So...I was going to address this particular theme I was seeing, and then these wondrous intertubes graced me with a comment that seemed to echo about anything worth saying on my end. So I thought I'd share said poster's thoughts here.
One commenter, responding to a cross-post of the original HuffPo article at BHL claims the following:
"Yes, the public has built some bad things, and some unnecessary things, along with the many good and useful and necessary things its has built. All of the things the public has built have influenced the outcomes individuals have achieved, and in some very frequent cases have been causally necessary conditions for the achievement of those outcomes."
And then the voice in my head that must have been parading as another commenter responds:
"Even if you believe that, don't you find it troubling (logically if not morally) that the end result is a situation where one party holds an open-ended claim against another?
Consider a non-state example. There are many businesses who owe their prosperity to Facebook advertising, and they've all paid some mutually agreed sum for that advantage. What if Mark Zuckerberg falls on hard times a decade from now, and shows up at their collective doorstep saying "...this network of information, this means of influencing people, you didn't build that, so it seems only right you should now be asked to pay me more."
Immediately you would see the problem with this reasoning: it has no end. If Zuckerberg somehow manages to beg a few extra dollars from these clients, surely he will come back to beg again. And why shouldn't he keep coming, if they are foolish enough to accept a retroactive adjustment of his price?
Surely you can see how much worse the problem would be if a) the advertisers never had a choice about using Facebook to begin with, and b) if Zuckerberg could simply force people to pay his new and infinitely adjustable price.
So...why is this argument any better when the party making happens to be the state?"
This.
This a thousand times.
"Even if you believe that, don't you find it troubling (logically if not morally) that the end result is a situation where one party holds an open-ended claim against another?... So...why is this argument any better when the party making happens to be the state?"
ReplyDeleteThis is silly rather than profound.
1) The claims are not "open-ended" -- they are negotiated in a political process in which everyone has a chance to say where they end.
2) The state is not a private party amongst other private parties in society, it is the institutional articulation of the society's corporate existence.
1) Um. That sounds pretty "open-ended" to me. Or at least it's much more open-ended in comparison to most transactions over the market; where what is actually owed or due is generally known (and resolved) at the time of purchase, or where at least there is some explicit contractual agreement between the parties involved. Simply pointing out that politically connected or empowered groups/individuals have varied amounts of control with regards to the (often continual) re-shaping of the claim doesn't make it any less open-ended. Indeed, I think you're just illuminating the problem. If the customers of Burger King decided (democratically) on one day that Burger King owed them a free shake with every meal and then a week later decided (democratically) that Burger King owed them $10 rebates with every purchase, and continued to hold such contestable claims ad infinitum...I'm sure maybe the owners could be consoled when you tell them, "Not to worry - it's not really open-ended! The process could end any time WE say it does. And, guess what, you get a vote too!" I wouldn't bank on it though.
ReplyDelete2.) You're right in that it certainly isn't the same, nominally. It's worse. As he later points out...
"Surely you can see how much worse the problem would be if a) the advertisers never had a choice about using Facebook to begin with, and b) if Zuckerberg could simply force people to pay his new and infinitely adjustable price.
So...why is this argument any better when the party making happens to be the state?"