I’m not a principled libertarian who will defend the “free market” consistently (in fact, I think the very notion is rather incoherent), but the sort of “engineering” you’re talking about runs into two problems:
We still lack the epistemological means to obtain the expertise necessary for such engineering, except for some basic simple insights that were already known to governments of civilized countries centuries ago. Insofar as any economic engineering interventions have been successful historically, they have been based on this ancient common-sense knowledge. Practically all the other stuff dreamed up by economists during the last hundred (or maybe even two hundred) years is a frightful abomination of cargo-cult science, anti-epistemology, and rationalizations for ideology and rent-seeking. (This also goes for the bulk of “social science” in general.)
Even insofar as such expertise can be obtained, there is still the problem that the intervention must be executed by a realistic government, whose agents have their own venal interests and ideological aims (and delusions). And given the above-described state of the economic “science,” even the most delusional ideology and the most blatant venal interest can be given a perfectly respectable veneer of “scientific” economics, if only some high-status and appropriately credentialed economists will vouch for it. So even insofar as we have some sound insights about the possible interventions, they are unlikely to be recognized as such unless there’s a lucky alignment of interests and incentives. (But that is extremely unlikely in contemporary political systems.)
So, basically, you can see my view as roughly equivalent to someone who is sick but lives in a society where the only physicians available are crazed charlatans and superstitious witch-doctors (and where, in addition, institutionalized incentives are strongly against anything resembling valid medicine). Passively hoping for mercy from Azathoth (i.e. that your immune system will win out on its own) may well be the most rational strategy in this situation.
I understand this point of view, but it doesn’t feel to really watch the situation we are in right now.
We are more like with current medicine : we don’t yet how to build a purely synthetic body that will not age, be sick, tired, … and the best we have is the Azathoth-built biological frame, but yet we can do lots to improve that biological frame (like vaccines) or fix its flaws (glasses, painkillers, pacemaker).
Looking at the world, we can see that even if not perfect, there are many cases of things which are done “outside of the market” but does works, from CERN to Appolo project, EDF/SNCF as I said in my original comment, European-style universal healthcare, … it feels to me that being libertarian in this context is more like akin to refusing vaccines and keeping Azathoth alone.
And it also strikes me as odd that while here at LW we are so enthusiast in mind upload and the like (to fix what Azathoth did imperfectly in our bodies) the common LW opinion is much more to keep Azathoth for the economy than to try to think and test alternatives.
Blood transfusions often failed before we knew about blood groups, but the rational reaction was to consider that sometimes they succeed, and try to tell when they fail and when they succeed, so you can use them, not giving up.
Looking at the world, we can see that even if not perfect, there are many cases of things which are done “outside of the market” but does works, from CERN to Appolo project, EDF/SNCF as I said in my original comment, European-style universal healthcare, … it feels to me that being libertarian in this context is more like akin to refusing vaccines and keeping Azathoth alone.
When you mentioned economic “engineering,” the first thing that occurred to me were various schools of macroeconomics and their proposed measures for economic planning via monetary, fiscal, trade, and other policies. Speaking as someone who has spent considerable effort trying to make sense of this supposed “science,” I really don’t see anything there but pseudoscience driven by ideology, hubris, political expediency, and rent-seeking.
What you mention here, however, is in the domain of those much older kinds of interventions that I spoke of: public infrastructure spending, wealth redistribution, and patronage of arts and sciences. Unlike the modern macroeconomic “science,” you could have an interesting discussion about those even with an ancient Roman statesman. I am definitely not opposed to them in principle, and I think they should be judged on a case-by-case basis.
However, I believe you are far too optimistic in evaluating the outcomes of the contemporary such policies. For example, if properly done, government patronage of science can work wonders, but if not, it can give rise to a diabolical system of perverse incentives that will thoroughly corrupt the entire field of science in question—and in a way that will still make it look fully legitimate to the general public, and make the critics who understand the terrible truth seem like laughable crackpots. Similar things can be argued about other government enterprises too, with corruption and disastrous bungling often rampant under a veneer of perfect respectability and (often sincerely deluded) pretense of success. And while we clearly won’t agree about the extent this is happening, given the confident off-hand style of your examples, I definitely think you’re badly underestimating this extent.
