Rothbard's articulation of utility being an ordinal, and not a cardinal, concept comes in handy. When all else fails, I pull it out of my little bag of econ tricks. I did it just now in a paper I wrote about open markets for organs, and how the Organ Transplantation Act of 1984 kills people. I tried to upload the paper to the blog but I don't think I can upload files here.
Anyway, what stinks about such a trump card is that it's unheard of in the mainstream. By accepting Rothbard's point, you have to also accept the fact that coercive government as a whole is not only pernicious but unjustifiable, too. So, by default, I can't really use this defense outside of free market circles.
Does anybody know of a good refutation of Rothbard's welfare analysis?
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