Americans drove 4.5 billion fewer miles in April. How ’bout that. Economics works! If you really want to change habits, let the market-driven rise in the cost of gas force people to drive less, and force energy companies to come up with new and more efficient ways of getting us around. Of course, politicians don’t trust markets. So they’ll find ways to artificially lower gas prices while simultaneously bemoaning “our dependence on oil.”
One of the narcotics detectives who shot and killed 80-year-old Isaac Singletary (and was cleared on all counts) is now under investigation for scamming the Crime Stoppers reward system.
Kid who changed his grades on the school computer system Ferris Buelller-style facing 38 years in jail.
More of this, please.
I’ll take “Bad Ideas,” for one thousand, Alex.
I’ll take “Bad Ideas” for two thousand.
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TheAgitator.com
I’ve long suspected it’s because politicians are lawyers more often than they’re economists. Economists recognize that economic problems are usually fixed by trusting the market. Lawyers who don’t understand economics often seem to think that economic problems are fixed by drafting new laws.
If the allegations about the kid are true, it’s hard to have a lot of sympathy for him. Breaking into a school and stealing keys to cheat is a bit above youthful hijinks. I’ll agree 38 years is excessive, but there is little chance he’d actually get that.
The article you link also says that Omar Khan’s alleged plot “resembles the script to the 1986 high school comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
I must need to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off again, because I don’t remember him changing a grade there. He did hack in to the school’s computers to change the number of days he was absent.
Matthew Broderick’s character hacked in to the school’s computer network to change his grade in War Games. I don’t think he actually broke into the school in either one.
Nit-picking is occasionally irresistible.
Not to nitpick, but don’t we mean “WarGames” style? Or did Ferris Bueller do the same thing too?
Oops. I meant “ditto.”
I don’t see a problem with the Lego treats. There are little toy soldier gummies as well, yet kids don’t eat the plastic ones. It’s up to the parents to either not give it to children who don’t understand the difference between a squishy piece of candy and a hard piece of plastic or to take responsibility for feeding their not-yet-ready children candy they shouldn’t have until they’re older.
When did parent’s responsibility become corporate responsibility?
Ha! A friend of mine sent me a link to the Lego fruit snacks page on the Kellogg’s site. We were howling, and thought up some other entries in for bad ideas in children’s snacks:
Sugar Bulbs
Silica Jelly Beans
Tinker Soys–The Healthy Toy Snack!
Snacktastic Army Men (which, according to a previous post, actually exists)
Licorice Armstrong
This kid broke in to the school at night, implanted spyware and stole copies of tests. I think more than a suspension is in order.
That said, the 69 charges and 38 years might have something to do with his name being Omar Khan. Sounds a lot like a ‘terrist’, ya know?
Somehow I doubt 38 years would be on the table for an 18 year old, Orange county, white kid named Brett.
Ferris only changed the number of times he was absent (while Principal Rooney was talking to Ferris’s mom)…..So, Wargames style would be more apropo, as David changed his and Jennifer’s grade whyen he was showing off to her…Must be the Matthew Broderick overload..
I think the Lego food is funny. Lawsuits galore!
I wrote a paper in college predicting the American car companies would be SOL soon because they didn’t learn anything from the 70’s. I wish I still had that paper because I’d be looking pretty good now. I was in the energy research racket and there’s a couple points I’d like to add:
1) The news often lumps gasoline in with utility power. They’re somewhat connected mainly because of transportation costs, but utility power is coal, nuclear, hydro, and natural gas.
2) Gas prices are artificially high right now because of our low refining capacity and the futures market. If there was “peace in the Middle East” tomorrow, we’d see $60-90 barrels.
3) I have less of a philosophical objection to a Manhattan-stlye new energies effort than most of you, but practically, the DOE, EPA, NSF, etc. are run by idiots and give idiotic grants to other idiots. The FutureGen project is the most expensive example of that.
4) Beginning in 1996, the average mpg of cars junked has been better than new cars. I have zero sympathy for people with $40k SUV’s who have the balls to complain about gas prices.
5) American car companies need to die, and a good start would be getting rid of this flexfuel nonsense. I can’t say anything else about ethanol or I’ll blow my lid.
6) I think UCrawford’s point is valid, but I think it boils down more to politicians are politicians and “doing something” sounds better than “let the market sort it out.”
