable collapse, especially if there is little regulation.
See Reich's "Aftershock". It goes into detail - head of joaquin

My response used pretty much the same passages that I had gathered for Holbo.  So the content is the same but my style and tone would be different.  Before I copy and paste my response though...here are a few comments from Holbo that were somewhat specific...

That's an excellent way to put it. Libertarianism as device for locking in your gains. Like regulatory capture. Nice. - John Holbo

Hume22, there are really two separate issues here: one, being consistent in my hermeneutics of suspicion; two, being consistent about justice. Frankly, I'm better at one than two. You can question my motives all you like. I can take it! But I tend to be a hypocrite regarding the high bar of justice. Like most American liberals, I worry more about the American middle-class than about impoverished Africans. It's hard for me to justify that. (I could say something about 'politics is the art of the possible' but that wouldn't fool you, would it? Didn't think so.) - John Holbo

So here's my response.  What I personally say isn't as important as the sources themselves.  Hopefully Holbo will take the opportunity to read each of them thoroughly...Lachmann's essay is especially great for understanding how markets redistribute wealth, Mitchell's paper is the best in terms of understanding regulatory capture and Krugman's article is outstanding for understanding the race to the top.

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We take 10 steps forward...and then one step back...and you use that one step back as an excuse for government intervention. Does the government prevent us from taking one step back? Sure...but it also prevents us from taking 10 steps forward. That's not a recipe for progress.

... an increase in the power of the State ... does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress... – Gandhi

How do you become wealthy?

In other words, people will start buying something in large numbers if it solves a big problem for them. But most first-world problems—needing an easier way to record your favorite TV programs or keep track of what’s in your fridge—just aren’t that pressing. In developing countries, on the other hand, technology can transform lives. - Christopher Mims, How a $20 tablet from India could blindside PC makers, educate billions and transform computing as we know it

You're blaming the wealthy for the income gap here in America but you tragically fail to understand that they are narrowing the gap between America and developing countries...

These improvements have not taken place because well-meaning people in the West have done anything to help--foreign aid, never large, has lately shrunk to virtually nothing. Nor is it the result of the benign policies of national governments, which are as callous and corrupt as ever. It is the indirect and unintended result of the actions of soulless multinationals and rapacious local entrepreneurs, whose only concern was to take advantage of the profit opportunities offered by cheap labor. It is not an edifying spectacle; but no matter how base the motives of those involved, the result has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to something still awful but nonetheless significantly better. - Paul Krugman, In Praise of Cheap Labor

Rising wages in emerging markets and higher shipping costs are also closing the cost gap between developing markets and the United States. - Scott Malone and Ernest Scheyder, Outsourcing Losing Its Allure As China Costs Soar

Do you think Americans are the only ones who benefit from American innovation? The world benefits from American innovation just like we will benefit from the world's innovations. And you'll be able to thank the greedy capitalist pigs. Except...who these people are is constantly changing...

These economic facts have certain social consequences. As the critics of the market economy nowadays prefer to take their stand on “social” grounds, it may be not inappropriate here to elucidate the true social results of the market process. We have already spoken of it as a leveling process. More aptly, we may now describe these results as an instance of what Pareto called “the circulation of elites.” Wealth is unlikely to stay for long in the same hands. It passes from hand to hand as unforeseen change confers value, now on this, now on that specific resource, engendering capital gains and losses. The owners of wealth, we might say with Schumpeter, are like the guests at a hotel or the passengers in a train: They are always there but are never for long the same people. - Lachmann, The Market Economy and the Distribution of Wealth

As protected firms become less innovative, a country’s overall economic growth may suffer. This is because, as Schumpeter emphasized nearly a century ago, economic growth thrives on “creative destruction.” In a healthy economy, new firms constantly arise to challenge older, less-innovative behemoths. - Matthew Mitchell, The Pathology of Privilege: The Economic Consequences of Government Favoritism

But have you ever asked yourselves sufficiently how much the erection of every ideal on earth has cost? How much reality has had to be misunderstood and slandered, how many lies have had to be sanctified, how many consciences disturbed, how much "God" sacrificed every time? If a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed: that is the law - let anyone who can show me a case in which it is not fulfilled! - Nietzsche

The problem is that you're not thinking things through...

