The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads 143
from concerned individuals provide ample evidence of the charitable
impulses of many of the American people.
Are we to assume, on Olson’s theory, that no rational, selfinterested
persons are involved in these enterprises? I think not.
Rather, it seems clear that Olson is guilty of a stipulative redefinition
of some rather slippery words such as “rationality,” “selfinterest,”
“altruism,” and so on. Specifically it would be inconsistent
with his theory to suggest that a rational, self-interested
person might be interested in the welfare of others to that extent
that he derived pleasure from an increase in theirs. But why
should this suggestion be considered unreasonable? Olson has
definitionally precluded such motives from the realm of the
rational.
It might appear that Olson is on firmer ground in using the
term “self-interested.” Dickens’s Scrooge, after all, was not
known for his charitable instincts. But on consideration, it does
not seem correct to so restrict the word “self-interested” to those
who take only their own happiness into account, and no one
else’s. Surely the word is sufficiently elastic to include as “selfinterested”
a person who includes the welfare of others around
him, such as the members of his immediate family, in his own
utility calculations. Doesn’t Papa Scrooge ever worry about how
Li’l Scrooge is making out?
If we are wrong in this contention, and it is somehow shown
that true self-interest is limited to consideration of one’s own
pleasure and no one else’s, then Olson’s view is of course correct.
But even then, Olson’s position is much less powerful than he
seems to believe, for all we are left with is the argument that
those individuals who are strictly self-interested will be unable to
coalesce into groups which can work for common ends. But since
there cannot be more than a minute proportion of people who
really take into account no one’s happiness but their own, this
would seem to be but a slight impediment to the smooth functioning
of cooperative groups.