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From: bdp@ptsfa.UUCP (Barbara Petersen)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Libertarianism
Message-ID: <395@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 19:50:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.395
Posted: Fri Dec  7 19:50:53 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 02:12:54 EST
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[Actually from J. Bashinski]

> From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
> Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism
>

> >  Government, on the other hand, is an attempt by some
> > group of individuals to control what interaction may occur.

> No, rather government is an attempt by a majority of individuals, acting
> as a group, to form some system to regulate social interactions in some
> ways.

     How does what you say differ from what I say? The majority (if indeed
a government is set up by a majority) remains a group of individuals, and
regulation of social interactions "in some ways" is still control of what
interactions may occur.

> >      Many people, apparently including Mr. Rosen, say that government
> > is the voice and representative of society as a whole, and that it
> > may exercise prerogatives that that whole possesses. They believe that
> > one owes the benefits one has accrued in interacting with others to
> > create society to that creation itself, and that government, as its
> > representative, is entitled to collect on that debt.
> 
> Not necessarily. Government is not formed because some people think that
> it should collect on people's debt to society. Its function is purely
> pragmatic -- society could not exist without government.

     It's true that governments are formed for pragmatic reasons,
however misguided those reasons may be. Does thst mean that the
formation of a government is RIGHT? The most pragmatic thing for
me to do at this moment may be to cut your head off. Should I do so?

     There are people who want to legitimize their government by
saying that it has the right to collect on debts owed society. What
I argue is that it DOES NOT have that right, and furthermore that
no debts can be owed society in any case. Moral legitimacy for
government cannot come from this source.

> >  Is it even likely that society, taken as a whole, has
> > goals or desires from which to derive the decrees of government?
> 
> Yes, these goals are the natural ones of self-preservation and self-
> improvement.  What is good for society is a difficult question which
> I made some statements about in a posting a while ago...

     I think you're confusing the goals of society with the goals of the
individuals who make it up. It may be that all or almost all of those
individuals have self-preservation and self-improvement as their goals.
It may even be that these individuals want to preserve and improve
society. But it seems unlikely that society as a whole has thought
processes equal to the task of understanding the concepts of
self-preservation or self-improvement, much less of desiring them.

     In any case, libertarians do not advocate the destruction of
society, and I believe that a libertarian society would be an improvement
over what we have now. Since we have no way of learning the desires of
society in the aggregate (assuming it has any), we can't be sure of
doing what it wants, no matter what we do.

     Even if we knew that society had desires and what those desires
were, there would be no reason for us to follow them. We do not incur
a debt to society by creating it, even if that creation makes our own
lives easier. We CANNOT incur a debt to it in any other way, since we
do not interact directly with it.

> >  This necessary coercive element in the operation
> > of government should alone lead anyone interested in individual liberties
> > to wish to severely restrict government involvement in human life.
> 
> You are right, but anybody who is interested in both individual liberties
> and collective goods (like education) will take a long look at what
> he is considering eliminating from government.

     I'm a bit confused by the phrase "collective goods". I can't see
defining a collective good as something that's good for society as a
whole. I've already discussed the problems with considering the desires
of society. Those same problems apply to its "good". Who is to decide
what's good for society, if we can't ask society itself? If we know
what's good for society, why should we care? While we have plenty of
debts due each other, we owe society nothing.

     The only alternative I can see to defining a "collective good" as
something that is good for society as a whole is defining it as something
that is good for all individuals. Education definitely doesn't pass this
test. Is education good for someone whose religion values ignorance as
a virtue? For someone who just plain doesn't believe what's being taught?
I can't think of a single example of something that would be good for
EVERYBODY, at least not if each person were permitted to decide for
him/herself what's good for her/him.

> >      Mr. Rosen says that "Democracy... sets up rules governing how the
> > benefits a society is supposed to provide get distributed...". But
> > clearly the benefits of interacting with others are self-distributing;
> > they accrue to those who interact beneficially. In fact, these benefits
> > are no in essence provided by society at all; the interacting parties
> > provide them to each other. By doing so, they CREATE society. All the
> > government can hope to do is to decide who is to interact with whom
> > and how (with or without the consent of the interacting parties), or
> > to confiscate and possibly redistribute any material gain from the
> > interaction.
> 
> Society without government is a probably better than no society at all
> (no interaction between people). But when government is working
> properly, it makes it much easier for individuals to interact in
> productive ways. Some of this rests on the assumption that government
> intervention in economics is sometimes good, which I don't want to
> argue about any more, but such things as public education and the
> judicial system are clearly cases of productive government regulation.

