The rental car companies wash rental cars. 

That's because they own the rental cars. People who rent them don't.

The only problem with Stossel's article is that we have to assume that the people that believe that the goverment should raise taxes so it can 'help people' can't see the errors in their thinking because they seriously believe that there are no errors there.

That's because they own the rental cars. People who rent them don't.

I think the bigger point you are making might be zooming over Loca's head, so I'll spell it out here:

If you are like most people, when you rent a rent-a-car you do so with absolutely no intention to care for it.  It's not yours, and you really don't care if you tear it, grind the gears, lead foot it, hot foot away (jack rabbit starts) at stop lights and stop signs, or otherwise basically destroy the vehicle.  Why do you care, provided that you aren't going to be asked to pay for any damages you might cause or which can be tracked back to your handling of the vehicle?

Unless you are renting from a company like Enterprise (who can be total pr-cks! about rentals where they go over every inch of the vehicle when you check it back in, looking for dings, dents, scratches, scuffs and other marks to require you to pay to fix), you normally pay for the rental, take the vehicle, squeal tires as you leave the rental car facility and go out and abuse the vehicle for the time it is in your possession.  Not yours, you don't care about how you treat it.  Especially if you pay for the insurance on it and don't expect to have a claim made against your insurance.  TEAR IT UP.

Compare that thinking to how you treat your own vehicle.  Normally far more gingerly, and much more lovingly and careful.  You own it, you pay for it, you probably make payments on it.  You need it long term, and need it to work right for a long time.  You probably want it to look nice too, and take better care of it so it will have more value if you go to trade it in later on.  Again, the idea being that you want your possession to be nice, versus something you only temporarily possessed and don't care about.

Is socialism in a pure form possible? Absolutely not. But neither is capitalism! There is a third option, which is called a "mixed" economy. It is this third option that is always attacked by both the Friedmanites and the Marxists because it's considered a mutt breed of ideologies. Funny thing is, I think it works best of all the systems. True laissez faire capitalism is a system of prescribed misery for the majority of the people, as is a totalitarian socialist state. If you meet in the middle, you'll be okay!

I agree with Stossel that, in concept, private ownership can be a good thing. I have no problem with someone owning their own land and discovering the challenges of personal responsibility and stewardship. That's good stuff. However, on a larger scale there needs to be a clear line drawn between public and private ownership, and the public sphere (government) is necessary to regulate what you can and can't do with your land. Yes, you can grow a farm on your land, but there need to be enforced laws making sure that you're not mucking things up for other people. Not every single animal, plant, rock and patch of dirt needs to be "owned" by private interests, and nor should it be.

I disagree with Stossel about how when a resource is publicly owned it is always neglected, but if it is privately owned it will be nurtured. I know of many a gold mine in my part of the world that raped the land for all it was worth in the name of profit and then moved their operation to another area once all the good ore was gone, leaving a gaping scar on the land filled with arsenic. Yup, real good stewardship there! Whether a piece of land or important asset is taken care of doesn't have anything to do with public vs. private. It has everything to do with good and bad management, and there are plenty of arguments and examples of good and bad operations in both camps. 

I believe that certain assets need to be public- school systems, roads, national infrastructure. And yes, healthcare!!! I will say this to my grave!

Define "socialism" and tell me how it differs from the economic system a typical family (two parents, two or three children) practice in their own household (or in Greek: their "economy").

Wikipedia article



"Even today Hardin's essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is a source of controversy. Some of this stems from disagreement about whether individuals will always behave in the selfish fashion posited by Hardin (see discussion below).

More significantly, controversy has been fueled by the "application" of Hardin's ideas to real situations. In particular, some authorities have read Hardin's work as specifically advocating the privatisation of commonly owned resources. Consequently, resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organisations have been enclosed or privatised. Ostensibly this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often appropriating resources and alienating indigenous (and frequently poor) populations. In effect, private or state use repeatedly resulted in worse outcomes than compared to the previous commons management. As Hardin's essay focuses on resources that are fundamentally unmanaged, rather than communally managed, this application of his ideas is misplaced. Ironically, given his original hypothetical example, this misunderstanding of Hardin's ideas is often applied to grazing lands.

More generally, Hardin made it very clear that usage of public property could be controlled in a number of different ways to stop or limit over-usage. As has been pointed out by Natalie Wanis, Hardin's advocacy of clearly defined property rights has frequently been misread as an argument for privatization, or private property, per se. "

The tragedy of the commons does apply to unmanaged public resources. It does NOT apply to state-controlled public resources.

Example:

Public land used for grazing will be subject to the tragedy as all cattle owners try to use it up as quickly as possible so that the others won't.

But if the same public land were state-controlled and rented out to (not owned by) the cattle owners (each will pay the market rent for the part he wants to use), the tragedy does not apply.

The tragedy of the commons teaches us that communism (i.e. anarcho-socialism, I am using the word in its original sense here) doesn't work, but it is a VERY string argument for socialism (i.e. state-sponsored socialism).

In fact renting out the land to cattle owners rather than let each claim as property as much of the unowned land as they can before other people arrive will use the land more efficiently than an ownership system will. Since all the cattle owners have rent to pay, they must use the land they rent, otherwise they are wasting money. But a land owner (alodial title with no mortgage) can leave his land lie unused, waiting for the price to rise (land becomes scarce since supply is constant but demand goes up as the population grows). Economic inefficiency translates into profit for the land owner.

