9. The Efficient Society (Part 3)

Note: This post is the ninth in a series, Parts one, two three four five six seven and eight

In chapter 5 of The Efficient Society, Joseph Heath discusses the virtues of markets, the primary one being that they allow us to solve the question of how much stuff of different types should be produced to make a complex society work, a problem that is too mathematically complex to be solved mathematically but can be resolved by allowing individuals to make their own decisions and then allowing the market prices determined by those decisions signal where more of goods that are in demand are needed and vice-versa.

He notes that it is possible to have trade and markets without necessarily having competitive markets, using the example of the early days of the fur trade in Canada, when the British government gave one company (the Hudson’s Bay company) a monopoly on the fur trade, rather than encouraging competition.

Heath makes a few key points about competition in this chapter:

1) Competition is a way of getting people to put in more effort. It isn’t really tied to capitalism specifically as competition is used in many areas, from Soviet factories that were offered prizes to whoever could produce the most, to Girl Guides who have a competition to see who can sell the most cookies.

2) Competition, by its nature, creates Prisoner’s Dilemma type situations. All will make the effort to achieve something, but it wouldn’t be a competition if there weren’t people who end up losing the competition. Heath explains how businesses in competition with each other are trapped in a Prisoner’s Dilemma since even though they would all be better off to cooperate to keep prices high, each of them has an incentive to undercut the other's prices for their own benefit.

3) Because of its Prisoner’s Dilemma type structure, competition is generally considered a bad thing (why do you have to be so competitive all the time, anyway?) – competition is only good when there is something good produced as a result of the competition.

4) Competitions can only produce a good result, when they follow certain rules.

Picking up the third point in more detail, a competition between two hockey teams is valuable because of the entertainment it provides. Competition between various companies is good because it results in a push for innovation to better serve customers and it serves to lower prices for customers (note these could be considered positive externalities to the competitive process).

Moving to chapter 6, Heath notes that in the market, a proper price signal reflecting the true level of supply and demand is only created when the people in the market follow their self interest. We’ve all been in the situation of trying to decide on where to eat, and each person wants to go along with what the other person wants, but as a result can’t be sure if what the other person is saying is what they really want or just what they think you want. Heath gives the example of electrical generators being sent to Montreal after the ice storm in 1998. There was a backlash against people 'gouging' the residents by offering to ship generators there for an extremely high price, but that high price also has the benefit of signalling the true level of demand and encouraging more people to ship generators there.

(Note that this ties back to chapter 10 of 'No One Makes You shop at Wal-Mart' where we saw that the reason for the backlash in this case is that there is an involuntary component to a transaction involving selling a generator to someone who might otherwise freeze to death or be forced out of their home.)

It is this aspect of markets - that in the market the best action is to pursue your self-interest rather than altruistically pursue a collective good - which Heath believes accounts for the historically 'dishonourable' nature of being in trade or being a merchant (of Venice, or otherwise).

In an interesting passage, he comments on how Nietzsche saw morality as a conspiracy of the weak against the strong, and that Ayn Rand picked up this thread but made it more plausible she "dilute[d] this Nietzschian animus towards morality with a fawning respect for capitalism"

More plausible, In Heath's view because of the point above that when you are in a market, the outcome is better if you compete and follow your self interest rather than being altruistic and cooperating.

He then notes that markets don't require no morality, they just require less morality. He says,

"In order for capitalism to function smoothly, we need to refrain from stealing, from using violence to achieve our ends, from making fraudulent misrepresentations, etc. The list goes on and on. These are all legal and moral obligations. If people did not respect these basic rules, the entire system would fall apart"

Actually, if the list really does goes on and on, I wish Heath would have continued. For now, I'd just note that if you think back to Jane Jacobs' 'Systems of Survival', her list of 15 commercial ethics included 'Respect Contracts', 'Shun Force' and 'Be Honest' which matches up pretty well with Heath's 'refrain from stealing, from using violence to achieve our ends, from making fraudulent representations'.

Both this idea of Heath's that the markets require 'less morality' to function and the contract between Nietzsche and Rand's concepts of ethics are things that I'll likely return to before finishing this series.

More on chapter 6 and the concept of Market Failure in the next post.

The Efficient Society: Cooperation vs. Competition

Note: This post is a continuation of this post and this post.

Second note: This post doesn't really add much new to this excellent post from Andrew Spicer from over 2 years ago (which you really should read), but I wanted to write it all out in my own words to get a grasp on the ideas involved


Chapters 3 through 5 of 'The Efficient Society' all revolve around the concept of the Prisoner's Dilemma¹.

From the wikipedia site on the Prisoner's Dilemma:

"The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:

Two suspects A, B are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and having separated both prisoners, visit each of them and offer the same deal: if one turns Kings Evidence against the other and the other remains silent, the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence and the betrayer goes free. If both stay silent, the police can only give both prisoners 6 months for a minor charge. If both betray each other, they receive a 2-year sentence each.

Assume both prisoners are completely selfish and their only goal is to minimise their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to betray his accomplice and give evidence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice. However, neither prisoner knows the choice of his accomplice. Even if they were able to talk to each other, neither could be sure that they could trust the other.

Now, let's assume our protagonist prisoner is rationally working out his best move. If his partner stays quiet, his best move is to betray as he then walks free instead of receiving the minor sentence. If his partner betrays, his best move is still to betray, as by doing it he receives a relatively lesser sentence than staying silent. At the same time, the other prisoner thinking rationally would also have arrived at the same conclusion and therefore will betray. Thus, in a game of PD played only once by two rational players both will betray each other and the world will become a place for monsters. Betrayal is their only rational choice.

However, if only they could arrive at a conspiracy, if only they could be sure that the other player would not betray, they would both have stayed silent and achieved a better result. However, such a conspiracy cannot exist, as it is vulnerable to the treachery of selfish individuals, which we assumed our prisoners to be. Therein lies the true beauty and the maddening paradox of the game.

If only they could both cooperate, they would both be better off; however, from a game theorist's point of view, their best play is not to cooperate but to betray. This treacherous quality of the deceptively simple game has inspired libraries full of books, made it one of the most popular examples of game theory and made some people appeal for banning studies on the game.

If reasoned from the perspective of the optimal interest of the group (of two prisoners), the correct outcome would be for both prisoners to cooperate with each other, as this would reduce the total jail time served by the group to one year total. Any other decision would be worse for the two prisoners considered together. However by each following their selfish interests, the two prisoners each receive a lengthy sentence."

Clearly, the outcome of the dilemma depends upon where on the axis running from perfect cooperation to perfect competition the people involved happen to be. If people always cooperate then prisoner's dilemmas have no impact at all. If people always compete then the prisoner's dilemma becomes inescapable no matter how obviously damaging it becomes.

Now consider the following two prisoner's dilemmas (both taken from 'The Efficient Society'.

Dilemma #1:

"Imagine a situation in which there are no police or security guards, and no official rules to prevent you from doing what you want. Everyone will therefore be responsible for his or her own protection. In order to guarantee your personal security, you might reasonably decide to carry a weapon. Let's say you have a choice between carrying a knife and carrying a gun. Your potential assailant will have the same choice. So if you do get attacked and need to defend yourself, the set of possible scenarios looks something like the following (in descending order of desirability):

1. You have a gun; your opponent has a knife.
2. You both have knives.
3. You both have guns.
4. You have a knife; your opponent has a gun.

Both of you will try to get your own number one, and as a result you will both get number three. Everyone will carry a gun. Thus the desire to achieve greater personal security has the effect of increasing the deadliness of any eventual conflict (and thus the overall level of insecurity).

Dilemma #2:

Suppose you and your competitor each are holding substantial quantities of some good. If you both charge six dollars per unit, buyers will purchase 100 units total, probably 50 from each of you. However, at a price of five dollars, buyers would be willing to purchase 120 units. Suppose that your cost is three dollars per unit. Here are the possible scenarios:

1. You lower prices; your competitor doesn't. Sold: 120 @ $5. Profit: $240 [120 * (5-3)]
2. Neither of you lowers prices. Sold: 50 @ $6. Profit $150 [50 * (6-3)]
3. Both of you lower prices. Sold: 60 2 $5. Profit $120 [60 * (5-3)]
4. Your competitor lowers prices; you don't. Sold 0. Profit 0.

