The Private Provision of Public Goods: The History and Future of Communal Liberalism Fred E. Foldvary Santa Clara University, California “Liberalism and Communal Self- administration” Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom Potsdam, Germany, Sept. 18, 2009
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The Private Provision of Public Goods: The History and Future of Communal Liberalism Fred E. Foldvary Santa Clara University, California Liberalism and.
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The Private Provision of Public Goods: The History and Future of Communal Liberalism
Fred E. FoldvarySanta Clara University, California
“Liberalism and Communal Self-administration”Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
Potsdam, Germany, Sept. 18, 2009
Public Goods and Private Communities, 1994
Research network on private urban governance
• Institute of Geography at the University of Mainz
• http://www.gated-communities.de• International Conference on Private
Urban Governance; Mainz 2002
“public”
• Latin “publicus,” pertaining to the people.
• The “public sector,” government,
as in “public school” or “public library.”
• “Public school” originally meant a school intended for the benefit of the public.
• In the USA it came to mean a school run by government.
“private”
• The “private sector,” non-governmental.
• “Private goods,” individually used.
• Public goods = collective goods.
• Collective: non-rival
• Excludable and non-excludable.
• Club goods: excludable
Government versus Private Enterprise
• Governance: rules and enforcement.
• Government: imposed by force.
• State: government and territory.
• Club: voluntary, contractual.
Governments vs. Communal Liberalism
Government:
• No explicit agreement.
• Sovereign immunity; inequality.
Communal liberalism:
• Explicit contracts, real agreement.
• All are legal equals.
What is freedom?
• Voluntary action.
• An ethic provides the meaning.
• Must be a universal ethic.
• Derived from human nature:
• Equality and independence.
The universal ethic
• 1. Benefit, welcomed by the recipient.
• 2. Benefits are morally good.
• 3. Harm, invasion into other’s domain.
• 4. All acts, and only those acts, that coercively harm others are evil.
• 5. All other acts are morally neutral.
Liberty
• A liberal society implements and enforces the universal ethic.
• The moral right to do X means the negation of X is morally wrong.
• We have the natural right to do what does not coercively harm others.