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Update 2015-01-21-Public-Goods-and-the-Public-Good.md #43

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Expand Up @@ -49,11 +49,11 @@ So to be less ambiguous I will rephrase his statement as follows:

> As far as I know there is no way to protect a community against externalities besides the initiation of force and things that are functionally identical to it.

This statement is clearly wrong has has been proven by Gandhi, Dr. King, and others who have used entirely non-violent means to resolve the negative externalities of governments. Their approach didn’t depend upon unanimous consent and yet was able to apply enough social pressure to cause the government to retreat.
This statement is clearly wrong, which has been proven by Gandhi, Dr. King, and others who have used entirely non-violent means to resolve the negative externalities of governments. Their approach didn’t depend upon unanimous consent and yet was able to apply enough social pressure to cause the government to retreat.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008T2CJ9Q/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B008T2CJ9Q&linkCode=as2&tag=bytesblog-20&linkId=SZMLMJJUP75Y3TKJ"><img style="float:right; margin-left:25px" border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B008T2CJ9Q&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=bytesblog-20" ></a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=bytesblog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B008T2CJ9Q" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
The challenge with Gandhi’s approach is that it only works in extreme situations because of what Harry Browne in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008T2CJ9Q/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B008T2CJ9Q&linkCode=as2&tag=bytesblog-20&linkId=PNA6DQ35L26EP6QT">"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World"</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=bytesblog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B008T2CJ9Q" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
calls the group trap. The costs are born by individuals while the benefits are known as a *public good*. The incentives in his approach are misaligned such that it not profitable for individuals to join the group until they have nothing left to lose.
calls the group trap. The costs are born by individuals while the benefits are known as a *public good*. The incentives in his approach are misaligned such that it is not profitable for individuals to join the group until they have nothing left to lose.

In many ways a government is a much worse offender than the hypothetical factory that is polluting. The government is clearly imposing measurable costs (taxes) extracted at gunpoint from every citizen, while the factory is often imposing hard to measure costs on a much smaller subset of the population. Since we know that non-violent means are often the most effective means of dealing with extremely large and oppressive organizations such as the British Empire then clearly they can be used against much smaller local polluters.

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