There's a certain symmetry to, say, FDR in the USA suggesting "maybe we should consider a new public policy restricting certain private business activities" with his New Deal and, say, Lenin in the USSR suggesting "maybe we should consider a new public policy allowing certain private business activities" with his New Economic Plan.
It seems like most of the users here have acknowledged that both of these constitute public policy changes. In fact, we could even imagine a scenario where passing one act is equivalent to repealing the other.
To say that both changes would require extremely high confidence, just "because they affect everybody", doesn't seem rational on this regard. Either the evidence supports one thing over the other, or it doesn't.
But I think you're taking a different view -- that there's a default anarchy / state of nature policy, that should be favoured with a very high prior, and any policy to deviate from it would require a much higher certainty than doing the opposite. Is that your position?
Again, your own logic destroys your argument.
We have made public policy decisions that heavily subsidize oil, cars, lowered air quality, etc.
These decisions affect everyone not just car drivers. These decisions were not based on complete information (in fact, we had very limited knowledge of global warming, air pollution, etc. when we made public policy decisions to favor air pollution).
>The idea that public "leaders" should be able to take calculated risks with everybody else's money (and lives) is, IMO, pernicious. This is exactly the mentality that has created so much mess in the world throughout history. No, "leaders" should not take calculated risks that affect everybody.
So why should Cletus who like to roll coal on Tesla drivers be able to take uncalculated risks that affect everybody?
I seriously think you don't understand what externalities are.
Yes, and I have already said that I oppose those decisions. The government should not be playing favorites.
> why should Cletus who like to roll coal on Tesla drivers be able to take uncalculated risks that affect everybody?
Cletus' behavior doesn't affect everybody; it only affects the few people who are within range of his coal rolling.
So you agree that government should stop subsidizing roads and suburbs?
>Cletus' behavior doesn't affect everybody; it only affects the few people who are within range of his coal rolling.
Actually air doesn't work this way. Pollution can and does carry for hundreds of miles.
But we can proceed with your fictional conception of aerodynamics.
How are the people that Cletus rolled coal on supposed to get compensated for their loss?
I disagree. Individual people and businesses often need to make decisions with incomplete information, but individual people's or businesses' decisions are only about their own actions, not about everybody else's. But public policy decisions affect everybody, so the criterion needs to be a lot stricter for how complete the information needs to be and how confident we need to be in our knowledge before we impose a public policy on everybody.
> You've got to take calculated risks sometimes.
The idea that public "leaders" should be able to take calculated risks with everybody else's money (and lives) is, IMO, pernicious. This is exactly the mentality that has created so much mess in the world throughout history. No, "leaders" should not take calculated risks that affect everybody.