Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Decisions in the Social Interest and Libertarians: re to Cramer
Message-ID: <675@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 08:23:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.675
Posted: Wed Jul  3 08:23:11 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 04:09:30 EDT
References: <298@spar.UUCP> <2380037@acf4.UUCP> <657@whuxl.UUCP> <2325@topaz.ARPA> <662@whuxl.UUCP> <291@kontron.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 42

> From Clayton Cramer: 
> (concluding his remarks to my example of social rules to insure
>  traffic safety)
> This represents the most significant difference between the libertarian
> and leftist perception of "the masses".  Libertarians maintain that
> most people are capable of making rational decisions in their *own*
> interest, or at least, better than the collective can do.  We assume
> that most people, even if not well-educated, are at least rational
> most of the time, and are not actively seeking to damage themselves.
> The left seems to view individuals as hardly smarter than livestock,
> incapable of making decisions for themselves, so that they must turn
> over almost all decision making to an elected body of representatives
> who are presumably smarter and more rational.

The example of traffic laws and basic concern for others in driving vs.
individualized chaos does indeed sum up the difference between
Libertarians and the vast bulk of those more moderate.
Libertarians are unwilling to see that in fact everyone's self-interests
are served by providing laws and just application of those laws to
everyone.
Libertarians assume that the stupidity of selfishly considering only
oneself, even when such a value leads to harm for *all*, is some sort of
"moral virtue".  They also assume that somehow people will be stupid enough
to agree with such a system even as it leads to chaos and a situation
in which each must battle all to get anywhere.
Fortunately, while people have been stupid and immoral enough to support
such institutions as slavery and war, they have never been so stupid
that they cannot see that many of their self-interests are best served by
acting together so that all will benefit.
 
Fortunately as well more and more people through history have been able to
see that they should have a voice and an influence in such decisions which
benefit everyone in the society.  Hence the gradual rise of democracy from
Athens, in which slaves, women and those without property were unable to vote
on public decisions, to revolutionary America in which only propertied
men could vote, to modern America in which slavery has been abolished,
women can vote (and even begin to hold high elective offices) and on to
the future when those who work will be able to vote to help make decisions
instead of having them imposed by autocratic managers.
Of course Libertarians will argue that such worker democracy would be
another "interference with property"......
                    tim sevener whuxl!orb