A Philosophy Professor Discusses Ayn Rand in his Ethics Class

[Dinwar]

Would it necessarily be just one house though.

See, now you're adding post-hoc alterations to the original discussion, and I can only presume it's in order to demonstrate that Objectivism will fail.

Okay, fine. I agree: if you construct a system designed to cause an Objectivist society to fail, it'll fail. I'm perfectly content admitting that.

Please provide any social model that can't fail when someone decides to construct a situation specifically to cause it to fail.

If you're going to continue to alter the scenario to prevent a workable solution, I have to ask why either of us should bother with the conversation. You're obviously not going to learn anything about Objectivism, and I'm merely attempting to explain what the system is, not describe how it might be implemented. The construction of hypothetical situations specifically designed to cause a system to fail isn't really that useful in determining what the system is--they're only useful once all parties understand the system and want to predict problems before they happen. What you're doing is the equivalent of destruction-testing of a device before you even know what that device is.

If no one in the area wants the road, you're going to have to find a way to construct the road elsewhere, or live without it. The fact that the hypothetical construction manager in this question is too incompetant to do so IN NO WAY permits you to violate the property rights of others.

And it IS incompetance. A competant member of any profession takes into account all applicable data. If they miss something as big as "Do I have permission or a right to do this?" they're incompetant. This is akin to a designer going "Tinsile strength? What's that?"

If you want to run a road or a rail link through a built up area you are going to have to get the agreement of an awful lot of people.

Honest question: How much construction have you been involved with? I ask because this question indicates that it isn't very much. One of the major headaches on every powerline or rail job I've worked on has been obtaining property owner permission. This is the case even where the company already has an easment (they can be lost, or contested, or the owner can have a loaded side-by-side shotgun--I've heard of all three, and seen the first two). You yourself admit that this is also the case in the UK.

That's TODAY'S system. So AT WORST what you're saying is that Objectivism is no worse than what happens today. That's hardly a serious criticism.

 

[Buckaroo]

It's telling that you equate moarlity with altruism. Objectivism rejects that equivalency. If you're not at least willing to acknowledge that we reject it, I'm not sure where this conversation can go.

Sure, I'll acknowledge it -- as long you acknowledge that this rejection is simply an attempt to define away problems for Objectivism.

 

[Dinwar]

Sure, I'll acknowledge it -- as long you acknowledge that this rejection is simply an attempt to use a neologism to define away problems for Objectivism.

You demand that I lie in order to get you to accept that you did something?

No.

Objectivism rejects the equivocation between morality and altruism because they are two different things. Altruism is ONE TYPE OF morality; it is not the only type, nor is it the definition of morality. Objectivism offers a different type of morality. What you're doing is the equivalent of saying "Pork isn't meat; beef means meat, so if you say pork is meat you're doing so to define away your dislike of beef."

Objectivists reject altruism not as an attempt to define away any problems for Objectivism, but because altruism simply doesn't, in their minds, hold up to rigorous analysis. You can agree or disagree with that conclusion, but in order to understand Objectivism you must at minimum accept that the Objectivists are honest in telling you their reasons. If you reject that, no discussion is possible, and there's no point in attempting it.

Please note that I'm not angry here, and I apologize if it sounds like I am (I'm tired, and i haven't slept a full night in a week). I'm merely stating what I consider a self-evident fact: If you're not willing to accept that Objectivists believe what they say, there's no possibility of moving the conversation forward.

 

[remirol]

Catholics believe with all their heart in Big Daddy, Junior, and the Spook too, but that doesn't mean there aren't some obvious factual problems with Catholicism.

More pointedly put: You are not infallible, and others' viewpoint and opinions exist whether or not you agree or disagree with them... no matter how many people you choose to "no longer have the discussion with". Your beliefs on an issue do not make it automatically true or false, and simply because you believe you're telling the truth doesn't mean that what you're saying is true. From the discussions in this thread, it is patently obvious that there are some real problems with Objectivism in a practical sense, and your earlier declaration that you're just saving it from all us hate-mongers who, somehow, ALL fail to understand the True Objectivism™ and are just out to discredit it is starting to ring extremely hollow; so hollow, in fact, that I yelled down it and the echo didn't come back for a week.

Eventually you should seriously consider that your sister and all the rest of us who are pointing out those flaws might... just might... have a point or two.

