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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism
Message-ID: <1838@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 00:38:31 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1838
Posted: Wed Nov 28 00:38:31 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 08:47:36 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:ucbcad:-281200:inmet:7800192:000:4712
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Nov 26 18:56:00 1984

>***** inmet:net.politics / ucbcad!faustus /  3:14 am  Nov 25, 1984
>>      For all that, government, like all human activities, is an activity
>> of individuals (even though they may act in concert). It is an attempt
>> by a group of people to shape society as they would have it shaped, to
>> bend the pattern to their will- and to dictate to other individuals the
>> ways in which they may interact, no matter how much they might wish to
>> do otherwise.
>> 
>>      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.

Just as women's bodies could not exist without corsets....

>
>>      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. 

A perpetual motion machine, when it is working well, provides all the
power you need.  Does this mean that it is worthwhile to spend time
building a perpetual motion machine?  

This notion that any dynamic whatsoever can be built into a government
(David Friedman's phrase) is far sillier than anything libertarians have
come up with.  In particular, when you create a government, the people
you've put in charge of it do not magically become exempt from greed,
envy, and the urge to power.  The organization of the government (the
bureaucracy) does not magicly become sprightly, well-integrated, and
cooperative.  These things obey the laws of human nature just as all
other such creations do.  You cannot build a perpetual motion machine
because of the laws of physics.

I'm not quite so skeptical about a "good" government, but probably
only because there is no well-founded theory of inter-human dynamics.

What I am trying to suggest here is that it may not be possible to 
build a government that is, or can remain, "good", and that the 
notion that one need only take an existing government and "fix" it
to get a good government is like the notion that one can take
a bicycle generator and "fix" it so that it becomes a perpetual
motion machine. 

>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, 

I've been waiting for that list of monopolies!  
You remember, the ones that don't need government support?
If you don't want to argue about it, don't make it a basis
of your argument.

>but such things as public education and the
>judicial system are clearly cases of productive government regulation.

There's no argument about it!  Government can certainly come up
with public goods.  The problem is that the government must
create public "bads" (taxation, limited liability for itself, denial
of certain liberties) to create them.  Are the goods worth the cost? 
The people who DON'T think so still have to pay, or they go to 
jail.  Isn't it worth looking REAL HARD at those things government
wants to do before saying "I'm willing to threaten people who disagree
with this with jail, unless they pay for 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 suggest you read "Machinery of Freedom", which describes a well
worked-out libertarian police and court system.