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.