But matters are not that simple, and the moral lines are not that clear. In fact, let me make a counter-accusation: The lofty moral tone of the opponents of globalization is possible only because they have chosen not to think their position through. While fat-cat capitalists might benefit from globalization, the biggest beneficiaries are, yes, Third World workers. - Paul Krugman, In Praise of Cheap Labor

If you think things through then you'll understand that any step back in the private sector can be offset by 10 steps forward in the public sector. How? Simply by allowing taxpayers to use their own taxes to reward the government organizations that are doing new and better things with society's limited resources.

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Let me add a few more things...

In Krugman's article he begins by talking about people scavenging on garbage heaps.  Here's a photo I took in Afghanistan of a mother and her son on such a garbage heap...

...which ties into...

Women employed in factories are the only women in the labouring rank of life whose position is not that of slaves and drudges; precisely because they cannot easily be compelled to work and earn wages in factories against their will. For improving the condition of women, it should, in the contrary, be an object to give them the readiest access to independent industrial employment, instead of closing, either entirely or partially, that which is already open to them. - J.S. Mill  

The basic idea is that an entrepreneur could set up a factory in Kandahar and offer the Afghan mother one new option.  If her new option, working in a factory, is better than her currently best option, scavenging, then it stands to reason that she would choose to work in the factory.  

As well might it be said, that of two trees, sprung from the same stock one cannot be taller than another but from greater vigor in the original seedling.  Is nothing to be attributed to soil, nothing to climate, nothing to difference of exposure - has no storm swept over the one and not the other, no lightning scathed it, no beast browsed on it, no insects preyed on it, no passing stranger stripped off its leaves or its bark?  If the trees grew near together, may not the one which, by whatever accident, grew up first, have retarded the other's development by its shade?  Human beings are subject to an infinitely greater variety of accidents and external influences than trees, and have infinitely more operation in impairing the growth of one another; since those who begin by being strongest, have almost always hitherto used their strength to keep the others weak.- J.S. Mill, The Negro Question

Much of Holbo's paranoia surrounded racism...but a sound understanding of how markets work...the idea of solving problems and offering people better options...dispels any basis for such concern...

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman

Let's imagine that a person who was racist against everybody but Canadians discovered a cure for cancer.  Therefore, he would only employ Canadians and only sell the cure to Canadians.  It does sound less than ideal...but however you spin it...it's still progress.  The Canadians who are employed were given a better option and the Canadians with cancer had a big problem solved.  And yes, I know that Canadians aren't a race of people.

The basic idea is that we can't say that John Holbo has an obligation to solve any problems...big or small...and he doesn't have an obligation to offer the Afghan mother a better option.  Really understanding that we don't have these obligations is key to appreciating it when entrepreneurs (in the broadest sense of the word) actually do solve problems...for any amount of people...and offer any amount of people better options.

The question is...how many Canadians with cancer would engage in ethical consumerism and boycott the company?

Even if right now some dude said 'I'm going to say a bunch of racist stuff but afterwards I'll give you a biscuit' I’d be like that’s a weird deal but I'll take it. Because I hate racism...but I love a good biscuit. - Aziz Ansari

Disqus Comments - Ambiguous Ownership?

When the owner of the Bleeding Heart Libertarian website, Matt Zwolinski, banished me...he also deleted all 80 or so of my comments from his website. As I mentioned in my post on being banned from the BHL website, it's certainly his prerogative to delete whatever he wants from his website. The question is...does he also have the right to remove my comments from my disqus page where they were also displayed? 

So I e-mailed disqus.com to find out. Here's our discussion...

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Feb 18, 2012

All my comments have been removed from this website...

http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/02/on-the-relationship-between-economics-and-philosophy/#comment-437336276

...which is fine. The problem is that I can't find all these deleted comments of mine on my disqus.com page.

Thanks,
Xero

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Feb 20, 2012

Hi Xero,

For legal reasons, if a site deletes a comment it is no longer available anywhere. However, we do know why you'd want to continue to read deleted comments and we're thinking of ways to provide that in the future.