 

[shuttlt]

See, now you're adding post-hoc alterations to the original discussion, and I can only presume it's in order to demonstrate that Objectivism will fail.

Okay, fine. I agree: if you construct a system designed to cause an Objectivist society to fail, it'll fail. I'm perfectly content admitting that.

I'm not altering the scenario. This was the one that I was talking about. It is hard to implement large scale projects like expanding an airport, or running a road through a built up area, or running a new train line through a city even under the current system in the UK. People who are impacted tend not to like it. Environmental protesters complain. Surely you'd have to have some kind of compulsory purchase process in this system in order to have such projects?

Please provide any social model that can't fail when someone decides to construct a situation specifically to cause it to fail.

I'm not sure that most real world systems strictly adhere to a theoretical model. Certainly lots don't.

The construction of hypothetical situations specifically designed to cause a system to fail isn't really that useful in determining what the system is--they're only useful once all parties understand the system and want to predict problems before they happen. What you're doing is the equivalent of destruction-testing of a device before you even know what that device is.

I certainly don't have a thorough understanding of Objectivism. Further I'd say that not being able to expand an airport, or build new road/train lines theorugh cities isn't necessarily a fail. The world wouldn't end for the lack of these things. It would just be different.

If no one in the area wants the road, you're going to have to find a way to construct the road elsewhere, or live without it. The fact that the hypothetical construction manager in this question is too incompetant to do so IN NO WAY permits you to violate the property rights of others.

The overwhelming majority of people might want it. But it's not hard to imagine infrastructure projects being held up because a small number of people don't want them. It happens now. Some projects are politically impossible as a result. Others I suppose are implemented because of the use of/threat of compulsory purchase.

And it IS incompetance. A competant member of any profession takes into account all applicable data. If they miss something as big as "Do I have permission or a right to do this?" they're incompetant. This is akin to a designer going "Tinsile strength? What's that?"

I don't see that it is incompetence. You want to build a road. You will have to buy all the property along the road. If it goes through a town that will be a heck of a lot of people. By the sound of it you are 100% at the mercy of being able to find a route where 100% of the people are willing to sell.

Honest question: How much construction have you been involved with? I ask because this question indicates that it isn't very much. One of the major headaches on every powerline or rail job I've worked on has been obtaining property owner permission. This is the case even where the company already has an easment (they can be lost, or contested, or the owner can have a loaded side-by-side shotgun--I've heard of all three, and seen the first two). You yourself admit that this is also the case in the UK.

No experience. I agree that it is a huge challenge anyway and many projects under the current system are prevented. Still there is a huge underground train line being put through central London right now. It's at least possible the Heathrow will expand.

That's TODAY'S system. So AT WORST what you're saying is that Objectivism is no worse than what happens today. That's hardly a serious criticism.

But a single granny, or a few grannies in the wrong place, can't prevent the expansion of Heathrow now. She might cause political problems, but if the political will is sufficient she can be made to move. Under objectivism, surely the entire plan would have to be shelved? If I was an environmental campaigner, say, and I didn't want Heathrow to expand (or if I ran Charles de Gaulle airport) couldn't I just buy a bunch of houses here and there around Heathrow and make an expansion impossible?

 

[Dinwar]

I want to emphasize a point in my last post: the Objectivist objection to equating altruism with morality really is because altruism is merely one type of morality. The fact that Objectivists don't hold it isn't a critical issue here: it is fundamentally wrong to assume that one version of morality is the equivalent of the entire field, and Objectivists acknowledge that. Morality is the study of how one should act. Altruism offers one answer, Objectivism another; but it is simply false to say that EITHER constitutes the whole of ethics. It's begging the question--and it's just as wrong to say that Objectivism constitutes the entirety of ethics. I may believe that Objectivistic ethics are the only VALID ethics, but I--and every Objectivist I've met--accept that other views exist, and that their advocates honestly believe them.

Oddly enough, Objectivists are better at this than those who call us dogmatic. Objectivists at least acknowledge that our opposition honestly holds their beliefs--we accept that you genuinely believe what you say. Our objection isn't that you're dishonest, it's that you're wrong. Yet people who oppose Objectivism aren't willing to do the same for us.

 

[Akri]

I'm not altering the scenario.

The initial scenario was "one granny" refusing to sell her house, so you are altering the scenario.

