lol zan still hasn't read it, stunning

I have 50 ppp so no

but yeah no, there is no evidence of a faulty reducio I've seen yet. Cite?

In ACLand you don't have to follow THE MAN'S CALENDAR, man. It's Friptratuary.

Functional illiteracy in this thread.

State schools, son.

I don't think all of it needs to be moved...

Hey zan nen,

I wrote why I thought Block's reductio is invalid. You obviously disagree, please elaborate on where my critique of Block is wrong.

you better cite specific quotations of mjkidd's critique, or there'll be hell to pay.

This is just wrong. The problem isn't a lack of compensation (remunerated isn't quite the right word here, btw, because money itself doesn't matter) for an externality (that would mean he would want, like, a tort system (your honor, the charge is "bread sniffing without paying")). Externalities are just irrelevant. Unproduction is guaranteed by the nature of the good itself, not some externalities associated with its consumption or production. Not sure how else to explain this; you're just looking at it wrong. And I mean, that's fine; it took me a while of thinking on my own after having it explained to grasp what was going on.

But it also entails that you don't have the critical apparatus to assess the academic integrity of articles about economics. So that makes it seem that someone like Walter Block, who seems to know what he's talking about but actually is confused (or, more likely, willfully confused), is operating on the same level as, like, John Maynard Keynes. But in reality Block is confused, and this fact would be obvious to anyone with an undergraduate degree in economics. No, I don't care about his credentials; I'm just right.

And before you complain: there is no other good way to explain this at this point in the debate.

See above, or get an introductory micro textbook and read it cover to cover.

By "the nature of the good itself" I assume you mean that the good is non-excludable. Which is to say, a public good provides benefit to all members of society, or some subset of society, and the producer of the good cannot prevent this from happening given the non-excludable nature of the public good. This non-excludable benefit that the public good provides society is clearly an example of an externality. First sentence of wiki on externality:

Do you agree that the benefit a public good provides to society is an example of an externality? If so, how am I looking at things wrong?

It's a little more complicated than that but it's kinda tough to explain in forum posts.

But I'm certainly not wrong that the societal benefit that a public good provides is an example of an externality, right?

Technically, transactions have externalities. Goods are either public or private. Like national defense is a public good, so building an aircraft carrier is production of a private good with externalities.

Seriously this stuff is like "thinking like an economics dude" level stuff, it's not something that just clicks for people. It's not even advanced econ, but it's fundamental econ.

The transaction for, say, a road would be the government paying the contractor to build the road. People driving on that road after it is completed are 3rd parties not involved in the transaction who are benefiting from that transaction; they are enjoying an externality. So fine, "public goods" don't have externalities associated with them, but certainly "production of public goods" does have associated externalities. The entire societal benefit associated with a public good is an externality of the transaction that originated the production of that public good.

And am I correct in the following? The monetary value of the externality associated with the production of a public good compared to the revenue that the producer of the good would realize from the good is what determines to what extent a good with public good characteristics would be underproduced.

No.

A transaction will take place (and the good produced) when the producer gets paid (enough) by the consumer. Here, externalities are irrelevant -- by definition, they involve other people.

(Imagine a world in which everyone must agree before any transaction takes place. Now imagine that that doesn't add to transaction costs. There are no more externalities; the "problem of externalities" is solved, but crucially the underproduction caused by "free rider problem" is not. Considering the case of negative externality may help to clarify this for you. See, for example Coase. The "good link" in the below post is good, and hopefully pretty comprehensible.)

The value of the externality associated with the production of the public good does not affect how much of the good is produced, but certainly it affects the "socially optimal" level of production of the good?

Also, how is a free rider not someone benefiting from an externality? He is a third party not involved in a transaction benefiting from that transaction.

which nobel prize winner said we have to keep a look out for praxeology?

Might have to wait a few days to get a reply there.

This thread is a negative externality

Hayek noob

Sholar can probably explain it better than I can. I wish I could be more helpful (sincerely), but I know you're missing something.

You know I'm missing something but you don't know what it is? Do you agree with my statement that the benefit a public good provides to society is an example of an externality?

It's difficult to explain in a forum post. Public goods vs. externalities should be considered separately. Try looking at it like this: Suppose everyone in the world agrees in advance to produce some public good. People can still free ride on the good because it's a public good. But there's no externality (everyone agreed - re-read that Wikipedia definition and see if you get why that means the benefit someone might get from free-riding can't rightly be characterized as an externality).

It's not a matter of agreement, dude. You've got the definitions tangled weirdly and that's causing you to characterize one as the other. Probably because Block is similarly confused and that's how you encountered the words first.