Whether you are chasing after windfall profits or simply trying not to get frozen out of the market, your best strategy is to lower prices. The same goes for your competitor. As a result, you will both lower prices, and so instead of making profits of $150 each, you will make only $120 each. It is clearly not in your interest to pursue this competition, but you don't have much choice. ... That is why they say every free market is but a failed cartel.

Note that from the perspective of the person involved in the dilemma, these two situations are identical. In both cases they will benefit by cooperating and suffer by competing. But from the perspective of society as a whole the two cases are quite different: in the first case cooperation is beneficial (less deadly violence is good for society) but in the second case competition is beneficial (lower prices are good for society).

So what does an efficient society do? Clearly, an efficient society encourages cooperation in the first type of dilemma but encourages competition in the second kind.

---

So, chapter 3 of the Efficient Society looks at the role of government in solving dilemmas with negative impacts on society. Because the government has, by definition, a monopoly in any given territory, if the government takes responsibility for some activity than we can ensure that there is no competition within that particular territory for that particular activity. Here we see why the monopoly on the use of force is so fundamental to government. Not only is competition in the use of force (violent crime/civil war) the most devastating prisoner's dilemma problem we face, but unless the government controls the use of force, it has no power to enforce its monopoly in any other area.

The above examples and Chapter 3 may give the misleading impression that we always need government to intervene in cases where cooperation is beneficial. In fact, for the vast majority of these situations, government intervention is not required, and we rely on our sense of what is right to cooperate rather than having the government force it on us.

In chapter 4, Heath looks at situations where moral suasion replaces the role of government in helping us to cooperate with each other,

"the practice of lining up is itself an efficiency promoting institution. The reason we line up for things is that any kind of rationed access to a good generates a prisoner's dilemma. Everyone has an incentive to push his or her way to the front, but when everyone does this, the mob scene that ensues results in everyone getting through more slowly. This is especially true in the case of emergency exits. When I was young, it always seemed strange to me that parents and teachers expected us to line up to escape from burning buildings. The reason, I later discovered, is that more people can escape in a given time if the exit is conducted in an orderly fashion. This is not much comfort to those at the back of the line, and so the rule requires fairly powerful moral incentives in order to have any force."

The fact that morals supporting cooperation have always been a bulwark of society not falling apart into a million prisoner's dilemmas helps explain why trade, in which competition is promoted over cooperation, has been, throughout history, consistently regarded as a base or shameful occupation.

In chapter 5, Heath looks at prisoner's dilemmas which have positive outcomes for society and shows how markets, by facilitating competition, make it impossible for sellers to get out of their prisoner's dilemmas.

The one thing I would take issue with Heath on here is his statement,

"In point of fact, the central "discovery" that led to the development of the market economy is not that one can do without morality but that one can permit a selective decline in morality without having society fall apart."

In fact, I would argue, based on 'Systems of Survival' by Jane Jacobs, that the market system does not depend on a decline in morality as much as on the usage of a second set of (equally valid) morals - ones specifically suited to prisoners dilemmas with positive outcomes for society. Instead of looking at prisoner's dilemmas, Jacobs tracks the two systems of morals back to 'taking' and 'trading' as our two means of making a living - but clearly there is considerable overlap between activities based on 'taking' and prisoners dilemmas with negative outcomes for society and a similar overlap between trading activities and prisoner's dilemmas with a positive outcome for society².

Jacobs tracks 'commercial' morality back to the ancient Greeks and through societies such as the Romans, Japanese, Indians and medieval Europeans which were effectively divided into classes or castes with one caste living by 'taking' / cooperative morality and one caste living by commercial / trading / competitive morality.

Somewhere along the line, for some reason, the commercial set of morals became greatly strengthened in Europe coming out of the middle ages leading to the expansion of markets, the enlightenment, the industrial revolution etc. etc.

Which brings us back to chapter 2. In chapter 2, Heath suggested that our move to a society where the state stayed out of questions of values was a result of improved technological weaponry which made disagreements much more deadly than in the past. At this point, I am more inclined to think that the shrinking role of the state has more to do with the increased role of commercial/competitive morality in our society than it did to the Reformation, the invention of gunpowder or to the European civil wars. I suspect that Hobbes, with his social contract, was simply reflecting the changes in society which had already had taken place rather than actually having much of an impact on the course of events himself.