If I was an environmental campaigner, say, and I didn't want Heathrow to expand (or if I ran Charles de Gaulle airport) couldn't I just buy a bunch of houses here and there around Heathrow and make an expansion impossible?

No, you could not "just buy a bunch of houses" anymore than you can now. Sure, it's possible to buy up several houses, but it's not a matter of simply saying "I think I'll buy up some houses" and being done with it. The homeowners need to be willing to sell, and (since you and the construction company both want that land) you need to be able to out-bid the construction company. Basically saying someone trying to stop a construction problem could "just buy a bunch of houses" is no different from saying that the construction company needs to "just buy a bunch of houses".

 

[Myriad]

That's TODAY'S system. So AT WORST what you're saying is that Objectivism is no worse than what happens today. That's hardly a serious criticism.

No, what it means is that Objectivism can be no better than what happens today. If instead of an easement possibly being lost, contested, or illegally resisted with force, it would not exist in the first place, how can that possibly improve the situation?

Similarly, the fact that fire safety regulations are sometimes illegally circumvented by business owners in today's system, resulting in catastrophes, disproves the contention that such business owners would be responsible out of their own self-interest in an Objectivist system in which the regulations didn't exist at all. Removing the regulations can only decrease the self-interest motivation to take fire safety measures.

Ditto with such issues as handicapped access, resource management, and innumerable other circumstances where the self-interested move is to default on the commons. Short-term self-interest even often prevails over long-term self-interest, as demonstrated by historical example after historical example of over-fishing, over-foresting, soil depletion, game depletion, aquifer depletion, brand name devaluation (aka The Sausage Game), de-prioritization of R&D despite changing markets (Kodak, anyone?), under-maintenance of infrastructure, and frivolously acquired personal debt.

You keep repeating an argument that basically amounts to, "in any given case, the worst will not necessarily happen in an Objectivist system, while the worst sometimes does happen in the present system." That is not convincing, especially when criminal acts are involved in the latter.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Akri]

No, what it means is that Objectivism can be no better than what happens today. If instead of an easement possibly being lost, contested, or illegally resisted with force, it would not exist in the first place, how can that possibly improve the situation?

Sword of Apollo (another Objectivist) has argued that easements could exist in an Objectivist society.

 

[Dinwar]

I'm not altering the scenario.

Yes, you are. The original sceanrio was a single home. But this was merely a minor point on my part, to illustrate the problem this line of questioning can easily lead to. I'm happy talking about multiple people refusing to move, or people buying up land to prevent expansions--but I'm not willing to enter into a discussion where the parameters are continuously changed specifically to make O'ism fail, because the end result is obvious to everyone and informative to no one.

Further I'd say that not being able to expand an airport, or build new road/train lines theorugh cities isn't necessarily a fail.

This isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about not being able to build a PARTICULAR airport or road in a PARTICULAR location. Building airports and roads in general isn't an issue--it's relatively easy for people to own or lease sufficient land for even a large airport (ask any farmer).

The overwhelming majority of people might want it.

This is irrelevant. If the overwhelming majority of people wanted to you to be drawn and quartered, would that allow them to do so? This is merely the bandwaggon fallacy.

But it's not hard to imagine infrastructure projects being held up because a small number of people don't want them. It happens now.

Agreed. But I'll continue: Because this is a flaw in the current system, it's not a criticism of Objectivism. It's merely the way the real world works.

I don't see that it is incompetence. You want to build a road. You will have to buy all the property along the road. If it goes through a town that will be a heck of a lot of people. By the sound of it you are 100% at the mercy of being able to find a route where 100% of the people are willing to sell.

You ARE at the mercy of the people who own the property you want to use--in that you cannot utilize it without their permission. But if an engineer is so uncreative that they can only think of a single solution to the problem--if they're so stupid they think they need 100% of the people to agree, and that there's only one route a road can take--they're too stupid to be trusted with a stapler, much less a multi-billion dollar project. The solution is to find alternatives. Maybe you build a tunnel under the home owners' property--or the entire city. Maybe you build OVER the property. Maybe you build AROUND the property. Or maybe you increase the amount you're offering. There are many solutions that don't involve theft.

Not CHEAP solutions, I'll grant you--but I've also never claimed that Objectivism is nice.

Under objectivism, surely the entire plan would have to be shelved?

Surely not! If you have 99% of the people you need, you can GO AROUND. Or, you can build part of it and demonstrate that it's useful--at that point, maybe they'd be willing to sell. Or offer to move the house--we have the technology. Or do SOMETHING ELSE that doesn't inovlve theft.

