Comments on: Religiously Exclusive Housing Projects

By: antish

antish — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 22:39:07 +0000

Harry, can you elaborate on “the left” supporting apartheid? That isn’t how I remember it. In fact the big scare lie about Mandela was that he was a communist.

By: antish

antish — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 22:34:29 +0000

I can’t be bothered thinking about whether or not the public good can be quantified, but I don’t need to, as your argument implies that unless something can be quantified it doesn’t exist. That’s patently nonsense.

By: Harry

Harry — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:23:43 +0000

Apartheid is inherently inefficient and that is why it will always fail. The unions and left were the biggest supporters of apartheid btw, just as they supported the white australia policy.

By: Cinna

Cinna — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:19:59 +0000

“There is no such quantifiable thing as ‘The Public Good‘. Therefore, there is no such motivation as for ‘The Public Good‘.”
Is this an example of political sloganeering, perhaps? I doubt if anyone would argue that “The phrase implies that the entire public will benefit from whatever venture is being put forward” except the most ardent individualist or the most ardent statist for very different reasons, and surely it is probabilistic rather than quantifiable? Does the phraes derive from Bentham’s- equally unverifiable “greatest good of the greatest number”, perhaps? The fact that many things are advocated as being “for the public good”- meaning for the benefit of most of the public or being so much better for those members of the public that benefit than harmful to those members that do not benefit that the first easily outweighs the second- that are not actually “for the public good” means we should examine such claims carefully rather than accepting or discounting them uncritically. Perhaps a better and more easily verified measure is “the public harm”, but that needs a lot more thought and examination than there is time for here.
In the original instance here, people are entitled to live with who they please if they do so at their own expense and without requiring public subsidy; however, other people are entitled not to help them do so and are entitled to demand the right to live in non-exclusive areas. The main reason apartheid- and I agree it was curious to cite it as a positive example- collapsed was that it was economically inefficient and divisive where people did not want division.

By: Eudaemonion

Eudaemonion — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:26:58 +0000

There is no such quantifiable thing as 'The Public Good'. Therefore, there is no such motivation as for 'The Public Good'. The phrase implies that the entire public will benefit from whatever venture is being put forward, which is never the case. Its always a section of the public benefiting, already disqualifying the venture as being for 'The Public Good'. With the benefits being distributed by politicians, you can bet its geared towards securing votes, making it more a political exercise of patronage, which continues to make a mockery of the very idea of 'The Public Good'. But then again, jingoistic political sloganeering is a favourite of the Statists.

By: GMan

GMan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:15:17 +0000

Especially given where pursuit of dividends has led us in recent times.. cough…

By: antish

antish — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:41:09 +0000

Actually, I can’t imagine a system where the public did not fund roads (unless there were to be no roads at all). It’s merely a matter of whether the people who pay for those roads are called ‘taxpayers’ or ‘consumers’. I’d much prefer that the motivation of the people building the roads was ‘the public good’ rather than ‘this year’s dividend’.

By: Eudaemonion

Eudaemonion — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:31:33 +0000

It is highly questionable to have publically funded anything, but that is an entirely different issue.

By: Theo

Theo — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:59:37 +0000

It is highly questionable as to whether there should be any publicly funded roads at all.

By: antish

antish — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:21:29 +0000

Amir, given the amount of money to be made out of sueing over racial discrimination, I doubt that a large community would get away with a racial/religious selling policy for long.

Also, why WOULD a large ghetto have to pay for its own roads etc? What does it take to be recognized as a local government and get state and federal funding? Presumably it’s merely a matter of the size of the population.