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The Economics and Ethics of Public Goods: a Praxeological This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Economics and Ethics of Public Goods A Praxeological Analysis Wisniewski, Jakub Bozydar Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to: Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 06. Nov. 2017 The Economics and Ethics of Public Goods: A Praxeological Analysis Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski Department of Political Economy King’s College London Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2015 1 Abstract The aim of the present thesis is to investigate the putative theoretical desirability, both from the economic and the ethical point of view, as well as the practical inevitability of the presence of a monopoly of force in any given system of political economy. The primary methodological tool used for this purpose, described in Chapter 1, is praxeological analysis in the spirit of the Austrian School of Economics, coupled with the analysis of institutional robustness of the relevant economic and social frameworks. Chapter 2 presents a general theoretical critique of the neoclassical theory of public goods. Chapters 3 and 4 make the critique in question more specific and practically grounded by analyzing the ways in which the two most paradigmatic public goods in the neoclassical theory – namely, law and defense – could be effectively produced in a contractual, entrepreneurial order of legal polycentrism. Chapter 5 tackles the claim that, while not necessary for the production of public goods, monopolies of force are nonetheless inevitable due to the combined influence of the iron law of oligarchy and the collective action problem. Finally, Chapter 6 tries to pin down various ethical conceptions of public goods and argue that none of them can sustain the notion that a fully voluntary and contractual social order generates a tradeoff between efficiency and equity, which can be countered only by corrective interventions of a monopoly of force. The final conclusion of the present thesis is that neither economic nor ethical considerations surrounding the notion of public goods establish the desirability or inevitability of the existence of territorial monopolies of force, thus lending support to the suggestion that the emergence of a world-wide contractual, competitive, entrepreneurial order of legal polycentrism would be a welcome alternative. 2 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted anywhere for any award. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged. During the course of writing this thesis, I turned parts of it into papers published in peer- reviewed academic journals, all single-authored. Below is their complete list: 1. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Legal Polycentrism, the Circularity Problem, and the Regression Theorem of Institutional Development’, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 17, 4 (2014), 510–8. 2. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Defense as a Private Good in a Competitive Order’, Review of Social and Economic Issues, 1, 1 (2014), 3-35. 3. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘The Methodology of the Austrian School of Economics: The Present State of Knowledge’, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review, 20, 1 (2014), 39-54. 4. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Legal monocentrism and the paradox of government’, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 16, 4 (2013), 459-78. 5. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Non-excludability, Externalities, and Entrepreneurship – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Common Goods’, Journal of Prices & Markets, 1, 1 (2013), 57-68. 6. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Nonrivalness, Subjectivity and Capital – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Club Goods’, New Perspectives On Political Economy, 9, 1-2 (2013), 24-37. 7. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘On Regime Uncertainty and Legal Entrepreneurship’, Independent Review, 17, 2 (2012), 253-6. 3 8. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Robust Political Economy and the Question of Motivations’, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 14, 1 (2011), 56-65. 9. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Well-Being and Objectivity’, Libertarian Papers, 3, 7 (2011). 10. Wisniewski, J. B., ‘Well-informedness and rationality: a philosophical overview’, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 12, 3 (2009), 43-56. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 7 1.1 Project overview .................................................................................................. 7 1.2 The methodology of the Austrian School of Economics ................................... 18 Chapter 2: An Austrian Critique of the Theory of Public Goods .................................. 42 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 42 2.2 Non-rivalness, subjectivity and capital – the theory ......................................... 44 2.3 Non-rivalness, subjectivity and capital – the application .................................. 50 2.4 Non-excludability, externalities and entrepreneurship – the theory ............... 54 Chapter 3: Defense as a Private Good in a Competitive Order.................................... 71 3.1 Non-excludability, externalities and entrepreneurship – the application ........ 71 3.2 Short-range protection goods ........................................................................... 74 3.3 Mid-range protection goods .............................................................................. 76 3.4 Long-range protection goods ............................................................................ 85 Chapter 4: Law as a Private Good in a Competitive Order .......................................... 96 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 96 4.2 Legal polycentrism and victimless crimes ....................................................... 103 4.3 Legal monocentrism and the paradox of government .................................... 105 4.4 Other objections to legal polycentrism ........................................................... 115 4.5 Legal entrepreneurship and regime uncertainty ............................................ 120 4.6 Legal polycentrism and contractarianism…………………………………………………….123 5 Chapter 5: Ideas, Institutions, and Preferences ......................................................... 129 5.1 Predation, not protection: the inevitabilist challenge .................................... 129 5.2 Answering the challenge: the importance of preferences .............................. 131 5.3 Collective action, cooperation, and collusion ................................................. 147 5.4 The circularity problem ................................................................................... 148 Chapter 6: The Ethics of Legal and Protective Polycentrism ..................................... 154 6.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 154 6.2 Moral philosophy, Austrian economics, and rationality ................................. 155 6.3 Well-being and objectivity ............................................................................... 168 6.4 Robust political economy and the question of motivations ........................... 175 6.5 Legal polycentrism, the veil of ignorance, and brute luck .............................. 180 Chapter 7: Conclusion ................................................................................................ 190 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 196 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 1. 1 Project overview The aim of the present thesis is to investigate the putative theoretical desirability and practical inevitability of the presence of a monopoly of force in any given system of political economy and argue against both, utilizing for that purpose the theoretical apparatus and analytical insights of praxeology, i.e., the logical “science of human action” (Lachmann 1951), exemplified especially by economic thinking in the tradition of the Austrian School of Economics.1 In addition, on the methodological front I shall adopt the strategy of making my arguments maximally robust by assuming that the contingent elements of human character in any given
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