Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site acf4.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!pesnta!qumix!ittvax!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!acf4!mms1646 From: mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Libertarians in Space Message-ID: <2380092@acf4.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 02:52:00 EDT Article-I.D.: acf4.2380092 Posted: Tue Jul 9 02:52:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 15:59:32 EDT References: <293@kontron.UUCP> Organization: New York University Lines: 35 >/* mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) / 1:22 pm Jul 6, 1985 */ >You can't have it both ways. Lots of posters have argued that there >never has been such a thing as a free market, so how can history say >anything about whether people would or would not starve under them? I don't believe anyone has suggested this. I suspect what you are referring to is the response to those who claim that since country X was non-socialistic and many people starved there, we can conclude that in a free-market society, typically, many people will starve. >But there have been millions of people starve under non-socialist regimes. >This goes for both industrialized and non-industrialized countries. Of course, but this alone says nothing about free-market societies. >On balance (setting aside deliberate genocide, like Stalin's Ukraine >and Pol Pot's Kampuchea), I would guess that there is less chance of >starving in a Communist country than in an equivalently endowed free- >enterprise one, and far less chance still in a Socialist one. Why do you guess that? Also, why are you setting aside these examples? Are they atypical? >Some >real statistics might be more useful than appeals to mental models of >idealized history, whether they be mine or anyone else's. I don't have the statistics, but here's one example: the current crisis in Ethiopea. As I understand it, the actions of the statist government there exacerbated the problem. >Martin Taylor Mike Sykora