Alex,
I agree with that too. My comment was more about how politicians who are ignorant of economics often fail to realize just how destructive what they’re doing is. I believe that most people (including politicians) generally try to do the right thing and that their efforts are usually (although admittedly not always) well-intentioned. But then the road to hell is often paved with the good intentions of people who interfere in matters they’re clueless about.
In regards to “I’ll take “Bad Ideas,” for one thousand, Alex.” I thought for sure the purchase link to thinkgeek was gonna be a RickRoll.
Alex,
And Reagan had a pretty successful career emphasizing the importance of letting the market sort things out (”Stay the course”). Of course, he actually read the works of Hayek, Von Mises and Friedman.
Nando, are you sure your real name isn’t Irwin Mainway?
“But then the road to hell is often paved with the good intentions of people who interfere in matters they’re clueless about.”
Amen, brother. On the Obama front, he recently named Jason Furman chief economic something. The guy is no Friedman, but he’s still miles ahead of most lefties. I’m really coming around to thinking Obama will be an acceptable holdover until economic conservatives get their (our) act together.
Don’t forget the downside of all of that gas-use reduction. Lower gas taxes taken in by the various thieves (errr…governments) along the way. Taking a SWAG of 30c/gal and an MPG of 30mpg that’s $45M in “lost” revenue. Replacement money for that is going to come from somewhere…
andy: DOT is already spinning this as “less money for highway construction”. See at
The system ate my link. It was http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/driving.cutbacks/
Well, if people drive less, we need fewer new highway projects!
Not that I’m all for that, since I design them, but if there’s fewer trips and miles, then we don’t really need as much new capacity, do we.
Alex,
He also had an economist who taught at the University of Chicago as his long-time economics advisor, until he had to let the guy go during the primaries (because he was getting dinged for it by the Clintonites after the guy apparently let Canada know that Obama had no interest in repealing free trade agreements). I think you’re right…I’m suspecting that a lot of his anti-free trade positions are just rhetoric. I’m still not going to vote for the guy (because he’s still for socialized medicine and Bob Barr’s positions are superior) but I’m not terrified that he’ll be a herald of the apocalypse or anything. Even with a Democratic Congress, Obama’s still better than McCain I believe…particularly on foreign policy, and possibly on free trade.
From a LEGAL perspective, I don’t see a problem with them… that doesn’t mean they aren’t a bad idea.
I saw them in the store a couple of weeks ago, and my reaction was a family-friendly version of that Penny Arcade post.
UCrawford,
That’s Austan Goolsbee. I think he’s back doing something with the campaign now. Either way, here’s a George Will column about him.
“But he seems to be the sort of person — amiable, empirical and reasonable — you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.”
As hard as it is to get anything done in a big corporation, I cannot believe that Lego candies passed all those layers of review. It is a Simpsons-parody level idiotic idea.
Regarding the detective who shot and killed Isaac Singletary I just want to be clear on one point. If you trespass on an individuals property there is no justification available for self defense.
From the earlier post on his tragic death:
“They were confronted by a man with a weapon. They fired to defend themselves.”
They were dressed as drug dealing goons and on his property. They did not have the right to self defense. Why would Isaac believe that they were police officers even if they did announce themselves? Their actions were murder. And seeing what an upstanding citizen Officer Narcisse is, I am sure that we can see that their testimony of what happened that night had no value. After all we now see this Officer’s lack of integrity, imagine the incentive to lie when he is faced with criminal sanctions instead of simply pursuing an opportunity to collect a reward.
What’s the matter with the legoes we got? They eat pretty good don’t they?
Alex,
I wouldn’t doubt it. I suspect he just distanced himself from the guy for a bit because he didn’t want to give Hillary and her band of jolly idiots any ammunition for the Democratic primaries. But they’ve been working together long enough that I figure Goolsbee’s still got Obama’s ear.
Long-term I seriously doubt the Democrats overall will ever seriously embrace classical liberal economics. But as Democrats go, Obama seems fairly open to those ideas so I don’t think he’ll be the catastrophe the Republicans seem to envision. He seems relatively competent on what’s required of him on foreign policy and diplomacy, and that puts him miles ahead of McCain (who seems to be running on the “Four More Years” platform).
Gotta laugh: Libertarians without kids worrying about dangerous candies! I first saw candy in the shape of legos 10 years ago. Good solid candy; none of this squishy jelly stuff.
