Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!amd!vecpyr!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!harvard!think!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Education Message-ID: <28200051@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 12:35:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.28200051 Posted: Wed Aug 14 12:35:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 02:40:42 EDT References: <292@ubvax.UUCP> Lines: 158 Nf-ID: #R:ubvax:-29200:inmet:28200051:000:7715 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Aug 14 12:35:00 1985 >/* Written 1:38 pm Aug 9, 1985 by ubvax!tonyw in inmet:net.politics.t */ >/* ---------- "Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Educatio" ---------- */ >In article <3168@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes: >>In article <1680@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes: >>> I find here very appealing vision: unemployed starve or hire themselves >>>for pennys, ... [litany of Dickensian horrors] >> >>Why do you think that the centralized organization of illegitimate >>coercion, which is all that we're advocating the removal of, is the >>motive force behind social concern and compassion? I don't believe it. >> >>I believe that the amount of compassion is relatively orthogonal to >>these political questions, but that the wealth of a society determines >>the amount of activity and physical aid this compassion enables them >>actually to give. Thus a rich society is a better place to live, >>even if you are poor. > >It's nice to know what you believe, Josh. But is it true that the poor >and down-and-out do better from private charity than from the modern >welfare state? Why should the abolition of "coercion" make people >any more generous? Why should the absence of any health standards, >for instance, which poor people should fulfill (food in the right >quantities, minimum shelter, etc.) aid the poor in meeting these >standards? > >These aren't questions of belief; the burden's on libertarians to prove >these things (chuckle), not on the rest of us to take them for granted. > If you want a lot of evidence for this, I suggest you read Charles Murray's "Losing Ground". In brief, the welfare state has harmed those it wished to help, and so far (a social-worker friend tells me) the best that any liberal publication has been able to do is grumble that maybe things would have been even worse if the welfare state hadn't been around. A pretty weak argument from those who have stolen billions of dollars ostensibly to help. More evidence? How about "The State Against Blacks" by Walter Williams. The abolition of coercion need not make people more generous -- to spend $1 on a poor person, the Federal government must take in $5. A private agency need take in only about $1.10. Remember, we're talking about a society in which anybody could take people on taxi rides, cut their hair, or do social work without certification from the state or fear that the state might shut them down without certification from a union, so some proportion of the poor who don't have jobs now would have jobs in libertaria. Of course, if you REALLY think that people a libertarian society would be less generous, you should bear in mind that you are saying that people tend to give less than a fifth voluntarily than they do under coercion, and that the poor have not been denied reasonable jobs by such things as minimum wage laws and licensure. Not a tenable position. You're also assuming that a large number of people will need charity -- remember Daniel Mck.'s very well-defended discussion of unemployment in libertaria. The reason that the absence of health standards would help the poor to meet those the real standards of health is that the existence of a standard in law merely imposes a penalty for not meeting the standard ("we arrest you because these houses you built are too small, or because the food you provide is too meager") but doesn't accomplish any increase in the amount of housing or food provided. In other words, making it illegal to serve inferior food doesn't make it a requirement to serve good food. An example? Why sure! Just take a look at the abandonment rate of buildings under rent control in New York city. If you'd rather not look it up, just take a cab through Harlem sometime. Those buildings with the metal sheets blocking the windows are examples. Another example? Certainly. Kidney machines are rationed and subsidized by the government. There has been relatively little research on improving these machines because the whole thing is pretty closely regulated, there have also been pretty severe limits placed on access to those machines. For details, see Reason Magazine, August 1984. >>> First problem: who enforces the law? Private agency? How about the >>>competition? >> >>The competition keeps the prices low, the laws fair, and the cops on the >>job. Unlike the present situation. >> >>>... Perhaps hire another agency to shoot out the first one. >> >>War is extremely expensive; it is almost never practiced except by >>those organizations who obtain their incomes by theft, such as >>governments and criminal gangs. > >Not in Mad Max's world. Isn't libertaria more like that? Nobody >regulating the gangs? In Mad Max's world, everybody knows how to use >a gun ('cept for those helpless good folk...). Excuse me, but in Mad Max's world, what we have are very small governments running around harassing people. In the latest film ("Beyond Thunderdome") we see the beginning of private law-enforcement and trade (essentially a town that forms from a trading post). Sure it's anarchic and brutal, but I'd swap it for the large countries that presumably conducted the nuclear war, wouldn't you? >Poor women who can't afford an agency had better watch out. Or, perhaps apply to the Red Cross, their church, the Guardian Angels (who do not, as I recall, solicit donations) for the money to support themselves. As I recall, the per capita cost of our current municipal law-enforcement system is pretty low anyhow (on the order of $300/year, in NYC if I remember right) (Note -- this is the COST, not how much had to be raised in taxes to enable the NYPD to spend that much). Most likely the poor woman who can't afford an agency would pay the agency as part of her rent. By the way, in libertaria, she could own a handgun for self-defense. Certain statist types believe that she shouldn't have that right. >And even >then, they'd probably could only afford a crime deductable (i.e. the >agency pledges to protect only after the first ten crimes ...). They >would learn to adjust their expectations and live with this. > Such nonsense! Let me see -- you're arguing that in a society with a much easier path to economic self-sufficiency, a society in which no public institutionalization of poverty or broken homes is going on, the crime rate would be the same or worse than what we have now? G'wan! >... >> >>>Conclusion: Libertaria is a police state governed by the rich. [etc] >> >>If I have two dollars and you have one dollar, I get two lollipops and >>you get one. If I have two votes and you have one, I get everything, >>and you get nothing. Sorry! >> > >Show me a democracy like this, and I might believe you, Josh. At least >I'd stop and think. Stop and think: how long did it take to get out of Vietnam? Why? Among other reasons, the people who were forced to go there accounted for a fairly small proportion of the vote. How long have New England blue laws prohibited people from working on Sunday? Until (do you suppose) a large enough political coalition was formed to weaken them? In the Reason Magazine article quoted above, it is pointed out that Hemophiliacs do not receive special government aid for their treatments, even though those are at least as expensive as kidney machine treatment. Why? Because the polital push was on for renal-failure victims. They, in short, had the votes. >I agree with Piotr. I'd rather believe in people than believe in >libertaria anytime. > That's quite a statment for someone who seems to be advocating the welfare state..... Do you believe in people, or do you believe in people with the right chains on them?