Kind Regards,

Ryan

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Feb 20, 2012

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the response.

Previously my comments were available on two websites...the Bleeding Heart Libertarian (BHL) website and your own website. The comments of course were stored in your database. It's well within the rights of the owner of the BHL website to remove my comments from his website...but what gives him the right to remove my comments from your website?

Did you actually delete my comments from your server or did you just change the status of my comments? In other words...would it be physically possible to export my comments in XML or comma delimited format?

In other words...what are you really saying here?

A) you truly deleted my 80 or so comments
B) it's not worth the effort to write the few simple lines of code it would take to export my comments
C) the comments are still in your server but their ownership is legally ambiguous so you'd prefer to err on the side of not sending them to me

Your clarification in this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Xero

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Feb 24, 2012

Hi Xero,

Technically they're still there, since we never delete comments from our server unless the site deletes their account (which is also possible). That said, the comments do belong to the site, so they're able to withhold them if they wish.

Kind Regards,

Ryan

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Feb 24, 2012

Hi Ryan,

Let me get this straight...

A. I'm the one that spent hours writing my comments
B. my comments were never stored on the BHL website
C. yet, my comments are the property of the owner of the BHL website

Is this fact mentioned anywhere on your own website? If so, can you please share the link to the webpage that contains this information?

Thanks,
Xero

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Feb 29, 2012

Hi Xero,

It's not explicitly specified in our terms of service, because it has obvious legal ramifications; each website is responsible for content posted on their pages, legally. Although the comments are stored on our servers, the site has a license to use our space by signing up (kind of like a lease, like they probably lease the servers to host their entire site on).

We do understand the frustration of writing comments which get removed, and whenever possible we try to make that available. However, we are forced to provide the facility to delete comments on a particular site.

Kind Regards,

Ryan

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As a programmer I can tell you it's certainly not a technical issue to leave my comments on my disqus.com page even if they are removed from the original website.  Not sure why it would present a legal challenge...given that disqus.com already displays the comments on their own website as well as on the original website.  Is there really a difference between Zwolinksi being held responsible for my comments and me being held responsible for my comments?  You'd figure the disqus.com legal team would just disclaim all responsibility for people's comments all together.

Technically I could have gone through and deleted all 80 of my own comments myself.  Unlike Zwolinksi's deletion of my comments...if I had deleted my own comments then they would have been actually been removed from the database.  Well...the rows in the database would still be there but the comments would be gone.

In any case, just thought I'd share this discussion in order to try and shed some light on disqus.com's position on just who owns your comments.

Banned From Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Where to start?  Let's try and get the obvious out of the way first.  A while back I created a thread on the Ron Paul Forums asking for people's thoughts on whether another member (whose views I did not agree with) should have been banned...Should ProIndividual Have Been Banned?

One of the members had this to say on the subject...

Site owners can ban whomever they want for whatever reason they want. They have the right to do it. Nobody else has a right to be here. What are good reasons for banning people? I don't know, that's up to the site owners to decide based on what they're trying to accomplish. I'm in no position to second-guess it. - erowe1

The first three sentences should go without saying.  A website is a person's property and they can limit access to it for whatever arbitrary/legitimate reasons they want.  But should this fact restrict our freedom to challenge those in positions of authority?  Wouldn't it be strange if a forum dedicated to Ron Paul had an explicit rule about not challenging those in positions of authority?

Recently a member of the same forum shared this video of a fellow by the name of John Bush.  In this video he protests having been wrongfully banned from the Austin City Council....



Do you agree with what he is saying?  Should it matter?  Personally I do not agree with most of what he is saying...but I strongly support his right to question those in positions of authority.  To misquote Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Again, I get that a city council is public property while a website is private property.  But how/why/when authority is exercised over others on private property can offer a unique and valuable opportunity to understand how/why/when authority is exercised over others on public property.

With that in mind...here are the goals of this post...