Rule of thumb: Kids put everything in their mouth. Sometime before age three you can convince them not to swallow the legos, and they’re allowed to play with them. Flavored polystyrene — that would be a problem. And the ThinkGeek toy: Gads!
As for the price of gasoline: Too bad Congress didn’t impose a $1 gas tax back in 2001. We’d be ahead on fuel conservation, wouldn’t be so much in hock, and wouldn’t have transferred quite as many billions to Iran and Saudi Arabia…
Uh oh, Balko is talking about commoditites again. What is it about higher gas prices that are “working”? The only people higher has prices has helped are the state troopers around the country that have probably had a little less work lately. Driving is a good thing! Good for business, good for mental health, good for FREEDOM. State houses packed with liberal do-gooders are getting tired of spending money on roads and not nutritional programs for inner-city-at-risk-homeless-youth-poor-democrats.
In what fantasy world are oil prices the result of a free market??? Oil prices are set by a cartel. If you are going to use examples of free market goodness, then they should be about the actual free market.
I also find it ironic that people complain about NSF and other government funding agencies while using the internet - brought to you by the very federal funding you are complaining about.
In what fantasy world are oil prices the result of a free market??? Oil prices are set by a cartel.
OPEC used to set the price, didn’t they? But I don’t think they do anymore. I was under the impression that commodity traders bid on futures contracts based on current and projected demand.
Anybody know of a good “how oil prices are set” link? I understand this stuff like I understand health care costs. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. So there.
OPEC sets the production of the member countries. Most oil is traded on futures markets. A small percentage is sold privately, but that price is obviously determined by the trading value. Because OPEC is involved, the market is obviously far from perfect, but every company uses some costs/benefits analysis to determine optimum supply. It’s not like OPEC is evil for wanting to maximize profits. As to Radley’s point, I saw where OPEC recently increased production because they’re afraid we might actually do something about alternate energy. Markets, weird.
As a side note, the price is higher than the current market would dictate because of instability among oil-producing countries and the exponential increase in demand from China and India. I’m not sure how much impact the Illuminati has, but I think it’s minimal.
bobzbob,
The arguement that information technology is driven by government-funded research grants is particularly weak. To your larger point, I said in my OP that I’m less disinclined to oppose (triple negative?) government-funded research than most here. Grants to a few genuises at ARPA really isn’t akin to to the massive corporate welfare the DOE is into. The project I mentioned earlier, FutureGen, so far has been a 1 billion dollar bust. I could go on for pages about sinkhole projects, some of which I did work on, the DOE has given to professional grant-receivers. I’m not saying it has to be a bad system, just that it is.
UCrawford: “Obama’s still better than McCain I believe…particularly on foreign policy”
Lay off the pot, UCrawford. Obama would be a foreign policy disaster.
jwl:
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them drunk or stoned.
Ah, jwh! There you are! I keep posting and you never reply.
Several posts down, you asked
Please name any Gitmo detainee who has been falsely imprisoned by the government’s abuse of the Patriot Act? I only want one name…..just one…….
So, I gave you a couple of names, but you never responded. Why is that?
Hey, here are a few more!
http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/prisoner_345.php
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html
I’ll repeat my question to you, and hopefully you’ll answer it this time: why do you trust the government to be 100% efficient at arresting only guilty people when it’s not 100% efficient at doing anything?
one of the biggest cuprits in the gas price increases is inflation, which comes from the government.
bobzbob,
Cartels are also part of the free market. Whether they’re run by the government or by a bunch of companies that decided to bargain collectively, whoever owns the oil resources has the right to set the price they want for selling that oil. Whether or not you choose to buy that oil is your choice, and if you don’t like it, feel free to invest your money in alternative energy sources or find your own oil reserves to drill and refine.
I love how all the anti-business types try to pretend the term “free markets” means that other people, businesses or countries don’t have the right to do what they want with the goods and services they own. That mentality clearly illustrates why it’s impossible to take them seriously.
jwh,
And that opinion is based on what? His willingness to actually talk to other countries first, before deciding whether or not starting a war is in our best interests?
