Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site tty3b.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5a!hou5d!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!we13!otuxa!tty3b!mjk From: mjk@tty3b.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: How to Argue with Libertarians Message-ID: <144@tty3b.UUCP> Date: Tue, 28-Jun-83 13:27:04 EDT Article-I.D.: tty3b.144 Posted: Tue Jun 28 13:27:04 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jun-83 03:14:41 EDT References: <455@grkermit.UUCP> Organization: Teletype Corp., Skokie, Ill Lines: 41 grkermit!chris states that one must challenge libertarians on the basis of their principles: "The Libertarian argument for government begins with an argument for individual rights. These rights are [claimed to be] necessary in order for an individual to be able to work productively and be able to count on being able to enjoy the benefits of the labor. That claim is what you need to argue about in order to convince libertarians that their concept of a just government is incomplete or bad in some other way." Speaking from a few years of experience of arguing with Libertarians in college, I don't think that's right. You point out to Libertarians how their system is totally unrealistic because it argues for a system (laissez-faire capitalism) without devising a plan to avoid what seems to be the inevitable result of capitalist development: monopolies and oligopolies. They are in a sense ahistorical because our own political history is one of government being forced to assume a regulatory role by the abuses of the free market. If one looks at the history of the development of organizations such as the ICC, one finds an essentially free market which quickly developed into an oligopolistic market (the Robber Barons et al) which then formed regulators to guard market share. In other cases (labor), the abuses were so outrageous as to require some form of intervention to preserve the system -- there was the possibility of a revolution over unionization. In parts of West Virginia and surrounding coal mining areas, there was open warfare between the goons hired by the coal operators and the union organizers. So this view that somehow "Big Government" just developed one day because some people were "too lazy to make it in the private sector" and decided they could do well in government is totally off base. The U.S. was once a free market economy and has come to be a mixed economy (although it still is less regulated than almost any other industrialized country in the world). It became that way through natural historical forces, and the basic drives of the capitalist system, not because some evil men plotted to tyrannize the nation with Big Government. Libertarians just pooh-pooh that and argue that all our problems would be solved in a free market. Just what are they going to do about Exxon, ITT, AT&T, IBM, GE, .... tty3b!mjk the development of our own economy and government. The government was