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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: What is "capitalism"? (Explorati
Message-ID: <28200023@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Jul-85 03:22:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200023
Posted: Sat Jul  6 03:22:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 03:39:35 EDT
References: <2380046@acf4.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Jul  5 01:22:00 1985


>/**** inmet:net.politics.t / umcp-cs!mangoe / 12:01 am  Jul  2, 1985 ****/
>In article <28200016@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes:
>
>>>>Perhaps I can only suspect what's best for me.  But who can consistently
>>>>know better, and how?
>
>>>That's a straw man.  The current framework of government doesn't claim any
>>>such consistency. [me]
>
>>Excuse me, but challenging you to find a person who can know your wants
>>better than you do consistently seems to me to be a perfectly valid
>>question to ask of those who claim that governments should have the power
>>to force their decisions on you for your own good.  For any choice
>>you face with respect to your own interests, another person may
>>
>>	A) Feel you are qualified to make the choice better than he is.
>>
>>	B) Feel that he knows better than you what the choice you should
>>	make is (and be right).
>>
>>	C) Feel that he knows better than you what the choice you should
>>	make is (and be WRONG).
>>
>>Sykora is asking (by implication) if you're willing to impose type C
>>decisions on people by force, (of course, they'd get the benefit of the
>>type B decisions too).  Making only type B decisions is not a
>>possibility, or if it is, TELL US HOW -- PUT UP OR SHUT UP.  Making type
>>A decisions, or making, but not enforcing type B or C decisions, is what
>>libertarianism is all about.
>
>But the central problem of government is not seeing that everyone gets what
>they need/want; it is trying to get the best solution given that everyone
>cannot have what they want.  To be able to accomplish this, the government
>has to have the power to force people to do things they don't want, or even
>the power to act against their needs.

Certainly.  The murderous "needs" of mass murderers may be safely and justly
tromped on.  Government, of course, is not the institution I would
choose to do it.  I still don't see how this is relevant to Sykora's question
about who may know better than an individual what is best for that 
individual.   In particular, if it is impossible for the government to
guess correctly consistently, what rate of success must they demonstrate
before they should have the right to force type B/C choices on people?

>
>Consistency is a red herring.  Real governments must perforce operate in a
>world of chance, misinformation, irrationality, and outright malice.  

So, for the record, must everyone else, and in particular, those
on the net :-).

>The
>immense output of historians testifies that one cannot even rate the
>effectiveness of a person or group correctly recognizing someone's needs, or
>even their true desires.  

Indeed.  For historians to correctly rate A's recognition of B's needs,
they would need an understanding of B's needs.  Governments don't have
this.  Historians don't have this.  Only B has this.

>The reason one cannot simply take someone's wants
>as indicative of their needs is that there is an obvious bias to their
>perspective; moreover, the still must be a coordinating agency to resolve
>the inevitable conflicts.  Such an agency will have to make its own
>evaluations of need.

Such an agency need not even guess at the "needs" of the people involved.
To administer justly, it need merely determine who initiated force.
I am NOT saying there are no hard problems -- not at all -- but 
merely that conflicting needs may be handled peaceably, and when they
are NOT handled peacebly, a coordinating agency need merely
determine who broke the peace.

>>>This whole discussion leads me to the conclusion that libertarian theories
>>>are based upon a conception of man which entirely too optimistic.  I keep
>>>hearing about "enlightened self-interest".  As far as I can tell,
>>>"enlightened" reduces to "playing by the rules".  
>>
>>Tsk!  This whole "mathematics" business consists of people "playing
>>by the rules".  Surely it couldn't work....  This whole "market" business
>>consists of people "playing by the rules" -- surely even a few con-men
>>would destroy the whole thing....
>
>But that's one of my criticisms.  The current US system has checks built
>into it for the purpose of discouraging attempts to break the system, or to
>limit their effects; moreover, there are adaptive mechanisms to cope with
>changing circumstances.  The Libertarian ideas discribed here (especially by
>Mike Sykora) don't seem to allow for anything like this, and the Libertarian
>model of man (again as expressed in this newsgroup) doesn't seem to allow
>for malice or love of power as a motivation.

Huh?  The libertarian view I've seen here includes profound distrust for
those who would impose their ideas of what is right into law.  Why?
Partly because those with the love of power, or those who see a way of
using the law to settle personal scores (malice) tend to be quite
commonly seen.  

To argue that the current US system is more adaptable than a libertarian
one because the US one has explicit adaptation mechanisms is like arguing
that a complex program is more correct than a simple one because it has
more special cases.   Libertarian society puts fewer restraints on people
in most ways, and thereby leaves the burden of finding solutions to new
problems on those people.  Governments cannot place the burden elsewhere,
but they CAN deny people the right to find solutions on their own.

>>>But this begs the
>>>question: what if my self-interest calls for breaking the rules, or
>>>circumventing them?  
>>>I don't see any checks against this force, which is
>>>inevitably going to be present.
>>
>>Weren't you the fellow who couldn't see why Consumer's Union and 
>>Underwriter's Lab could exist?  Live and learn....
>
>Certainly private inspectors may take up some governmental functions.  But,
>in a system where money equates directly to power, the temptations to
>corruption are going to be quite powerful, especially when (for instance) CU
>grows to the size and power of the Teamster's Union.

Note here netters -- Charley has made a mature and dignified reply to
my dig.  I appreciate this -- such replies are rare.  That said....

Money does not equate directly to power.  As Von Mises put it
(quoting here from memory) "The least government *fonctionairre* who 
has the ability to deny me the right to work has more power over me
than a millionaire who lives next door."  In short,  the degree of
power a rich man may wield in a libertarian society is pretty limited -- 
any attempt to use his money to control my life costs him quite a bit,
and is certainly less successful than in a society wherein one's rights
may be *LEGALLY* abrogated because one happens to have certain ancestry
(I refer here to the US detention of the Japanese/Americans during WWII).

As for the notions that there are no checks against the greedy and 
malicious, they are incorrect.  I suggest you read "The Machinery
of Freedom" by David Friedman for a discussion of these issues.
>
>Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe
>/* ---------- */
>

					- Nat Howard