Hence the tragedy of the commons shows us that communism (see above) doesn't work, that socialism does work and that capitalism is inefficient.

If there is a price to pay for using the land, people will use the land efficiently. If there is no price to pay for all, people will overuse it (communism). If there is no price to pay for some, people will underuse it (capitalism).

Not the point Draginol wanted to make, I suppose.

(Note that this is a philosophical point. The tax system is not grazing land. Draginol's point applies to taxes and the tragedy of the commons gedanken experiment can be used to prove it. But the tragedy of the commons does NOT in general show that socialism doesn't work, quite the opposite is true.)

I believe that all necessary and natural monopolies should be owned/controlled by the state. Everything else should be owned privately with no state interference.

Necessary monopolies include the military, the police, and government. Natural monopolies include land, other natural resources, distances between places (used for cables, bridges), the environment, and streets.

Health care is neither a necessary nor natural monopoly, although a state-sponsored health care system has great advantages. Nobody wants to be seriously sick AND have to worry about whether he signed the right insurance contract and how to get the insurance company to pay NOW and not a few weeks later; and competing against each other for medicines is just stupid for customers and will make medicines more expensive.

I also feel that most people are really underqualified to make the right decisions when it comes to health care. I certainly don't know whether I want a health insurance that pays for any (random chemical formula) I might require or not.

Diseases also spread, which means that a person unable to pay for his medicines can be a danger to the rest of us (as are those who refuse to vaccinate their children).

I believe that all necessary and natural monopolies should be owned/controlled by the state. Everything else should be owned privately with no state interference.

I wont go that far (no state interference), but just barely.  Anti-Trust is state interference, yet for a common good.  The problem is that in all applications, the law of ownership applies to the state.  The state may own it, but they do not control it.  Bureaucracies do, and they have no incentive to manage the asset wisely or efficiently.  Their incentive is not the wise management, but increased control (increased control leads to larger responsibilities and hence more money and power). And that is where Socialism breaks down.

As far as I'm concerned when I PAY to rent a car the payment I make includes a wash. Why the heck would I pay someone more money to wash something that I feel I already paid to be washed. If the rental company wants me to wash it they should put that in the agreement. Now, if you mean leasing a car, which I actually do, in fact I lease 2 cars, then I wash them regularly.

"nobody ever washes a rental car".

That reminds me of back before I learned about other religions and their practices.  I always heard the phrase "give it up for lent"... not knowing any other meaning of the word "Lent", I thought it meant giving up on ever getting something back, just like when you "lent" something to someone. ;~D

So they say, but I have yet to see anecdotal evidence or a moral case for anti-trust laws (except those regarding natural resources).

All state interference is for the "common good". People disagree what the common good is, though.

I believe the state should use its monopsony power to influence the market. I.e. I would propose laws that prohibit the state from buying from the market leader, except for military, police, medical, and disaster recovery equipment.



State ownership does not necessarily imply state oversight. I would simply rent out everything to individual title owners or corporations. The rent the government would get is a result of market forces (highest bidder gets the resource) and might be more than enough to pay for all government services. Hence all other form of taxation could be abolished.

I would simply rent out everything to individual title owners or corporations.

But that comes back to again who is monitoring the renting.  Bureaucrats.  And goes back to my contention before.  They have no interest in the asset, and will not manage its rental or usage for the betterment of anyone but their own powerbase.

And you are right on Common good.

In fact, people do wash rental cars. Link I don't know if people find it easy to believe the opposite because our culture promotes self-interest, or because it helps validate selfish behavior if you believe everyone else is doing it.

I don't believe Stossel's idea of "you need to privatize the commons!" makes sense. In specific, I think cattle wander too much and fencing is too expensive (before the invention of barbed wire) to make fencing up the commons viable. In a larger sense, if something is "excludable" so that it's possible for one person to prevent another person from using it (like with a fence), then that thing does not meet the definition of a commons, or public good.

I don't quite understand how his example of giving villagers property rights in elephants works. The villagers can sell hunting rights to an elephant for $10,000. But how do they keep the elephant from wandering away to Botswana and getting hunted there? Better to sell him off right away than hope he hangs around your area long enough to reproduce. I followed his link but it wasn't quite enough to explain why it works.

The same people currently overlook ownership titles. I expect about the same amount of bureaucracy (or rather a lot less) and corruption. They will have nothing to do with how the resources are used, they will simply collect the rent/taxes.

I am saying it will be "a lot less", because the system would get rid of all the bureaucracy involved with income and sales taxes. The government need not know how much you make, only how much (land/other natural resources) you use. It will not need to know how much your house is worth, only the value of the land it's standing on. You will not have to hire anybody to help you find out whether you paid too much or not enough taxes on your income or property, because the amount is very clearly visible to you, the government, and everybody.

Everyone currently involved with income or salex taxes in anyway could find _gainful_ employment in the economy instead.

We would get rid of the most complicated taxes, the most intrusive government agency, and unused land (nobody will simply keep land around and not use it if it costs rent or taxes do so), and we would gain thousands of new workers currently employed directly or indirectly by or for the current tax system.



Indeed.