The fact that you're not allowed to steal the property in no way prevents you from negotiating for it.

If I was an environmental campaigner, say, and I didn't want Heathrow to expand (or if I ran Charles de Gaulle airport) couldn't I just buy a bunch of houses here and there around Heathrow and make an expansion impossible?

Sure. Of course, they do that now, too, so again, this isn't a point against Objectivism (see what happeend with the Hollywood sign for proof). Under Objectivism, if you own the property others have no right to use it unless you deligate a portion of your rights to them. Period. Construction people would have to work with that.

Here's a simple solution: The construction people can buy the property or obtain the easments prior to construction. They can even make the sales dependant upon obtaining all the rights they'll need. If they can't get it, the project fails. If they can, no one will be able to complain. It's a bit tricky, but again, we require that now (in the USA and apparently the UK, at least), so it's obviously not overly onerous. It CAN be done. And if some projects can't be done, oh well.

There's a critical fact you're ignorinig here: You don't have a right to build something merely because you want to, particularly not on someone else's property (on your own your right to build it is dependant upon you having sufficient supplies). The only possible exception would be military installations in a time of war; for civilian construction during peace there's no reason why your desire to build something should trump my property rights. The theft of property to allow for private construction presupposes that your desire to build DOES trump my property rights.

 

[Dinwar]

If instead of an easement possibly being lost, contested, or illegally resisted with force, it would not exist in the first place, how can that possibly improve the situation?

Why wouldn't it exist? They could easily exist in an Objectivist society. I may agree to give you an easment, either for a monthly/yearly/one-time fee (the specifics would be in the contract), or completley for free (if I really support the project or think it'll beneft me in some way). As a property owner I'm perfectly within my rights to allow anyone I want access to my property for any reason I want--including the granting of easments.

You have to ASK, and get my permission, but it's hardly unjustifiable to ask construction crews to obtain permission to enter someone else's property.

 

[shuttlt]

The initial scenario was "one granny" refusing to sell her house, so you are altering the scenario.

I fleshed it out. I was curious about issues of compulsory purchase. I dispute that it is any kind of a modification worth complaining about. I could have argued that you can't necessarily just build the road around the granny, that it really depends where the road is and where the granny is. You might well claim that details were added to the scenario by assuming that the granny didn't live anywhere that caused the road builder any issues. I had falsely assumed that these details would be obvious.

No, you could not "just buy a bunch of houses" anymore than you can now. Sure, it's possible to buy up several houses, but it's not a matter of simply saying "I think I'll buy up some houses" and being done with it. The homeowners need to be willing to sell, and (since you and the construction company both want that land) you need to be able to out-bid the construction company. Basically saying someone trying to stop a construction problem could "just buy a bunch of houses" is no different from saying that the construction company needs to "just buy a bunch of houses".

I might only need to buy one house where the construction company wants to buy. The construction company may very well need to buy all the houses. If I manage to outbid them on one (or perhaps a few) house, they can't proceed.

 

[Akri]

I fleshed it out.

Which is another way of saying you changed the scenario. Note that I'm not saying if that's a bad thing or not, I'm just saying that you did change the scenario.

I might only need to buy one house where the construction company wants to buy.

In what scenario would a single house be able to halt a construction project? Edit: and please try to be specific. This thread already has a few examples of people coming up with hypotheticals to make Objectivism look bad, without being willing to actually examine how the hypothetical could actually work (see: Ronossus).

The construction company may very well need to buy all the houses. If I manage to outbid them on one (or perhaps a few) house, they can't proceed.

I understand this. My point is that saying "I just need to buy a few houses" is no different than if I or Dinwar said "the construction company just needs to buy a few houses". This line of discussion proves that you aren't willing to accept that a construction company would necessarily be able to buy up the houses it needs, so we shouldn't assume that the people trying to halt the construction would be able to buy the houses they need. Either scenario could occur.

 

[Dinwar]

I might only need to buy one house where the construction company wants to buy.

Or you may need to purchase 5,000. My scenario is vastly more likely; it's exceedingly rare that a road can ONLY go in one place. And airports almost never need to go in only one place--you can always put them out in the country and shuttle people into town (either as part of the ticket price, or private cabs can take up the burden).