UCrawford:
“The free market” is the sum total of _voluntary_ (non-coercive) human transactions. “Government” is excluded from “free” market participation almost by definition, since (one of) the government’s defining characteristics is that it exerts a monopoly on the use of force, and thus necessarily coerces those within its ambit. Furthermore, the government cannot legitimately “own” anything, by virtue of the fact that its transformative use of natural resources comes about almost entirely by wealth stolen from actually productive people and organizations.
Alex,
You said exactly what I was going to say about OPEC
Not really so weird. Despite all the conspiracy theories that “environmentalists” like to spout, the real reason that alternative energy sources don’t develop isn’t because the oil companies assassinate inventors and steal their creations, or because they unfairly manipulate markets, or because the government doesn’t spend enough tax dollars creating new forms of energy…it’s because until recently oil has been the cheapest, most cost-effective form of energy on the planet so there’s been no real incentive to go alternative. Now that the price is rising, you’re seeing a lot of movement towards alternative energy (even independent of our government’s ethanol scam). So the OPEC nations have to increase production in an attempt to lower price, otherwise higher prices will undermine their entire market as alternative fuels become more viable.
And the real beauty of this is, a lot of the oil-exporting countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela) desperately need people to keep buying their oil because they have gigantic socialist welfare states to fund that are only possible so long as oil is a highly sought after commodity. If alternative fuels take too much of oil’s market share and their oil revenues drop, they’re in serious trouble unless they diversify (like Bahrain’s been doing by creating a Hong Kong-like environment for businesses). That’s why all this hysteria about evil old OPEC is so ridiculous…they’re as accountable to the free market as we are. All we have to do is let it sort things out.
JJH2,
Not exactly. Yes, you’re correct that the free market is about voluntary human transactions. Government is not, however, independent from that simply because it’s a coercive entity. It’s still an entity, though, so it’s as accountable to the market as any individual. The biggest reason government doesn’t interact smoothly with free market economics is not because it’s “evil” or some sort of anomaly, it’s because it’s a highly inefficient and unresponsive entity and is therefore ill-equipped to succeed in a dynamic, free-flowing system like the market.
Government is perfectly capable of owning property or assets, even legitimately…the problem is that you wouldn’t want them to because they’re very likely going to mismanage those assets. So in the case of OPEC, the fact that the governments of the Middle East own the oil assets doesn’t really enter into it. They’re just as bound by the laws of supply and demand and scarcity as a private company who owns those assets would be. In fact, they’re probably a lot more accountable to those laws because of all the other liabilities they have (e.g. the welfare programs they run that I referred to earlier).
JJH2,
Simply put, what I’m saying is that while the market works most efficiently when it’s about voluntary human interaction, it still applies even when coercive action by non-human entities are involved. They just skew our perception of cause and effect and create more unfavorable results.
UCrawford,
Good post. One minor correction though. Coal has been cheaper than gas for awhile. I think it’s almost down to 1/3rd of the cost now. Of course you can’t burn coal in a car, but if you made a viable electric car, you’d be banking.
JJH2,
Please go tell the House of Saud that they don’t own Saudi oil, then post it on YouTube.
That 1/3rd figure was the electric generation cost.
Alex,
Thanks…got to say that I think you read my mind on a lot of your comments today
Sure, if the costs of using the current system were higher than the costs of installing the necessary infrastructure to support an electric car after it’s introduced.
Actually, I still think nuclear’s the way to go for future energy needs. Too bad that the hardcore “environmentalists” slam their hands over their ears and start screaming like a bunch of baboons on crack the second anyone even hints at relaxing government regulations enough to make building new nuclear plants possible or to allow exploration of potential new uses for nuclear power.
UCrawford:
The problem is not that the government is inefficient . The problem is that the government does NOT have to respond to supply and demand the way people who are within the ambit of voluntary human transactions do BECAUSE it has non-market methods of obtaining funds: the use of coercive taxation (and other forms of outright theft). The forcible deprivation of property is NOT an aspect of the “free market,” and if your position is that IT IS then there’s _nothing_ outside of the free market (and the term is a nullity).
“Property,” at least in the meaningful sense of the term, involves a moral claim about the rightful owner of a thing. Saudi Arabia may “own” the oil fields of the country in the glib sense of exercising control via overwhelming force, but the oil fields of Saudi Arabia are no more legitimately the property of the Saudi Arabian government than mob money obtained through extortion. They may exercise (total) control, but they are NOT the rightful owners in any meaningful sense of the term.