For instance, Jacobs tracks most our current individual rights back to the development of the medieval European Custom of Merchants, noting that, "So many of what we call civil rights are actually rights to make contracts as equals" and that, "Another variety of sexism has often denied homosexuals the benefit of contractual law". Of course, none of this disputes the truth of what Heath wrote in chapter 2, just the source of the changes he described.

And of course I don't really have any answer to explain how it was that in Europe at that particular time commercial morality became so much stronger and more influential than it ever had anywhere else. I suppose Heath's guess is as good as any.

Well, my head hurts, so I think I'm going to leave it at that for now. The amazing thing is that there is actually still a lot more stuff in 'The Efficient Society' that I want to discuss (the usefulness of bureaucracies, problems with GDP as a measurement tool, the need for global government and the challenge presented by an information economy, among others), but I'll have to save that for future posts.



------
¹As Andrew points out in his post,

"the more applicable generalization is that of the problem of suboptimization. As defined on the Principia Cybernetica web site:

Optimizing the outcome for a subsystem will [in many cases] not optimize the outcome for the system as a whole. This intrinsic difficulty may degenerate into the "tragedy of the commons": the exhaustion of shared resources because of competition between the subsystems."

²To see why, note that when you take for a living you are basically relying on nature's bounty (or the work of others), and when you take something for yourself, then nobody else can take the same thing. So taking amounts to being a zero-sum game.

When trading, however, it can be assumed that because both people make the exchange voluntarily, both must benefit so the outcome of a trade is a net gain.

Now imagine introducing competition into a taking activity and into a trading activity. In the zero sum world of taking, increased competition accomplishes nothing other than to make everybody work harder (and to fight more), so an optimal strategy in a taking environment is to cooperate rather than to compete. In the positive sum world of trading, however, competition makes everybody work harder which (because it is a positive sum game) leads to a better outcome for everybody - assuming that everybody competes within the rules of the trading game, sticking to voluntary exchange rather than using force.

This is why when people who take for a living start to compete with each other it is generally referred to as treason, while when people who trade for a living stop competing with each other it is known as collusion.

Of course, trading can occur and be beneficial even without competitive markets, but competitive markets help a lot because it is the competition which creates the prisoner's dilemma which ensures that prices are set efficiently and which motivates traders to work hard.


-----
A couple of other related posts on this topic:

Andrew Spicer describes in detail an interesting (and surprising) prisoner's dilemma involving trucks passing other vehicles on the highway.

I write about when competition is good and when it is bad in the context of industrial subsidies, as per Systems of Survival.

Post Holiday Book Reviews: Rebel Sell

Of all the various forms of writing, the book review has to be one of the ones I know least about. Of course, if I was going to let something like lack of knowledge of what I'm talking about keep me from posting, this blog wouldn't be here. So far, the most interesting book I've read over the holidays has been, The Rebel Sell, which was first (and second, third and fourth) brought to my attention by Darren Barefoot - so here's the review.

------

Reading through the Rebel Sell, I was consistently entertained, but I found it difficult to keep track of the general argument in my mind. Looking back over the table of contents, it's not hard to see why, the book doesn't seem to have any coherent structure to it: the chapters are more like a series of meditations on the same set of basic points, with the occasional digression into just about anything the authors happen to find annoying about left-wing commentary. That said, I found myself generally agreeing with most of what was written and finding some definite insights, so I have made the effort to pull out what I believe to be the main argument:

---
1. Society has lots of problems (e.g. there's too much pollution, you find the same stores everywhere, lousy conditions on factory farms, school children way too concerned over what they're wearing, etc.)

From here the argument splits in two: the counter-culture version of how to solve these problems (as described by the authors) and the authors view on how to solve them.

'Counter-Culture' view of the world:

2 a) The 'Counter-culture' (think Naomi Klein, AdBusters, anti-globalization protestors, Rabble.ca etc.) believes that these problems are reflective of a systemic problem with (Western) culture / capitalism / paternalistic institutions (like organized religion, schools, hospitals etc.). Collectively known as 'the system' or 'the man' these institutions enforce statism, conformity, oppression, rationality, stifling of creativity etc.

3 a) Since the specific problems we see are just symptoms of the underlying disfunction of our society / culture / system, the way to solve them is not by addressing them directly, but rather by changing the 'root problem' - i.e. changing the system.