I’m not a principled libertarian who will defend the “free market” consistently (in fact, I think the very notion is rather incoherent), but the sort of “engineering” you’re talking about runs into two problems:
We still lack the epistemological means to obtain the expertise necessary for such engineering, except for some basic simple insights that were already known to governments of civilized countries centuries ago. Insofar as any economic engineering interventions have been successful historically, they have been based on this ancient common-sense knowledge. Practically all the other stuff dreamed up by economists during the last hundred (or maybe even two hundred) years is a frightful abomination of cargo-cult science, anti-epistemology, and rationalizations for ideology and rent-seeking. (This also goes for the bulk of “social science” in general.)
Even insofar as such expertise can be obtained, there is still the problem that the intervention must be executed by a realistic government, whose agents have their own venal interests and ideological aims (and delusions). And given the above-described state of the economic “science,” even the most delusional ideology and the most blatant venal interest can be given a perfectly respectable veneer of “scientific” economics, if only some high-status and appropriately credentialed economists will vouch for it. So even insofar as we have some sound insights about the possible interventions, they are unlikely to be recognized as such unless there’s a lucky alignment of interests and incentives. (But that is extremely unlikely in contemporary political systems.)
So, basically, you can see my view as roughly equivalent to someone who is sick but lives in a society where the only physicians available are crazed charlatans and superstitious witch-doctors (and where, in addition, institutionalized incentives are strongly against anything resembling valid medicine). Passively hoping for mercy from Azathoth (i.e. that your immune system will win out on its own) may well be the most rational strategy in this situation.
I understand this point of view, but it doesn’t feel to really watch the situation we are in right now.
We are more like with current medicine : we don’t yet how to build a purely synthetic body that will not age, be sick, tired, … and the best we have is the Azathoth-built biological frame, but yet we can do lots to improve that biological frame (like vaccines) or fix its flaws (glasses, painkillers, pacemaker).
Looking at the world, we can see that even if not perfect, there are many cases of things which are done “outside of the market” but does works, from CERN to Appolo project, EDF/SNCF as I said in my original comment, European-style universal healthcare, … it feels to me that being libertarian in this context is more like akin to refusing vaccines and keeping Azathoth alone.
And it also strikes me as odd that while here at LW we are so enthusiast in mind upload and the like (to fix what Azathoth did imperfectly in our bodies) the common LW opinion is much more to keep Azathoth for the economy than to try to think and test alternatives.
Blood transfusions often failed before we knew about blood groups, but the rational reaction was to consider that sometimes they succeed, and try to tell when they fail and when they succeed, so you can use them, not giving up.
When you mentioned economic “engineering,” the first thing that occurred to me were various schools of macroeconomics and their proposed measures for economic planning via monetary, fiscal, trade, and other policies. Speaking as someone who has spent considerable effort trying to make sense of this supposed “science,” I really don’t see anything there but pseudoscience driven by ideology, hubris, political expediency, and rent-seeking.
What you mention here, however, is in the domain of those much older kinds of interventions that I spoke of: public infrastructure spending, wealth redistribution, and patronage of arts and sciences. Unlike the modern macroeconomic “science,” you could have an interesting discussion about those even with an ancient Roman statesman. I am definitely not opposed to them in principle, and I think they should be judged on a case-by-case basis.
However, I believe you are far too optimistic in evaluating the outcomes of the contemporary such policies. For example, if properly done, government patronage of science can work wonders, but if not, it can give rise to a diabolical system of perverse incentives that will thoroughly corrupt the entire field of science in question—and in a way that will still make it look fully legitimate to the general public, and make the critics who understand the terrible truth seem like laughable crackpots. Similar things can be argued about other government enterprises too, with corruption and disastrous bungling often rampant under a veneer of perfect respectability and (often sincerely deluded) pretense of success. And while we clearly won’t agree about the extent this is happening, given the confident off-hand style of your examples, I definitely think you’re badly underestimating this extent.