UCrawford:
We might do a little thought experiment to determine just how “accountable” the government is to “the market.”
Compare, for example, privately hired security forces to say, your local paramilitary police forces. If I hire a security guard to watch over my store, and he engages in say, a continuous train of abuse, invasion, and physical violence against my customers in a manner akin to the way police run roughshod over the people that they are putatively “protecting” - I could simply fire his ass. The free market at work. Yet despite the fact that my earnings are extorted from me through involuntary taxation, my “hired public servants” feel entirely at liberty to spy upon me, control what activities I can engage in with other people, and threaten kick in my door in the middle of the night to make sure I’m not growing or using any substances in the privacy of my own home that I might enjoy but that they think I shouldn’t have. Yet try as I might, and despite absolutely no “demand” for those serves on my part, the “supply” of government stormtroopers seems to grow wildly out of control.
JJH2,
I’m sorry but that’s not accurate. The government eventually has to respond to the free market the same as any other entity…they just do so much more slowly and ineffectively than individuals do. That’s what eventually brought down the Soviet Union…it’s inability to react to supply and demand, inability to sustain their spending, inability to meet the public’s needs for goods and services, etc.. It may take longer for the effects of the market to become apparent when it’s acting on government, but they are there and government is still accountable to the market, same as anything else. It just usually doesn’t work out so well for governments as it does for individuals.
That’s really no different from Enron using stock fraud, deceit and shady accounting to hide the fact they were going broke. What happened to Enron was an effect of the market catching up to them for poor business practices. What happens to governments who increasingly tax their people to cover for their bad spending habits are that their people become poorer, the services the government offers degrade and government is then forced to change. Like I said, the process of being held accountable is much slower for government (which is part of why government is such an unresponsive organism, but it’s still there.
Right, and the definition “rightful owner” is not restricted to only individuals. Property can be legitimately held by a corporation, a community, a trust, or any number of different entities…and that includes government.
Respectfully, you’re arguing against a straw man. You’re arguing about the morality of specific methods of acquiring property…and those methods are not the only ones available to government. Governments are capable of obtaining their property through legitimate means (donation by private individuals, for instance, as happened with multiple tracts of land in Yellowstone). And whether or not the Saudi government’s method of acquiring their property was legitimate or moral is beside the point…the point is that none of the parties outside of the Middle East who are complaining about the tactics the Saudis and OPEC use when pricing that oil have a more legitimate ownership claim to that oil than the OPEC nations do.
JJH2,
As for your example, you’re arguing about efficiency of free market practices between individuals and government, and I’m not disagreeing with you on that point. Individuals clearly achieve better results than governments do.
However, you’re extending that argument claim that government is not at all held accountable for its actions and that’s simply an untrue proposition. Governments collapse all the time because of their actions. Countries go broke all the time because of their actions. Revolutions and civil wars break out all the time because the people (who are agents of the free market) hold their government accountable for its actions. These are all consequences of economics holding governments accountable. You’re trying to make your point off of examples that represent a small sample size and you’re missing the forest for the trees.
No matter how you try to dress it up, looking at the posts from the regulars there is no way you could be trying to cater to liberty and freedom. The only freedom many that post here care about is getting stoned. They want to get stoned and have a guarenteed job for life. Nice try Mr. Balko.
Pat,
Could you quote some of the posts here that support your assertion?
Pre-drinking is done so I checked this post for interesting new developments. Sadley, there are none, but I have several observations:
1) People who do the kharma thing are insane (see #29, which is just objectively wrong).
2) JJH2 lives in a world of elves and fairies.
3) UCrawford got suckered into debate with JJH2, who was no doubt waiting for someone to say “government,” so he could make his standard Chomsky spiel.
4) It’s apparently still cool to know Broderick trivia. I thought that was over when he married the Horse Whisperer. Guess not.
5) I can’t spell karma.
Pat,
I comment here fairly regularly, I’ve never demanded guaranteed employment, and my pro-legalization position isn’t based at all on a desire to get stoned (as I don’t use). So if you don’t care to hear what people here actually have to say, by all means feel free to jog on, troll.