In looking at a scenerio in which one person shuts down a project you're looking at an exceedingly rare occurrance, and ignoring the overwhelming majority of possible (and likely) situations.

Your dicsussions of a group of people acting together are more likely, but frankly until you buy the house you don't own it, so you may well be out-competed. That's not a crime; it's part of life. [House] As a great poet once said, you can't always get what you want. [/House]And unfullfilled desires do not grant you the right to take other people's property.

 

[marplots]

Did anyone ask about vaccinations yet?

Any way to force immunity on your little vector?

If that's been done, what's the scoop on weapons of mass destruction? Can I make a bio-weapon and then ask people to pay to be protected against my spontaneous urge to release it? Perhaps I shall sell gas masks.

I am interested in the morality here, not just flinging poo at a proposed functional system.

 

[Akri]

Did anyone ask about vaccinations yet?

You cannot force people to vaccinate (well, not adults anyway--not sure if failing to vaccinate children would count as child abuse or not). That said, there are many ways that vaccination could be encouraged. Schools might require them the same as they do now. Many jobs might require vaccination (particularly those that involve working with high-risk people, such as jobs in a hospital or retirement home). Insurance companies may require vaccinations or else they won't cover you or will charge much higher premiums.

If that's been done, what's the scoop on weapons of mass destruction? Can I make a bio-weapon and then ask people to pay to be protected against my spontaneous urge to release it?

That's called "coercion" and would get you sent to jail.

 

[Dinwar]

Did anyone ask about vaccinations yet?

Any way to force immunity on your little vector?

While children have rights, they are not adults and do not have the full rights of an adult. Among those things their parents get to choose for them is medical care. So the whole "your little vector" thing is a non-issue.

Convincing the PARENTS to vaccinate their children is another issue. It's not immoral to be stupid, though I'm not clear on the herd immunity thing (my reaction is that it's merely a nice by-product, and certainly not something you can demand others to maintain).

If that's been done, what's the scoop on weapons of mass destruction? Can I make a bio-weapon and then ask people to pay to be protected against my spontaneous urge to release it? Perhaps I shall sell gas masks.

The majority of weapons of mass destruction are inherently hazardous to own, even if they are never used. They violate the rights of other property owners because they almost always damage the property. For example, they may raise background radiation levels.

If you're in the middle of nowhere and own all the property around you, go for it.

As for the proposed extorsion, I find it odd that you think any Objectivist would think that the threat of the use of force is permissable. I put the part in italics because it's something we tend to harp on, yet you've ignored. OF COURSE threatening to release a bio-weapon unless you're paid is going to be illegal; it's a use of force (don't say it's not; any arguments that it's not are mere self-serving justifications that are composed of pure sophestry), and the initiation of the use of force would be illegal in an Objectivist society. You DO NOT have the right to threaten the lives of others, and you forfet your own right to live in doing so (a right without the right to defend the right is a contradiction).

 

[jimbob]

Fair enough - the point still stands that there would be other monopolies that would occur* and as far as I can see, the solution would always involve infringing the property rights of the monopolists. This isn't a problem for a non-objectivist system.


*some future potential monopolies are unforeseeable - for example predicting the dominance of wintel or itunes from the 1950s would have been difficult to put it mildly.

Coercive monopolies on important goods are actually only possible where government has the power to regulate. (Railroads where government granted land solely for building them; telephone monopolies; US Postal Service, etc.) They won't occur in a free market. Without governmental force to bar competitors from the market, there is always competitive pressure to maintain efficiency. A monopoly in a free market is a good thing, because it means that the company is extremely good at producing efficiently and giving customers good prices.

I'm not sure how you can argue this whilst previously recognising that you needed a workaround to avoid "property entrapment".

That was a natural monopoly on transport to a particular place.

The game of monopoly allows someone to gain a stranglehold through a little strategy and a lot of luck. No rules need be broken for this to occur.

If there is an industry with low barriers to entry, then monopolies are hard to establish.

If an industry has high barriers to entry then monopolies (or oligopolies) are easy to establish.

A state of the art 12-inch silicon wafer fab costs the wrong side of $4-billion last time I looked. Intel can afford this, Samsung can afford this, and TSMC can afford this. Precious few other established semiconductor companies can afford this. How can some new semiconductor company persuade their backers to shell out that much capital investment to compete with one of these big players? This is even more the case because even if you have spent this money, you still need to know how to run and develop the processes - there is a lot of unpatented inhouse knowledge that is considered very sensitive. There is a very thin line between boom and bus - the fab running at 95% capacity could be booming, whilst running at 80% capacity could be hemorrhaging cash. No sane investor - other than governments will put their money to compete with this group.

Incidentally - that is how several big players started.​

If one company can control every bit of a resource, then that means the resource is very rare. Very rare resources in a large world--by the fact that they are very rare--are not essential for human life. (People can only live within reach of a source of something essential to human life.)

A company's patent monopoly is limited to a new and unique product. If the product is new and unique, then it is not essential for human life. It was recently made possible by the inventor.

From the Wikipedia article on Rockefeller you quoted in post #359:

It kept oil prices low to stave off competitors, made its products affordable to the average household, and to increase market penetration, sometimes sold below cost if necessary.
...
Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy. Standard’s most potent weapons against competitors were underselling, differential pricing, and secret transportation rebates. The firm was attacked by journalists and politicians throughout its existence, in part for these monopolistic methods, giving momentum to the anti-trust movement. By 1880, according to the New York World, Standard Oil was "the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country."

Where's the part where Rockefeller arbitrarily raises his oil prices above where the market price was before he was in the industry? I don't see it anywhere in the article. Rockefeller increased oil output and reduced oil prices, yet was attacked for it. (Why? For now, I'll point out that this mentality was what Ayn Rand called "the divine right of stagnation." Also, the morality of altruism sanctions the sacrifice of the successful businessman to those businessmen of lesser ability.)

Local monopolists have done that throughout history. Also you seem to be arguing that Rockefeller used his wealth for the good of the market.

Of course, cartels are another aspect that would occur in an objectivist society.

Suppose there were a few large car makers: (FMW, Gord, Teneral Motors and Boyota). They could compete, but they might find it easier to come to an agreement on the minimum price of cars and/or maximum features and guarantee them each a known slice of cake. They could also combine to shut down any newcomers to the market by co-ordinated action.

In a free market, there are always more jobs for those in competitor companies who are displaced. The human need for production is unlimited. It is intelligent labor that is scarce.

I recommend reading Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Rand and The Capitalist Manifesto by Bernstein.

A lot of the arguments warning against monopolistic practices are in The Wealth of Nations, as well as subsequent economics books.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

 

[jimbob]

If there are two factories both producing the same sort of widget

The first is owned by Mr Scrupulous, which is run with a view to long term sustainability.

The second is owned by Ms Flaky which cuts corners (not breaking any laws, but taking risks with the production process, for which she'll be liable).

She makes the widget at 50% the cost of Mr Scrupulous, and thus builds up a large market share. Mr Scrupulous can afford to run his factory at a loss for two years. Ms Flaky's cost stucture means that whilst she's producing widgets, the price is below that which Mr Scrupulous can afford.

However Ms Flaky is taking risks, and every year there is a 10% chance of a catastrophic meltdown destroying her factory, and polluting the drinking water of the neighbouring town.

There is an 81% chance that Ms Flaky's gamble will pay off and her business will outlast Mr Scrupulous's.

However there is a 19% chance that her factory will go up in smoke and she'll be liable for massive damages (which she can't afford, but hey it a gamble she is willing to make with other people's wellbeing).

This is an extreme example, but how does an objectivist deal with such issues. What would be the answer if it was a 1% risk per year instead of 10%?

 

[remirol]

However there is a 19% chance that her factory will go up in smoke and she'll be liable for massive damages (which she can't afford, but hey it a gamble she is willing to make with other people's wellbeing).

Of course, this raises the much more real but tangential issue: How do you deal with the blood-from-a-stone problem? It seems like an environment in which all sorts of things which, insufficiently tested, can be handled extremely cheaply by the manufacturer... but pushing the potential cost to the consumer, and there simply won't be enough money to sue back from the offender if things go wrong, leaving everyone screwed.

In this case, Ms. Flaky has every incentive to shove the risk downstream to her customers, because if she doesn't succeed (due to risk getting her in the jibblies and half her clients developing green pus-filled boils), there won't be anything worthwhile to get back from her -- if she _does_ succeed, though, then she can trivially drive Mr. Scrupulous right out of business in the process, despite doing it wrong.

Rational? Well, actually, yes... sociopathic, but rational. Of course, this goes back to my prior message where assuming rational actors is a howling mistake.