Yes, I read your earlier post. I just think you are wrong. I know that may be surprising to you.

Yes, there are definitional matters at issue. You think contract enforcement is regularly supplied on markets. In vrtually everything I have read except your post contract enforcement is defined as a ‘non-market thing’, part of the insitutional scaffolding that markets themselves cannot supply well or at all. Sure, we can observe, say, Mafia style private enforcement rackets. But those sorts of private exchange hardly meet any of the criteria for market interactions (I’d say the voluntary nature of Mafia protection is in serious quesiton). Economic and political exchange does not necessarily amount to market interaction. I’d say the burden is yours here.

Yes, public goods ae defined in the way you condescendingly suggest. I’ve read the literature too. But public goods tend to be group specific. Perhaps you can go back a re-read Mancur Olson? So all your smart-ass remaks about women and jews and so on really are not on point.

Yes collective action problems can be overcome; hence your planet and mine are closer than you think. That does not mean they are not problems that require some sort of resolution. Suffragists were not in a market for votes. And are you suggesting that they had no collective action problem to surmount? Did they just mystically gather in their struggle?

That said, historically franchise extensions are driven less by demand-side protests but supply- side calculations made, because those who already hold voting rights think it somehow in their interest to include others. Here you can read Ruth Collier on the European and Latin American cases and Keyssar on the American case.

As for changing property rights your ‘copyleft’ example has been almost unnoticable in terms of displacing existing insititutional arrangements. I would suggest that the infinitesimally small number of folks who subscribe to it is in fact evidence of just how weak the incentive to set out on instituional reform actually is. Hence we are back to my point about coordination. Can you come up with an example that has had some real effect? Or are we going to remain far to the right of the decimal point?

This appears to be a definitional problem. You define contractual enforcement as a non-market thing, and lo-and-behold markets cannot supply them.

You are right that I might have an incentive to question (in the sense of grouse about)

Given that I gave examples of people changing means of contract enforcement and property rights, clearly some people do not merely question but have changed what is happening.

But since nearly every element of that scaffolding is a public good

Really?

The economic definition of a public good is something that is: – non-rivalorous (so the amount I consume does not reduce the amount available for you to consume) – non-excludable (so I can’t stop you from participating in its benefits).

I don’t think that every element of the scaffolding is a public good. For example, the courts system is not a public good. It is very easy to exclude people from it. For example, married women were excluded from the civil courts system in 18th century England, and the 19th until various legal reforms.

Democracy is not a public good, it is very easy to exclude people from voting. Women, blacks, Jews, have all been excluded from voting.

my incentive to try to alter it encounters a large-scale collective action problem

Thus explaining the massive failure of the suffragists to win women the right to vote. Hmm, are we living on the same planet?

It is unlikely I can change any element of an institutional arrangement unilaterally.

Agreed. In any action involving other people, it is wise to get at least some of those people’s agreements. Even the toughest guy has to sleep sometimes, and thus even the nastiest dictators need to keep their bodyguards on their side. This is true regardless of whether we are talking about markets, governments, the Mafia, hunter-gatherer tribes or your local PTA group.

On a market I am simply going to seek out an alternative trading partner.

Did you read my previous comment? At all? I gave explicit examples of peoples in markets changing institutional arrangements, like property rights.

Second, the partial agreement. You are right that I might have an incentive to question (in the sense of grouse about)the institutional scaffolding that sustains market competition. But since nearly every element of that scaffolding is a public good, my incentive to try to alter it encounters a large-scale collective action problem. It is unlikely I can change any element of an institutional arrangement unilaterally. (I assume that these are equilibrium outcomes.) On a market I am simply going to seek out an alternative trading partner.

I disagree. If you think that the scaffolding of property rights, contract enforcement, etc, is not to your liking you have every incentive to question them. And people do. For example, enforcement mechanisms for contracts are diverse. There is the formal legal system, but there are other options. For example, you can write into the contract that in case of dispute it will first go to an independent mediator rather than the formal legal structure. You can employ escrow companies as a means of contract enforcement. I am not a lawyer, there are probably other options.

Property rights have been questioned within market structures too. Have you heard of the “copyleft” movement? http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

People must have an incentive to question the scaffolding of property rights, contract enforcement, etc, as they do indeed do so, and find alternative means of achieving their goals. What form that incentive may take probably varies from person to person. But it clearly exists.

And can I buy such alterations on the market?

Depends on what alteration you are making. Clearly some services, such as mediators, escrow companies, etc, can be brought. Others you have to do yourself, eg copyleft (possibly with the advice of a lawyer or another expert).

This example is strictly speaking irrelevant to your objection. It is not in any way an instance of those involved in market interactions engaging in the sort of behavior in quesiton. If I don’t like the terms of trade I can walk away. I can make another offer. But precisely what incentive do I have to question the scaffolding of property rights, contract enforcement etc. that structure the market? None. And can I buy such alterations on the market? No, I need, like your lobby-buying forms to engage in political processes.

Agreed.

Institutions of democratic decision-making are the only arrangement that offer such a possibility through the logic of their own operation.

What is your support for this statement?

The English language does not involve any institutions of democratic decision-making and yet appears quite capable of experimentation.

Market interaction is decentralized in the sense that those who are party to any particular interaction are charged neither with reviewing or monitoring in an ongoing way the conditions under which the institution of exchange itself operates nor with assessing the consequences of how broader institutional arrangements operate.

Huh? What’s stopping any party in any particular interaction with reviewing and monitoring it? And proposing changes, or setting up a new one?

We know that people do not need to be specifically charged with the job of reviewing or monitoring things in order to do it. For example, back in the 19th century, it was expected that women would have nothing to do with political life. But then some women decided, off their own bats, that they should have the vote, and set about forcing it to happen. Just because no one is specifically charged with a job doens’t mean it doesn’t get done.

It is also noticeable that privately-owned organisations spend a fair bit of time lobbying the government to change broad institutional arrangements that affect their industry. This implies that they spend a bit of time monitoring, reviewing and assessing the consequences of how broader institutional arrangements operate. Indeed, it is quite possible to make a decent living as a consultant doing this for large companies.