4 a) Since the government, the church and the other institutions are part of the problem, they can't be effective as part of the solution. The way to solve the problems is by taking individual action and by forming together into groups (as long as these don't become too formalized - otherwise they are betraying themselves by becoming part of the system) in order to defeat / change the system.

5 a) Once the system is defeated, the general mass of people will see the light / 'have their consciousness raised' and will be ready to do things the new way (which will then solve all of our problems).

Author's View of the World:

2 b) The authors believe that most (many) of the problems we face are not caused by 'the system' but are instead collective action problems¹. Basically, prisoner-dilemma like situations where what makes sense for each of us individually doesn't make sense for us collectively (e.g. I am safer if I buy a gun and you don't but if we both buy guns then we are less safe than if neither of us did - hence the rationale for gun control).

3 b) Rather than changing the system, what we need to do is improve the system to solve these collective action problems.

4 b) Since, by definition, a collective action problem requires collective action to solve, solutions which disregard our collective institutions (i.e. government) in favour of individual (or unformalized group) action are doomed to failure.

5 b) The way to solve the collective action problems is to institute solutions which apply to everybody. Rather than being coercive limitations on our freedom as the counter-culture would suggest, these rules will instead protect us from harmful prisoner's dilemmas.

6 b) If only counter-culturalists would stop trying to destroy the system they could work towards fixing it, and we would have the necessary political willpower to solve our collective action problems.
---

Once we have this framework, the entirety of the book can be seen as a long series of examples which attempt to support the argument (and show that the Author's view is accurate while the counter-cultural one is counter-productive).

A couple of the more memorable examples they give are:

School uniforms: Counter-culturalists reject the oppression of conformity and uniformity they bring while the authors suggest they are just a practical way to stop the collective action problem whereby students are forced to put great effort into buying and wearing the right clothing to avoid being seen as geeks/losers etc.)

Advertising: Counter-culturalists think we can defeat the advertising system by turning brand power against the companies which own them through culture jamming, protesting etc. while the authors suggest that advertising is just a collective action problem in which one company can gain an edge by advertising but then other companies have to respond and then it just keeps escalating like an arms race. What's needed is government rule changes to help companies get away from this self-destructive behavior (they recommend making advertising only 50% tax deductible - a good idea in my view).

---

The biggest source of confusion (for me) was that the authors dwelt at great length on one particular example - the example of counter-culturalists trying to defeat 'the system' through their consumption choices. So much so that at first I thought the book was actually just about this particular case and was thus puzzled at all the other unrelated examples they threw in.

So we hear about Adbusters selling their own branded shoes, Naomi Klein living in a loft instead of a suburban house, alternative music instead of the mainstream, free range chickens and on and on, with the Authors consistently asserting that not only are these consumption choices not going to destroy capitalism, they are in fact reinforcing it (because these purchases are only done to achieve status by being unique but eventually what was initially cool (i.e. grunge music) becomes mainstream so the counter-culturalists have to find some new cool trend to buy stuff for, leading to a never ending cycle of consumption in the pursuit of counter-cultural status symbols).

Aside from the confusion caused by not clearly separating this frequently cited example from their core argument, I was surprised the authors would choose this particular example to focus on since it doesn't seem like one of their strongest.

The primary weakness of the consumption example (to me) is that, clearly not all 'counter-cultural' purchases are made in pursuit of distinction or status. Lots of people buy organic produce, not to feel morally superior or just to be different, but because they're willing to pay more to avoid the negative externalities caused by pesticides. If everyone started buying organic food and it started being sold by Kraft or whoever, most of the current organic food advocates would see this as a good thing - not as a sign that organic was no longer cool and that it was time to buy something else.

---

Looking at the book as a whole, the big weaknesses were the lack of structure, the over-emphasis of the one (not particularly strong) example, a tendency to argue against their opponents weaker points and ignore their stronger ones and a tendency to sometimes gloss over things a little too quickly.

Strengths were the clear entertaining prose, the wealth of interesting examples, the emphasis on collective action problems and the need for government involvement to solve them, and the broad range of ideas and other points of view that they covered.

The true message at the core of the book comes through when the authors talk about what they call the counter-culture's cardinal sin: opposing (or at least not endorsing) positive changes in the laws/regulations because they were just superficial changes that are all part of the same corrupt, screwed up system. As an example of this, they mention how in Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore rejects gun control laws as a solution since they don't get to the root of the problem which is the culture of fear in the United States.

