Isocratic thought

To date, your correspondent has been invited to co-author two new blogs: Prospective Value and at the Isocracy Network.

http://www.prospectivevalue.com/
Prospective Value, is, in part, a blog about investments. I will be posting much of my policy analysis over there to aid their efforts. Check it out!

http://isocracy.org/
The Isocracy Network is a fascinating project founded by one of Free Exchange's regular visitors tcip. The bloggers over at Isocracy explore and synthesize the best ideas that liberalism, socialism, anarchism, and republicanism have imparted the world of ideas to develop a new political system of organization: Isocracy. A fascinating, and cutting edge, exploration of governance.

Having the two blogs side by side spurs a new thought: what is the economic role of government in an Isocracy? The Isocratic manifesto includes this: "An isocracy avoids the common criticisms of democracy (e.g., tyranny of the majority) and demagogy by limiting public governance to the public sphere and private governance to the private sphere."

At a macroeconomic level, that eliminates, wisely, state-run economies and at once leaves the isocratic state two viable macroeconomic paths: the one blazed by the neoclassical synthesis and the neo-Keynesian one America currently treads upon.

The economic aspect that has seemed to evolve over at Isocracy is distinctly liberal in its rigid separation of the private and public spheres. The manifesto implicitly forbids price controls and minimum wages. All good things.

The Isocratic manifesto does not call for the maximization of liberty and so avoids the prickily question: what happens when activities in the private sphere indirectly impinge on the freedoms and liberties of another? Or to be technical: what to do with the externalities?

Isocrats might quickly call for private arbitration; indeed, "individuals themselves participate in the network to design practical public policy." So the persons affected would have to speak to each other and negotiate; well and good but suppose pollution does cause irreparable harm to the world and thus to people beyond the borders of the isocratic nation? International arbitration would require the isocratic nation to impose laws on the private behavior of its citizens.

And here we have a problem.

The individualism of Isocracy implies the maximization of liberty; that ought to be explicit. And if it becomes explicit, those of us in the Network need to decide on the definition of "liberty". I propose we begin with Sen's Capabilities premise: that rights and freedoms are useless without the efficacy to exercise them.