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 l5.uucp Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Health Care, Wonderful Market fo Message-ID: <129@l5.uucp> Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 18:32:13 EDT Article-I.D.: l5.129 Posted: Thu Sep 19 18:32:13 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 11:45:22 EDT References: <1764@psuvax1.UUCP> <10300@ucbvax.ARPA> <1774@psuvax1.UUCP> <10355@ucbvax.ARPA> <1231@ihlpg.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco Lines: 70 In article <1231@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes: > Now, about "social needs". How about starting with adequate food, >clothing and shelter for all? Almost every non-libertarian would agree with >these. Wrong-o. William F. Buckley Jr., for instance, who takes great pains to make sure that he is identified as conservative, and not one of those libertarians would not buy this one. Neither will a good many people involved in work in the third world because they believe that the population will always expand so that ehre will always be a level of ``poor'' who are malnourished and unhoused. If you dump more money into the problem, then people who are currently dying of starvation (and therefore do not need housing) will survive and form a new level of poor to be a problem. If you feed and house them another layer will be found, so unless you implement strict birth control you will never be able to fix this one. Note that I am not saying that this view is necessarily correct -- what I am saying is that it is wrong to assume that all non-libertarians think that food and shelter should be provided for all. The other thing that is wrong with this view is that the libertarian objection is not with the ``providing food and shelter'' but with the TAXING of people in order to provide food and shelter. > Conservatives might stop there, liberals might add a few more, while >social democrats would add a lot more. Who decides? Why, the electorate, >through its elected representatives, of course. Since social needs >are not defined in Libertarian economics, they clearly don't exist. >Right, Rick? social needs are not defined by any economic system, except in that certain systems are likely to produce a certain type of problem whereas others will avoid this one. Feudalism gave every lord the obligation to provide shelter for his vassals and serfs, so there was no particular need for shelter that was not being met. However, there was a 70+% infant mortality rate and a lot of malnutrition. The industrial revolution made farming a lot easier and made it easier to stay alive -- teh infant mortality rate dropped to about 30% in industrialised countries. Now, of course, the population grew at an unprecedented rate and bingo -- there is a housing problem. If you simply killed 40% of children outright, you could stop the housing problem, but this is not how people want to solve it. Libertarians do not claim that social needs do not exist -- just that the state should not be trying to solve social problems and that the people who are paying to have social ills remedied should get to choose which ills they are interested in fixing and by which means, and when are they going to be considered fixed. > Market demand may very well be an adequate reflection of the demands >of the society. But my demand for food won't give me a supply in >Libertaria if I have no money and no job. Guess I will have to hit you >over the head and steal yours. Such is Libertaria. >-- >Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan If you have no money anbd no job right now you may be reduced to this. Or you may have set aside a fund with fellow-workers in order to provide with this contingency. Or you may have friends or relatives who can lend you money. Or you may go to charitable organisations. Incidentally, if most people really do want people to be fed and clothed an sheltered then the YMCA and Goodwill and such should have a heap of funds in libertaria since people will be donating like crazy. What makes you think that the state can do a better job then the Salvation Army? -- Laura Creighton (note new address!) sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa