Ouch. My rather innocent posting commenting on the notions  
of a social contract and a common will seems to have been  
read as an attack on democracy, and probably on motherhood  
and apple pie as well. It wasnt meant that way. It really  
wasnt. I think this thread is in danger of drifting away  
from the interests of the HES group, but let me put the  
record straight.  
  Economic theory seems to have established that private  
provision of public goods is inefficient. I dont know the  
history of that result in detail, but it has been at least  
implicitly understood for a long time. However, there has  
never been a concensus among economists about what should be  
done, because, I was trying to suggest, there isnt an easy  
answer. I think Mary Schweitzer is trying to suggest that it  
is easy, and that one can readily tell when a government is  
serving the 'common will', and when it is not. The point of  
my mention of Arrow is that there may not be any clear cut  
answer. Theoretical discussions of free riding do indeed  
show that it may be rational for people to agree to be  
coerced (compelled, required, whatever word you like), but  
dont help in telling us what it is that they should agree  
to be coerced to do. Discussion leading to consensus on some  
policy issue is an ideal solution, but it doesnt generally  
work in large and diverse communities (does it? Is there  
consensus in the US now, for example, as to the proper role  
of government?). Two points relevant to the HES group:  
first, economists have been grappling with this issue for  
centuries. Many have thought that the costs of state action  
often outweigh the benefits. Rent seeking is surely a real  
phenomenon, and one that economists have been aware of,  
informally at least, since before Adam Smith. That doesnt  
say it is the only relevant phenomenon - see above. Second,  
political philosophers have also grappled with these sorts  
of questions, and have said a lot that is relevant about  
notions like 'social contract' and 'common will'. They, of  
course, havent reached any sort of consensus either. 
  Hence, to go back to Mary Schweitzer's original posting,  
any claim that economics shows that state intervention is  
necessarily bad is a falsification of both the history and  
the present state of the discipline. But that is about as  
far as we can go. 
   Tony Brewer, Bristol