Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: (Re:**N) Affirmative Action Message-ID: <612@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 15:41:55 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.612 Posted: Fri Jul 12 15:41:55 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 00:37:53 EDT References: <259@kontron.UUCP> <7800353@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 112 In article <7800353@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: > > >/**** inmet:net.politics / cybvax0!mrh / 2:11 pm Jul 8, 1985 ****/ > >Simple demonstration of both "ignorance" and "ivory tower" in libertarianism: > >no such social order has ever existed. Thus, libertarian "predictions" > >are guesses whose quality is probably less in touch with reality than the > >inaccurate predictions of social scientists, economists, etc. trying to > >understand the society right under their noses. > > It is also true that no perfect vacuum is available for study. On the > other hand, rather libertarian societies HAVE existed. To give two > examples, ancient Iceland, and medieval (NOT feudal) Ireland (social > groups of 80 or so were the social unit, and there were no kings of > consequence, and membership in a group was voluntary). If the closest you can come to a libertarian society (to serve as an example on which you base predictions for remodeling our present society) is ancient and medieval Ireland, I'd say that your ideas are not ignorant nor ivory tower, but stupid and inapplicable. > Both of these societies had their un-libertarian aspects as well (in > particular, I doubt, given the time, that they treated women as full > human beings, but don't know), but to argue that no libertarian society > has ever existed is to argue from ignorance. In order for YOU to show that YOUR ideas (or your favorite libertarian economist's) are not ignorant or ivory tower, you would have to show examples of those ideas in action. Hey, sure there might be a libertarian society long ago and in a galaxy far, far away: but unless you want to attribute libertarianism to ancient astronauts' guidance, YOU need to provide the examples. Remember, YOU are trying to convince me (a skeptic) that your ideas are going to work, or I'll try other solutions. So do you want to tell me about the massive amounts of ecomonic data from medieval and ancient Ireland that will sway me to accept libertarian ideas? > >> Market pressures are not coercion. > > > >Libertarians may construct a legal definition of coercion which exempts > >market pressures, yet market pressures are coercive and can force decisions > >against the will. > > It is true that market pressures are coercive to the extent that > they force people to make choices -- but even choosing not to choose > qualifies as a choice. Markets INITIATE no force, which is the > point. Of course markets initiate force. Not immediate, physical force but force none the less. The penalties for ignoring that force can be life-threatening. Such as the threat of starvation if you don't jump the way the market dictates. > As for your notions that market pressures are coercive, > let's check out coercion in "Webster's New World": (Long specific definition deleted.) As I said before, libertarians may choose or create any legalistic definition of what they want to consider coercion, but the fact is that market forces can "compel to an act or choice" (from my Webster's Collegiate.) Now, if we have the ability to regulate market conditions, then we can also control this source of coercion. Whether we do nothing (on the libertarian assumption that untampered markets are "better" or sacred or something) or do something, we are choosing what the coercive effects of the market will be and who will bear them. > Now, it is true that people may be "forced" to live up to their > obligations in a libertarian society (it's fraud if they don't), but the > only way that a market can be said to involve force > is in (for example) debt collection, which in turn implies (at some > point) voluntary acceptance of the conditions involved ("I'll let you > folks reclaim my car if I don't keep up the payments"), or in keeping > people from stealing. No, the market essentially can rob you by devaluing your property. > >Golly, if I can't draw a conclusion in the face of the "coincidence" of > >programs and their intended results, then why should we try your untested > >libertarian solutions? > > Because if you draw your conclusions from the same ignorance that was > the basis of your accusation that there'd been no libertarian societies, > and in the face of "Losing Ground", and without allowing for the notion > that POLITICAL stances FOLLOW popular ones, then you are drawing foolish > conclusions, and that you have draw foolish conclusions from insufficient > information in no way implies things about how other people should act. I think it's wonderful how uncritically you accept "Losing Ground", when most other people don't. My point is that I have better confidence in the coincidence of progams and their intended results than in an untested libertarian agenda. Show me an example where libertarianism has freed copetition enough to lead to the reduction of discrimination. > Just as there's no such thing as a perfect vacuum, there has been no > such thing as a perfectly libertarian society. So what? We may > draw conclusions about vacuums from the characteristics of better > and better vacuums, and we may draw conclusions (albeit tentative ones, > given the lack of repeatability) from freer and less free societies. If only it was so simple as a quest for purity. Breathe deeply during your quest for a perfect vacuum and find out how well it sustains your life. Find out how well it protects you from ultraviolet. Just as socialism might work better if there was a perfect socialist man to live within it, so libertarianism is questing for something we might not be comfortable in. I'm all for experimenting and giving it a chance: but on a small scale, without coercing me into it through our current political system. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh