Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Obituary Message-ID: <4760@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 10-Dec-84 20:07:26 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.4760 Posted: Mon Dec 10 20:07:26 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 20:07:26 EST References: <658@sjuvax.UUCP> <22400050@ea.UUCP>, <343@hercules.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 48 I missed mwm's commentary on his original posting. i can tell you the difference between fascism and socialism, though. Socialism espouses government *ownership* and *control* of resources (supposedly for the sake of the collective). Fascism espouses private *ownership* and government *control* of resources (for a whole host of reasons, but generally involving either the good of the state or ``national security''). Robert Nozick has an interesting scenario which he uses, and which can be used to represent the difference. What Nozick wants to talk about is the problems with ``patterned redistribution'', but it works for this as well. It goes like this. Assume, to begin with that all teh wealth that there is was divided among all the people in whatever manner you would find most fair. (you don't have to say what this manner is, or how this is to be done -- assume it works by magic.) Okay, on the day that this happens, Wilt Chamberlain makes up a bunch of posters and sticks them on the doors of basketball stadiums everywhere. They read ``if you think that your enjoyment of the game was significantly a result of my presence, please deposit a dime into this can.'' There are suitable cans. Months pass. Thousands of basketball fans watch basketball and pay their dimes. At the end of the year, Wilt Chamberlain has made hundreds of thousands of dollars this way. Nozick's question is: Is this fair? After all, Wilt Chamberlain has lots more money than he did on day one (when the wealth was distributed according to your lights) and a lot of basketball fans are many dimes lighter. If your conclusion is that this is unfair, then you have to admit that you are against voluntary trade arrangements between consenting and uncoerced individuals (or work very hard to show where the coercion set in -- remember that nobody was forced to pay the dimes). Both Socialists and Fascists would be likely to say that this is not fair. A Socialist solution would be to make Basketball playing a state run activity where people like Wilt Chamberlain could not make side-profits. A Fascist solution would be, not to nationalise the basketball industry, but to restrict how people can dispose of theier wealth (money) by making such side-profits illegal. (In practice it would be easier to make it illegal for Chamberlain to collect than for the people to spend, but the opposite regulation would be equally fascist.) The great question is, of course, ``is this distinction not highly artificial''? What can it mean to ``own'' property if I do not also have the rights of disposal on it? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura