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!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!yale!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Education Message-ID: <28200047@inmet.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 18:41:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.28200047 Posted: Thu Aug 8 18:41:00 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 07:25:33 EDT References: <1680@psuvax1.UUCP> Lines: 103 Nf-ID: #R:psuvax1:-168000:inmet:28200047:000:4898 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Aug 8 18:41:00 1985 >/* Written 8:51 pm Aug 6, 1985 by psuvax1!berman in inmet:net.politics.t */ >/* ---------- "Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Educatio" ---------- */ > > I find here very appealing vision: unemployed starve or hire themselves >for pennys, criminals are shot, children of uneducated poor cannot >afford education, criminals are shot (or banished), if somebody invents >penicilyn, then for eternity he can charge whatever market can bear, etc. Do you suppose that THIS time it will be enough to show that Mr. Berman lacks imagination? Oh well... The unemployed do not starve in a libertarian society unless there are two conditions: 1) Lack of sufficient charity 2) lack of a sufficient labor market. You have, so far as I can tell, no support for either of these conditions. In particular, our government, supposedly responsive to public needs, has relatively little trouble raising lots of money for the poor, and private agencies exist in plenty. As for the labor market, yes, the price of certain sorts of labor would drop under a libertarian scheme -- for example, I'll bet the median of doctor's salaries would be lower. On the other hand, people who would be willing to work as (say) a plumber or a hairdresser, or a taxi driver for a low price would be ABLE to (no licensure in Libertaria), so many avenues up from poverty that are closed now (unless you've the right connections) would become open. Criminals are shot? How terrible! Of course, it happens now..... Children of uneducated poor cannot afford education? How odd. Even though MY family couldn't afford it, I went to a private high school. Why? There's this institution called "scholarships", sometimes, but not always supported by the state. Of course, in OUR society, we give the uneducated poor the right to go to ghetto schools. What a great break! Criminals are shot (again) or banished. How terrible. Not often relevant to libertarian ideas, but since you brought it up.... Penicillin. Mr. Berman. If I discover penicillin, I don't "invent" it, so I can't "patent" it. I may patent the process, or keep it secret, but I can't patent a thing I discover (as opposed to invent) and hence have a lot of trouble monopolizing it if someone comes up with another process to extract the stuff. In the case of "designer drugs" where I DO invent the drug, there are similar problems for me in store because of substitute drugs. > First problem: who enforces the law? Private agency? How about the >competition? How assure that a private law enforcement agency uses fair >practices to establish its fee structure (imagine Lebanese militias in >this role? Perhaps hire another agency to shoot out the first one. > This is periodically discussed in the net. Suggest you read The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman. >Now, assume that law enforcement is public. That means that it belongs >to the state, and is supported by taxes. But we have no democracy. >Also, we (owners of education or property) must defend ourself agains >voluntary organisations of poor and uneducated (they could turn, God >forbid, democratic). Who, in absence of democracy should decide? >Possibly, taxpayers, proportionally to the taxes paid. I don't mind if the poor turn democratic so long as they don't start seizing my property or person. Let's not start setting up straw-men: If law-enforcement is to be public, and is controlled by taxation, you have some government mechanism for dealing with the people or you have a gang. In the first case, your piteous moans about how the people are underrepresented are irrelevant, in the second they are spurious. > >Conclusion: Libertaria is a police state governed by the rich. Advocating >democracy there is in effect a conspiracy to deprive people of their full >property rights; as such it is a crime. Uneducated poor cannot afford >the market value of education, thus they remain (hereditiary) uneducated >poor. Tsk! Unwarranted, inflammatory, and underinformed rhetoric of this sort is hardly worth even responding to, but... What makes you think the poor cannot afford the "market value of education"? They did so in old Jewish ghettoes, they do so in new Chicago ghettoes. They've even done so with subsidies from the Church. Advocacy of democracy is not a crime in Libertaria. Conspiracy to deprive someone of property is not a crime. DEPRIVING people of property by force or fraud IS a crime, but this has little to do with advocating democracy. > > It occurred to me that this is exactly what our net free-marketeers >(and/or libertarians) have in mind. Of course, this is a logically >coherent system. Do we really like it? I don't. Nothing like knocking down the ol' straw man, eh? > Net.libertarians, please illuminate me where is the error here (if any). > >Piotr Berman >/* End of text from inmet:net.politics.t */ >