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537 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 9 Feb \ on: Skin In The Game culture
Zoning was never necessary, but we've already had that discussion.
There certainly are, but that doesn't make it an uninteresting thought experiment. My perspective on this is that liability needs a larger role. There are perfectly good reasons to provide goods and services that you wouldn't use yourself, but you're right that it creates an incentive problem.
When I look at the examples you lay out, I see a bunch of situations where the state grants liability protections of various sorts: polluters are difficult to sue if they're complying with regulations; builders are hard to sue if the home is up to code; food companies are hard to sue if they're using FDA approved ingredients; politicians can't be sued for their misdeeds; etc. You could certainly add Big Pharma into the mix here, as well as many others.
If goods and service providers didn't have these state standards to hide behind, they would be responsible for the actual safety of their products. Of course, they could take the economic hit of fully disclosing the known risks and continue on, but at least then consumers would have more information to base their decisions on.
My perspective on this is that liability needs a larger role. There are perfectly good reasons to provide goods and services that you wouldn't use yourself, but you're right that it creates an incentive problem.
What do you think the effect of eliminating limited liability for corporations (which has been the standard way of operating a business since the 1800s) would be on the US economy?
One could make a pretty good case that limitations to liability enabled better capital formation and more rapid innovation in America
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One could make a pretty good case that limitations to liability enabled better capital formation and more rapid innovation in America
That was the justification at the time at, least. I don't privilege economic growth over property rights protections.
If liability protections were repealed it would have to conform to the general standard that if something was legal when it was done, it cannot be made retroactively illegal. So, companies would not be on the hook for prior activities.
We'd see an enormous increase in the usage of liability insurance and an immediate recall of innumerable products that producers know are more harmful than they've disclosed.
Over time, there would be precedent built up that would provide producers protection against facing the same baseless suits repeatedly. To some extent, that will recreate an element of current liability protections.
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Not for Philip Morris and other tobacco companies
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I have changed my mind on zoning laws. We have residential and commercial zones and they should be segregated. Neighborhoods with single family homes should not be coerced to build multi family apartments that are targeted for poor or section 8 residents
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Neighborhoods with single family homes should not be coerced to build multi family apartments that are targeted for poor or section 8 residents
I certainly agree with that, but that's also a type of zoning law. I think it's unlikely, in the absence of zoning laws, that the same areas would be developed with both low income and single family housing.
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California is suing cities for not doing this.
Obama and now Biden want to do this
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