1. Promote the BleedingHeartLibertarians.com website/concept
2. Encourage people to make the effort to understand fundamental economic concepts
3. Encourage people who do understand fundamental economic concepts to make the effort to meet people half way.  
4. Promote tax choice
5. Promote Vermin Supreme for president 
6. Encourage people to question when somebody is banned
7. Encourage a broader definition of censorship

It might seem like I'm trying to accomplish too much here...but it's all tightly tied together.  For example...I can't promote the Bleeding Heart Libertarians (BHL) website without warning you that chances are really good that you're not going to make heads or tails of most of their blog entries.  This isn't because you're stupid...it's simply because their blog entries are written by PhDs who generally only have to worry about communicating their ideas to other PhDs in the same field.

One of the guest contributors to the BHL website, Peter Boettke, recently wrote a blog entry on the relationship between economics and philosophy.  In one of my comments I stressed that all the contributors to the BHL website should really consider making an effort to meet people in other fields half way.  Unfortunately, you won't be able to read my comment because the owner of the BHL website, Matt Zwolinski, deleted every single one of my comments from his website (again, this is his prerogative).  But...you can still read a reply to my comment...

Dittos. This blog entry, and particularly the comments, has basically made my head hurt and left me bewildered.  Oh, well. I guess this one is just inside baseball and I should leave it to the pros. - Rod Engelsman

If Peter Boettke and Rod Engelsman don't make an honest and genuine effort to meet each other half way then they both lose.

If you do happen to understand all the concepts discussed on the BHL website then power to you.  If not, then look the concepts up on Wikipedia.  If that doesn't help then by all means please post a comment that lets the BHL contributors know exactly which aspects you're struggling with.  You can signal that you made an effort to meet them half way by encouraging them to improve the Wikipedia articles that failed to help clarify the concepts in question.  They really shouldn't have a problem doing so given that Wikipedia itself was inspired by Hayek's concept of partial knowledge.  If you're concerned with people judging you for asking a "stupid" question then just post your comment anonymously.

So why in the world am I promoting a website that I was just banned from?  The answer can be found in the name of the website...Bleeding Heart Libertarians.  The goal of the website is to address the common perception that libertarians do not have hearts.  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to help libertarians understand the value in having a heart?  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to help liberals understand the economic arguments for libertarianism?  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to combine moral and economic arguments into one powerful argument?

Whatever its true goal is...the BHL website is notable for recognizing that a problem does exist somewhere in this general area.  For example, here's what Vermin Supreme had to say about libertarians...

But I also believe that in order for that to happen we also have to take the responsibility for ourselves. We have to take responsibility for others. We have to offer mutual aid and support and care to our fellow citizens. It's those two things. The libertarians, you know, are just about abolishing the government and letting shit fall where it may. But I believe that's a mistake. I believe that we can dismantle the government gradually, if the citizens take up more of the slack. It's all a certain Republican idea you know...taking the government down. But they offer no alternative to helping people other than charity. I mean...civics, citizenship...Americans don't know what it means to be a citizen any more. 

If you haven't already done so then please vote for Vermin Supreme on Americans Elect.  Citizens taking up the slack is what tax choice (pragmatarianism) is all about.  If any citizens didn't want to take up the slack then they would still have the option to just give their taxes to congress.  The challenge is that to effectively evaluate the idea of tax choice you really need to have a decent grasp of a few basic economic concepts.

The problem is...trying to share these basic economic concepts is exactly what led to my banishment from the BHL website.  The last straw for Matt Zwolinski occurred on this blog entry of his...What We Can Learn From Drowning Children.  In this instance...not only did he delete my comments from the page but he also deleted his replies to my comments.  Fortunately, before he did so I managed to copy and paste our entire discussion over to my own blog...Fallibilism vs Fairness.

Again again...Zwolinski certainly has the right to delete whatever he wants from his website for whatever reasons...completely irrespective of whether his reasons are good, bad or ugly.  As I indicated in my Self-Ownership Survey...people should have the right to shoot themselves in the foot.

If I hadn't saved our discussion though...then none of you would have been able to read it.  So could Zwolinski's effort to delete our discussion count as censorship?  The way I see it...you are perfectly capable of choosing for yourself which comments you read and which comments you ignore.  The internet has made us all extremely proficient in filtering out trash.  But one person's trash is another person's treasure.  Do you really want somebody else deciding for you what counts as trash/treasure?  Personally, I'm leaning towards expanding the definition of censorship to include whenever somebody restricts your ability to decide for yourself whether something is trash/treasure.  This broader definition of censorship would allow us to argue that the government engages in censorship by blocking tax choice.

