Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/23/84; site ucbcad.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad!faustus From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism: Anarchism, Schools, Defense, Society Message-ID: <33@ucbcad.UUCP> Date: Sat, 22-Dec-84 15:57:45 EST Article-I.D.: ucbcad.33 Posted: Sat Dec 22 15:57:45 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Dec-84 08:36:29 EST References: <399@ptsfa.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA Lines: 132 > The problem with talking about "the greatest good of the greatest number" > is that it involves maximizing two dependent variables at once. If you want > to maximize something like a product "GOOD * NUMBER", you'll have to come up > with a way to quantify "GOOD". Have fun. You don't really need a definition of good, because most people will agree on what is good and what is not. I think that the best you can do is to try to formulate a definition that conforms well to what people think. Not an easy task, but it is not necessary. > A big army is a much better motivation to try to *destroy a country > outright* than is a rich economy. The idea is to "get them before they > get us". Another good reason to try to take over a country is the existence > of a robust government apparatus that can be used to keep it subjugated. > After all, people who are already oppressed probably won't care about a > change of oppressors. > > When you invade a country successfully, you usually destroy its > economy. While it's true that those who plan invasions may not understand > this too clearly, I hardly think that this makes a rich economy an > incentive for a takeover. This is especially true if there are no barriers > keeping you (as a government) or your citizens from trading in that > economy. I can think of a lot of reasons why the Soviets, for instance, wouldn't mind invading the US if we had no military -- to get our technology (remember what they did to the East Germans after WW2), to add to their power in the world (having all of North America would make them more of a threat to China and Western Europe), to gain control of the people (I doubt that we would be as much of a challenge as the Afghanistanis), and so forth. > Frankly, I doubt that complete neglect for children's education > would be terribly common. If the poor unmarried mother didn't have time > or knowledge to educate her child, the child could go to a charity school. > Who would operate charity schools? Churches and other private organizations > have been operating schools and other youth programs for years. Furthermore, > as proponents of public education are so quick to point out, a modern > industrialized economy can't operate with an uneducated work force. It > would therefore benefit firms who need educated workers to support schools. How many small children do you know who would go to school if the government and their parents didn't force them to? When I was five years old, I probably wouldn't have. > It would be difficult to imagine such a system working much worse than > the present one. I went to the best public schools in the local district > (Oakland, California). Many of my fellow graduates were, in my opinion, > functionally illiterate. Once having learned to read, I learned essentially > nothing in classes, since they were paced for the least motivated students. > A few "special" classes were still incredibly boring. I don't ascribe much > validity to IQ tests, but it's interesting to note that my measured IQ > *dropped* by thirty points between first grade and high-school graduation. I will agree with you here -- many public schools (including the ones in Oakland) aren't very good. But you can't deny that they are better than nothing... > Parents don't have a right to "do what they want with their children". > *My* opinion is that parents hold their children's rights to property in > their own bodies in trust, and that it should be fairly easy to arrange > reversion of that trust. If a child's parents are not educating him/her > properly, I feel that the child has a right to seek education elsewhere. > The child does NOT, however, have a RIGHT to education itself, however > likely that child is to find it in a libertarian society. Children are NOT just little adults, who think just like adults do and are capable of being responsible for the same things. They won't seek education elsewhere, they will just sit around and never realize what they are missing. They certainly won't end up libertarians -- a lack of education will just make them more susceptible to government propaganda (more so than they would be listening to a bit in school). > A libertarian (my personal definition, which seems to be fairly well > accepted) is a person who believes: > > 1) That individuals heve the right to control their own bodies > and the products of their labor, and therefore in private property. > > 2) That the initiation of force or fraud is wrong, but that force > may legitimately be used to counteract force initiated by others. > > These are the essentials. There are other propositions, but I think that > these two are sufficient for as good an axiomatic development of > libertarianism as can be had for any political philosophy. They sound reasonable, but as always, their validity must be decided after looking at what kind of system they give rise to. If, as it seems, they imply that people who cannot be responsible for something because they don't understand it must be responsible anyway, I think that they alone are unacceptable axioms. I think they are a good start, though. > I think that a possible source of confusion, at least in my own > postings, has been the use of the word "government" without definition > and in possibly inconsistent ways. In many places I have used "government" > to mean "nonlibertarian government" or "government as it is presently > practiced". To avoid future confusion, I propose the following definitions, > which I'll use myself from now on: > > A GOVERNMENT is an entity which reserves all use of force to itself, > and which uses force to prevent others from using force without > its authorization. > > A LIBERTARIAN GOVERNMENT is a government which uses force only in > response to the use of force or fraud by others, and which > recognizes that it draws its right to use force from the > right of the victim of the original force or fraud to redress. > > If anyone can show me something substantially wrong with these > definitions, I'll willingly change them. You seem, as most libertarians, to be obsessed with the use of force by governments. How about this one: A "good" government is an entity which, with the consent and support of the majority of the people it governs, regulates interactions between individuals for the "common good", and regulates the actions of those people who are incapable of being responsible for themselves. I am not going to define "common good", because I think it is a reasonably clear idea, and exactly what it includes depends upon the people who are being governed. Also, there is nothing in this definition about regulating things that responsible people do -- if anybody wants to take drugs and kill himself, just as long as he isn't a minor that is perfectly ok. As for the use of force, clearly excessive use of force is not for the common good as it leads people to react with force and increase civil strife. Wayne