----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Patrick, I have already said all I have to say about the math issue vis a vis this matter, so let's stick to verbalizations by Samuelson. In an earlier post I quoted Samuelson directly from his original article. I shall not quote directly again, but simply restate. I fully agree that his upfront definition is rather vague. But in his discussion of why he saw a problem for the "spontaneous decentralized solution," he posited the possibility of everybody internalizing somehow a bureaucrat's optimal solution, but then rejects this on the basis that individuals will be able to "snatch some selfish benefits" by departing from such behavior. Again, I see this as arising not from non-rivalry, but indeed from non- excludability, even if Samuelson did not use this terminology or proceed to analyze all kinds of property rights solutions to this problem. Do you see this terminology on his part as posing anything other than the non-excudability problem? I remind that Samuelson admits that it may be that few goods fit the polar cases he described and analyzed. However, I think many of us feel that this polar categorization was worthwhile because it did highlight certain essential aspects of the problem. Indeed, I would submit that the Samuelsonian analysis is still useful even in a purely privatized world of clubs which form to provide goods or services that have some kind of (purely local presumably) "collective" aspect (if I dare use that word at all). Thus, we have gated communities providing their own law and order, as well as streets, etc. I gather this is the sort of thing that you have in mind, right, that Samuelson and I and everybody else should have open minds about, right? So, even in such a world, the question arises as to how the gated community is to decide how much it is to spend on hiring the private police who guard their gates and enforce the restrictive covenants and anti-noise rules that the gated community adopts? Samuelson's argument that it should be the sum of the willingnesses to pay of those involved still seems to be the relevant solution. What other is there? Now you pose as a way of ejecting someone from being defended against a life-destroying nuclear attack (or from a life-destroying asteroid hit), putting them in jail or killing them. Now, I grant, that threatening such actions might well induce them to pay up to the private provider of such defenses. But these will still not prevent the from being protected against a life-destroying nuclear attack (or a life-destroying asteroid hit), although killing them would make the whole issue moot. But, I note that authorities that have the right to kill people are known as states and do so according to laws. A private entity that abrogates to itself the right to kill people that do not go along with group decisions about the provision of goods would certainly be a state for all practical purposes, even if it called itself something else. Finally, with regard to the nuclear war example. It is certainly true that the original rationale for nuclear weapons arose in a context of "us against them," in which presumably somebody could be made to not be "defended" by expelling them from the country (in which case, they would probably not be subject to nuclear attack anyway). But, because of ignorance and prisoners' dilemma problems we ended up with a situation where deterring a nuclear attack in fact meant deterring against a globally life-destroying event. Nobody can be excluded from the benefits of that, as long as nuclear arsenals and their delivery systems remain large enough to bring about such an outcome. Even those who are killed by the state are still not excluded from being defended against such attack (or their posthumous remains). BTW, I think that this will be my last post on this topic, unless something especially new or insightful is said. Barkley Rosser James Madison University ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]