UCrawford:
It’s pretty clear that you’re not using, as your initial posts clearly suggested, the economic terms “supply” and “demand” in any meaningful economic sense. Rather, you’re taking a concept from economics and using it as a vague metaphor for something like all the types of ways in which one group of people can exert can influence over another. In this sense, your use of the phrase “supply and demand” is outright obfuscatory, since it pretends to explain everything from the economic equilibrium of price and quantity to a mass popular uprising (and smaller intra-Party elite uprising) aimed at overthrowing an established political order. Nice try, but… no. Your central argument is an empty metaphor. Do better.
Alex:
It’s a pretty sad day for libertarianism when you can’t tell the difference between “standard Chomsky” and Rothbard 101.
Yikes!
JJH2,
I’ll play your game (you rogue) if you state a position. So far you’ve only attacked UCrawford for recognizing that oil is a commodity sold largely by socialist countries. I have no idea why that’s such an objectionable observation.
“In this sense, your use of the phrase “supply and demand” is outright obfuscatory, since it pretends to explain everything from the economic equilibrium of price and quantity to a mass popular uprising (and smaller intra-Party elite uprising) aimed at overthrowing an established political order.”
Do you understand that mainstream economics studies more than than the transaction of widgets? Individuals study the costs (taxes, reduced freedom) and benifits (fire dept., roads) of having a particular government the same way they study the costs (capital investment, increased liability) and benifits (increased revenue) of producing one more widget.
Nice try on the Rothbard thing. I’ve read enough of your posts to know that you’re to his left. I think you’re all the way over in anarcho-socialist land. If you’re not, I don’t care.
JJH2,
No, I’m just not restricting my application of economics to an unreasonably narrow range of interactions because it happens to prove my point. Coercive interactions are part of the market. Entities that engage in coercive interactions are affected by the market. The rules of the market aren’t just restricted to a subset of approved entities and transactions.
What you’re arguing about is the optimal use of the market and a) I’m not disagreeing with you that voluntary interactions between individuals work best, and b) that entire tangent is irrelevant because nobody except for the citizens of the Middle Eastern nations that form OPEC has a more legitimate claim to ownership of Middle Eastern oil than the OPEC member governments do, so those governments have a right to set whatever price they see fit on the commodities they export. You, on the other hand, seem to be arguing that because you consider the OPEC members’ governments to be illegitimate, they therefore have no right to price the oil they export as they wish. Which may or may not be a valid point if you’re speaking as one of those repressed Middle Eastern citizens I referred to, but otherwise your claim that their governments are illegitimate still doesn’t make that oil any more yours than theirs, so you’ve still got no grounds to demand oil price changes.
Anarcho-socialism indeed.
Correction…
#54
That’s not just a troll, that’s a cop troll. That’s the standard line cops and cop wannabees on the internet use against anyone who is against the war on drugs.
#57 Alex
It’s arguably true that I’m slightly to the “left” of Rothbard (although to be honest, I don’t think that “left” and “right” are particularly useful political distinctions), but nothing I’ve said in this thread about the legitimacy of government’s claims to “property” is significantly different than anything Rothbard has argued in something like, say, “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle.”
UCrawford #58:
“that entire tangent is irrelevant because nobody except for the citizens of the Middle Eastern nations that form OPEC has a more legitimate claim to ownership of Middle Eastern oil than the OPEC member governments do, so those governments have a right to set whatever price they see fit on the commodities they export.”
The conclusion is clearly not entailed by the premises. I think it’s patently true that certain people (whether they be citizens or not) within certain Middle Eastern countries have legitimate claims to ownership of oil wells in the Middle East than OPEC does. There is no way, however, to move from that premise to the conclusion that OPEC has the right to set oil prices — because the member states of OPEC have illegitimately and coercively obtained control over their oil fields.
“but otherwise your claim that their governments are illegitimate still doesn’t make that oil any more yours than theirs, so you’ve still got no grounds to demand oil price changes.”
Except… I never claimed I had any legitimate right to possession, use, or control of their oil AND I’ve never made any demand to “oil price changes.”
So… what?
“There is no way, however, to move from that premise to the conclusion that OPEC has the right to set oil prices — because the member states of OPEC have illegitimately and coercively obtained control over their oil fields.”
I would agree with that, but OPEC doesn’t set oil prices. OPEC countries account for about 1/3rd of the world’s production, and their oil is sold internationally on the same markets as everyone else.
Alex:
By “set oil prices” I mean “set the price of the oil they sell,” which they do, even if they determine what price to sell at based on the global market.