Hopefully I've made it clear that Zwolinski certainly had the right to delete my comments from his website.  Yet...hopefully it's also clear that it's my right to question his motivations for doing so.  Here's how I perceive his motivations...

On the Debate Politics Forum I created this thread...Why Is Your Partner Cheating On You?  My point wasn't to talk about cheating...yet a few people really felt the need to discuss my misunderstanding of how cheating really works.

Xerographica: SmokeAndMirrors, ok, here's the deal. I'll admit that I don't understand how cheating works and you'll admit that you don't understand how the invisible hand works. Deal?
SmokeAndMirrors: Nope. I understand the "invisible hand" concept perfectly well. I just have no reason to address it because your argument unraveled before I ever got there.  Like Goshin, I have now ceased to be interested.

A) SmokeAndMirrors was perfectly willing to discuss cheating.  B) She said she understood how the invisible hand works.  C) She "conveniently" ceased to be interested in further discussion when it came time to demonstrate her understanding of how the invisible hand works.

Zwolinski's behavior was nearly identical to that of SmokeAndMirrors...

A) Zwolinski was perfectly willing to discuss business discrimination and foreign intervention with me.  B)  He said he was "familiar" with the economic concepts that I had frequently mentioned.  C) He "conveniently" banned me from his BHL website rather than respond to any of my economic arguments.

Basically...we all failed.  They failed to acknowledge their perfectly reasonable ignorance and I failed to encourage them to meet me half way.  It wasn't a total loss though because these documented failures can provide others with the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

That's the thing.  We all make mistakes...and we all only have limited resources...and we all have access to different information...and we all have different values.  Therefore, we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket.  In other words... Scarcity + Fallibilism = Hedge Our Bets = Tax Choice.  This was the idea that I failed to convey to Zwolinski in our discussion on fallibilism vs fairness.

It just so happens though that I'm currently reading an excellent book on Reason and Persuasion.  This book, which makes Plato's ideas much more accessible, was written by John Holbo.  John Holbo is a contributor to the Crooked Timber Liberal website which is where he posted an entry on Selling Votes.  The comment that I shared on his entry led to the two of us having a long discussion on selling votes.  His willingness to discuss revealing preferences is partly what motivated me to purchase his book.  None of this would have occurred though if I had been banned from the Crooked Timber Liberal website.

The kicker is that I was technically banned from the Crooked Timber Liberal website.  Nearly two months prior to commenting on Holbo's entry, I had posted a comment on Chris Bertram's entry on Renouncing the facts in the name of method (Mankiw channels Lukacs).  Bertram replaced my comment with this message...

[Crooked Timber comments threads are an opportunity to engage in conversation, not the granting of a soapbox for you to promote your private obsessions. Please go away. CB]

You can read my original comment here...Crooked Timber Liberals - Monopolizing the Facts.  Recently I discovered that now I am both technically and actually banned from the Crooked Timber website.

Chris Bertram, who is a liberal, and Matt Zwolinski, who is a libertarian, both saw my comments as trash.  That's why they saw value in eliminating my perspective from their websites.  What they couldn't see though were all the possible future discussions that they had blocked.      

This ties into Bastiat's concept of the seen vs the unseen as well as Hayek's concept of conceit vs humility.  All our perspectives are valuable but extremely limited.  This means that it's easy to focus on what we can see but extremely difficult to focus on what we can't see.  It's easy for Zwolinski and Bertram to see the value of their own perspectives but it's extremely difficult for them to see the value of my perspective.  If it was easy for people to focus on what they couldn't see then they would have embraced tax choice a long time ago. As it is, political tolerance is blocked and/or ignored by men of the system...

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. - Adam Smith

For the longest time we've debated what the government should do.  The solution is simply for the government to do what we pay it to do...no more and no less.  I may not agree with how you spend your taxes...but I will strongly support your right to do so.  If I do want you to spend your taxes on the things that I treasure...then I will rely solely on the persuasive power of the available evidence/facts.  As Milton Friedman strongly emphasized, "If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it."