Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!mcgeer From: mcgeer@ucbvax.ARPA (Rick McGeer) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialists] Message-ID: <10430@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 00:37:19 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10430 Posted: Thu Sep 19 00:37:19 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 05:00:23 EDT References: <389@drutx.UUCP> <1674@dciem.UUCP> Reply-To: mcgeer@ucbvax.UUCP (Rick McGeer) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 35 In article <1674@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes: > >>"political reality" Isn't that an oxymoron? :-) Besides, government is not >>a source of wealth. Unlike uncles, government cannot generate wealth; it can >>give only what it takes from people who produce. > >That is false. Wealth is created by the re-organization of things >(the reduction of entropy, if you like). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ When I took physics, I was taught that entropy always increased. When I took economics, I was taught that the only way to increase wealth was to produce: and that generally takes labor. Oh, economists will argue that one can get some factors to produce more than they did before, but the way to do this is to remove artificial barriers to production. Hint: what is the most prominent barrier to production or exchange? >Government most definitely >can aid in such organization. A Canadian says this? After 15 years of Trudeau? TO see how government -- your government, formerly mine -- "aids" such a reorganization, read "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", or how Trudeau and Jack Austin together bankrupted Calgary in the midst of an oil boom. >Whether it is the most efficient way >of doing so is a different story, but to regard government as only >a transfer medium for existing wealth is like seeing a painting as >a transfer medium for oil and pigment. No one regards government as a transfer medium for existing wealth, unless you think of a black hole as a "transfer medium". Socialism Delenda Est, Rick.