I'd go into more detail on the strengths and weaknesses but I've already written too much (writing a book review is hard).

In a nutshell? If you're interested in consumerism or environmentalism this book is the best I've read on the topic in quite a while - even in this long-winded post I've only scratched the surface of what's in it. I just wish they had taken the time to structure their argument in a logical, easy-to-follow manner (it would have saved me some trouble anyway).

---

I feel like I haven't really gotten the point across about just how many collective action problems we face so perhaps I will add an (infrequently) recurring post on 'Collective Action Problem for the Day' starting with some of the better ones mentioned in the book and then moving on to whatever seems worthy/relevant/topical as time goes by.

---

¹ If you want more background on what is a Prisoner's Dilemma / Collective Action problem, the Wikipedia article is excellent and very readable.

When Competition Goes Bad

Interesting article in the National Post today (that alone is noteworthy!) about corporate welfare.

The article is primarily about a recent court victory by Ralph Nader which argued that state subsidies to lure businesses to set up there were a form of illegal discrimination against other states.

It's a pretty good article and it almost gets right to the heart of the matter when the author (Peter Foster) argues that,

"As Nobel economist James Buchanan noted several years ago, politicians are every bit as self-interested as market actors. The difference is that private actors in free markets do, as Adam Smith pointed out, a "good that is no part of their intention." Political actors invariably do unintentional damage."

Unfortunately, in his haste Foster oversimplifies matters in saying that the private sector always achieves good by following its self-interest while the public sector does the opposite. When private actors dump toxins into our environment for their own benefit, no unintentional good is done. When public actors ensure that police forces are properly trained, staffed and free from corruption this is both in their own self-interest and good for the public as well.

I would argue that private actors achieve an unintentional good not through all their actions, but when they are in competition with each other while public actors do harm when they compete with one another.

Let's look at an example. Suppose Ford wants to open a new auto plant somewhere in North America. Suppose further that whatever state/province the plant moves to will get a total financial benefit (lower unemployment, higher tax revenue etc.) of $100 million. Ford wants to keep its costs as low as possible (which is good for the public) because of its competition with other auto-makers.

Now suppose that Ontario offers Ford $10 million to put the plant there. This is perfectly reasonable since there will be a net benefit to Ontario of $90 million. Seeing this, Alabama offers $50 million, and Ohio then offers $80 million, and so on. In the end, because it can play one jurisdiction against one another, Ford can capture and keep pretty much all of the social benefits of it's new plant.

I am reminded of Jane Jacobs brilliant book, Systems of Survival, in which she builds on Plato's Republic, to argue that humans have two ways of making a living: our traditional one based on control of territory and a somewhat newer one based on trading. Each of these ways of making a living has it's own set of ethics, with ethical trading relying on shunning the use of force, competing, honesty, openness to novelty, invention, collaboration with strangers and a bunch more.

In contrast, ethical territorial activities (such as government) rely on a different set of values including shunning trading, respect for hierarchy and tradition, loyalty and a bunch more.

In Jacobs' view, unethical behavior arises when values which are ethical in one way of making a living are used in the other way. As an example of what happens when governmental organizations adopt commercial tactics she documents a case where a consultant to a police organization recommended introducing market incentives to the force by financially rewarding officers based on how many arrests they made (basically, putting them on commission). As you might expect, the whole thing unravelled amid numerous false and marginal arrests being made. Jacobs could just as well have used governments competing over the location of a new factory as an example of what goes wrong when a commercial value like competition is introduced into a territorial (governmental) system.

In the end, the Post hopes that Nader's actions will end the corporate welfare by appealing directly to the courts to tie the government's hands. Still, I think if they want to provide the subsidies, state and provincial government will find a way to skirt the law (and I'm sure the corporate law troops will only be too happy to help.) The true solution would be to move jurisdiction over subsidies to multinational companies under federal jurisdiction instead of state/provincial. Of course as a global problem (Many companies can build new plants pretty much any where on the globe) it really needs to be dealt with by a global government. A global government wouldn't be in competition with any other jurisdictions and would therefore be able to protect the global public interest, but that may still be a few years off (we're doomed without it, but alas, that's no guarantee it will happen).