alt Hacker NewsA government
> standing in for many individuals who share a common injury.
Sounds like a synonym for "public interest" to me! Is that a semantic difference, or do you think there's something substantive to it?
I'd like to know how you'd handle the case of a new industrial plant (let's even say it's a brand new technology) that will exhaust lead into the atmosphere. Does the government have to wait until there's demonstrable harm, and then lodge a suit in court? Isn't it... cleaner (for want of a better word, and no pun intended) to have a law in place that says "No Lead-spewing (as defined by [reasonable technical standard]) Allowed", and prevent it being built altogether? From another angle, under which paradigm would hypothetical investors prefer to operate?
In fact, and this is true, industry often requests regulations be put in place, because they'd like to be certain that their investments won't be subjected to the uncertainty of (private or public) litigation. Yes, this can be malign (in the cases of corruption, or regulatory capture, or incumbents freezing out smaller competitors), but at its most basic the request can be seen as benign: "we'd like to comply with community standards; please write down what they are, and we'll follow them" - no violence required or implied. It's also, and to my way of thinking more importantly, a way to break out of prisoner's dilemma equilibria, where all players can agree the sector as a whole will be better off without defectors, but appeal to an outside, neutral party to keep themselves honest.
I'm also curious about what seems to be your premise that The Courts are separate from The State. That's not how I think of them at all! I mean, aren't they, kind of by definition? After all, if one ignores a judgement - even civil - isn't the ruling ultimately enforced by, well, Force?
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Here is “that guy.” You won't convince them with practical examples, because this is a matter of principle. Freedom and independence from the state are more important to these people than a few people suffering from lead poisoning. From their perspective, living a free life and then dying of lead poisoning is still better than being subjugated by the Leviathan.
> your second paragraph is at odds with your third
Well, well. That didn’t take long.
The teenager was a carefully chosen comparison. The state’s authority over the citizen is similar to a parent’s authority over their child. This is quite humiliating and emasculating. And I agree with libertarians on one point: if the state is against you, you don’t stand a chance. A healthy approach to this has two components. (1) You make sure that the authority is benevolent or at least allows enough leeway for a good life. (2) You create enclaves of freedom. The teenager hides his weed and smokes it secretly, or smokes his cigarettes on the way to school. The citizen leaves some income untaxed and runs a red light now and then. What does the teenager who categorically rejects parental authority do? Run away and become homeless? The difference between them and an adult is that the latter should have enough sense to realize that the romantic notion of a life free from the burden of authority ultimately leads to sadness, coldness, loneliness, and misery—or, if it succeeds at all, merely re-establishes structures in which forms of authority are entrenched. Libertarians feel most oppressed by the state every time they have to wait at a red light or obey a speed limit. They fail to see that, in doing so, they are submitting to a principle of order that is necessary for road traffic to function at all.
> Is that a semantic difference, or do you think there's something substantive to it?
That is a very important point! Philosophers distinguish between the particular and the universal. Libertarians recognize only the particular and reject any notion of the universal, because it negates all particularities. For them, a group is always just an accumulation of individuals. A genuine community—which consists precisely in the participating individuals restricting themselves to some extent for the sake of the community—is inconceivable to them as something positive. Hence the infamous Thatcher quote: “... and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families ...” That is an ideological divide that cannot be bridged through discussion. I’ve gone over this enough times already.
> Is that a semantic difference, or do you think there’s something substantive to it?
"Public interest" today implies a conflict with private interests: a new sports arena, "affordable" housing, protecting domestic jobs. So no, government-as-plaintiff doesn't count.
Personally, I'd define the public interest as interests common to all men: freedom, not sacrifices of some to others. But that's not the modern meaning of it.
> Does the government have to wait until there’s demonstrable harm
Anticipating harm is proper when the decision is irreversible. Example: nobody has a right to physically block a public entrance. That's a right violation you can prohibit in advance. Same with pollution: objective laws ("you may not emit substance X beyond concentration Y") set a clear boundary without dictatign production methods.
But there's no harm to anticipate in, say, Lightning vs. USB-C.
> your premise that The Courts are separate from The State
If you got it from the way I contrasted courts with regulatory agencies, I actually contrasted the way the state can wield force: retaliatory (proper) vs initiatory (improper). Other than that, the courts and state aren't separated.