     Now I AM confused. A couple of paragraphs ago you said that society
couldn't exist without government. Now you say that a society without
government is probably better than none at all. Isn't this a contradiction?

     I don't concede that government makes it easier for individuals to
interact in productive ways. Prove it.

> > If anyone on the net wishes to name a useful service, not involving
> > interference with people's rights to self-determination, now provided
> > by government, I'll be glad to propose a private alternative, either
> > of my own or from the libertarian literature.
> 
> National defense, education, and police are a few that come to mind.
> I can think of a lot more that are less obvious, like regulation of
> consumer goods, control of the economy, amd so forth, that I'm not
> so sure about and many of the people on the net would be very quick
> to attack, so I won't propose them.

National defense:

     I can think of at least three private solutions to the problem of
national defense. The first is to ignore it entirely. A nation without
armed forces would present no threat to other nations. It would therefore
be a less tempting target for attack. If the citizens of that nation
were known to be well-armed as individuals, an attack would still threaten
heavy losses for the attacking force. Since traditional techniques of
military conquest involve taking over the government apparatus already
in place, a libertarian nation would be difficult to take and still more
difficult to hold.

     The second possible solution would be an all-volunteer army
supported by voluntary contributions. Such an organization could even
maintain a minimal strategic nuclear capability, if such were desired.
In the event of an attack by another nation, this already-existing
force could provide organization for a strong resistance.

     A third idea (due to David Friedman) would be to have one or more
profit-making "defense companies", which would rely on citizen's honor
to induce them to pay what the services were worth to them. Such companies
might well be recognized by other nations as the "governments" of the
areas they defended, and could therefore augment their income by charging
for the issuance of passports.

     It is interesting to note that in a libertarian WORLD, the question
of NATIONAL defense would not arise. World peace would have been achieved
without the unnecessary repression of world government.

Education:

     The private alternative to publically supported education already
exists; it's called the private school. Under a libertarian system, all
schools would be private schools. Parents would be free to send their
children to the school of their choice. The children of the poor would go
to schools operated by private charities, or would be taught by their
parents.

     The public school system in this country serves only one purpose
that would not be served by a wholly private education system- the
inculcation in children of the views the government feels they should
hold as adults. Even private schools are required to teach courses
(primarily history and government courses) with substantial political
content... from state-approved textbooks.

Police:

     Police services could easily be provided by companies similar to
the existing private security firms. People would purchase as much
police protection as they felt they needed.

     I really don't see the need to say anything more about police
protection. I know that there's a lot of debate going on about the
desirability of this system. People seem to be afraid of trusting
private companies with the means to use as much force as they might
need to use to keep order. Myself, I have a lot more trouble trusting
GOVERNMENT with that much force; at least under the private system I
can hire another company to protect me from one that runs amok.

> Another interesting point about libertarianism that I have noticed is
> that it seems to be very anachronistic. In the 19th century, when
> lassez-faire was the prevailing system, libertarianism would have
> been right at home. But in the 20th century, every trend seems to be
> away from this sort of philosophy. Communism is its absolute antithesis,
> and it dominates half of the world, and the rest of the world is either
> dictatorships or welfare states of varying degrees (I think that as
> welfare states go, the US is about the most libertarian nation in the 
> world). And yet, libertarianism still exists and seems to be growing
> in the US. Is its day really past, in the modern world of communist
> dictatatorships and welfare states, or will we experience a swing back
> to small government?
> 
> 	Wayne
> 
> ----------

     I don't know whether libertarianism is an anachronism or not. On
even days, I think it's got a good chance; on odd days, I think the entire
world is sinking into a repressive mire. We're not arguing about whether
libertarianism is in tune with the times, but about whether it's RIGHT.

				J. Bashinski
				...!ucbvax!bashinsk%ucbcory

				Please respond to this account, rather
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