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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis
Message-ID: <28200210@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 11:37:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200210
Posted: Wed Oct 23 11:37:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 06:28:56 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Oct 23 11:37:00 1985


>/* Written  8:31 pm  Oct 19, 1985 by carnes@gargoyle in inmet:net.politics.t */
>[L. Kolodney]
>>>POINT:  No economic system has ever existed in a vacuum.  It is
>>>always the  result of certain power relations within a society.
>>>
>>>There has never in history been anything like your mythical free
>>>market.   To create one, using the power of the state, would be just
>>>as arbitrary and  coercive and creating any other system.  The
>>>relations of power in society  today have an historical basis in
>>>govt. interference.  To withdraw the role of  the govt. now would
>>>simply institutionalize certain arbitrary inequalities that  exist
>>>today.   
>>
>> [B. Gamble]
>>Let me try to understand this. If we were to create a state which
>>enforced property rights and voluntary contracts, and stayed out of
>>our lives otherwise, that this would be just as coercive as creating
>>any other system? The logic is lost on me.
>
>Insofar as I detect any logic in this exchange, Larry Kolodney
>appears to maintain that the existence of the free market we all know
>and love depends on an arbitrarily and unjustly coercive state in
>order to come into existence and to continue in existence, and Bruce
>Gamble objects that a minimal state would not be as coercive as other
>systems and would presumably be more just than the alternatives.
>
>I think the objection misses a crucial point.  A minimal state
>"enforces property rights and voluntary contracts, and stays out of
>our lives otherwise."  But what KIND of property rights?  And who
>determines who owns what?  Property rights, you know, are not written
>on a golden tablet in the heavens for all to see.  They are
>created and revised by societies, as when slavery was abolished in the
>US.  So you must specify which kind of property rights this minimal
>state will enforce, and you must further explain how it will be
>determined who has just title to any given unit of wealth.  


Really?  Here on netnews?  Let me see if I understand what you're asking:
you're asking for a simple (got to fit in the netnews size limits) 
complete (otherwise it's just an invitation for sniping) Rigid,
(otherwise we'll hear Torek's cry of "where's the consistency?")
but flexible (otherwise we'll hear arguments about "circumstances
alter cases" and impracticality) rule for assigning property in a 
libertarian society, is that correct?

If so, try this: property is yours which you claim, build, and  use
without employing force or fraud.  Take it as given that you own your
own body once you declare independence from your parents.  In the case
of *in situ* resources such as land or mineral rights,  the
requirement for building is relaxed, but the requirement for use is
strengthened.  You are free to give your property away, or to make
agreements with others regarding its use.  To the extent you initiate
force or fraud to obtain property, you fail to obtain ownership of
the property.


Now, a couple of pre-emptions:

	1. This definition is not perfect.  Libertarians, as I've told
	you and others, are *NOT* promising utopia, or even expecting
	it secretly.  There would clearly be disputes, just as there are
	in anything except a complete dictatorship, over how the rules
	are to be applied.

	2. This definition is meant to answer your requirement that 
	libertarians come forth with some sort of method of assigning
	property, *BUT I AM NOT THE ONLY LIBERTARIAN*, so there is lots
	of room for argument among libertarians about it.  This is a 
	Good Thing.

	3. This definition is based roughly on the Rothbardian version
	of libertarianism, with which I am noddingly familiar.  Those
	more deeply imbued should feel free to correct me.

	4. This definition does not represent a lifelong principle, and
	I feel free to change it as flaws are found, but it does represent
	how I feel about this issue now.

>For
>instance, if J.B. Moneyswine inherited his vast fortune from his
>grandfather who made his fortune through lying, cheating, stealing,
>etc., does he get to keep his fortune?  If not, who does it go to?  

Let me see here.  Moneyswine got his fortune on the basis of past
injustice, so *HE* didn't have the right to it.  On the other hand,
Moneyswine's  grandson was given it fairly (he didn't swindle
Moneyswine himself out of it), so should Junior have the rights to the
wealth?  Is this a big deal, Richard?  Moneyswine didn't own the stuff
Junior inherited (the money was  force-or-fraud money) ****BUT****
your example depends for its interest on a semantic trick which I must
now expose.

You say that Moneyswine "made his fortune through lying, cheating,
stealing, etc.".  Does that mean that Moneyswine was convicted in
court of doing such things?  Clearly not -- he still has the money.
(if you object, by the way that the court might be rigged, you're
right -- we'll get back to that) So implicit in your example is the
notion that Moneyswine, although he may have cheated, stolen, bribed,
and corrupted, has NOT BEEN CONVICTED IN  LAW of such things.

Interestingly, any property which you own now depends upon such 
a claim.  Ditto for any property I own.  In short, Richard, any property
anywhere depends for its legal legitimacy upon the absence of a successful
legal challenge.  

It seems necessary to keep saying it: libertarians are not promising 
utopia, not even to themselves.  If your objection comes down to 
the notion that the court may have been rigged, you are absolutely
right to object that Libertaria would not be perfect in this way, but
neither, my dear fellow, would socialism, nor any other sort of system
one may guess at in which human beings are used as judges.

So the short answer to your question, Moneyswine the grandson (call
him Junior) gets to keep the ill-gotten gains unless courts take the
i-gg's away from him.  Does he have the MORAL right to the i-gg's?  Of
course not! But this is Libertaria, not Utopia, not in any sense a 
"paradise".  In the case of a non-systemic breakdown in the justice system, 
one may certainly hope that Libertaria is better at addressing the task of
redress than other systems, but to hold up the example of a crooked or 
mistaken court as an example of Libertaria's ills is a little silly: the
objection applies much more strongly to Socialism, where more different
aspects of one's life are determined by possibly mistaken or corrupt
outside authorities.

>I suspect that libertarians are talking about *capitalist* property
>rights.  When libertarians describe their utopia as something like
>"an association in which the free development of each is the
>condition for the free development of all," I say Hurrah, that sounds
>like something out of the *Communist Manifesto* (it is).  But then
>they go on to say they want capitalist property rights to hold sway
>in this utopia. 

In two sentences, you've used the word "utopia" twice.  This is more
often both in density per sentence and in absolute number (!), I
believe, than any libertarian has used it to apply to  Libertaria.  In
short, Richard: STRAW MEN!  Libertarians don't promise you Utopia
(at least, none I've read do) and it's just silly of you to poke holes
in Libertaria on the basis that it is NOT utopia.

>At that point I part company with them, for I don't
>believe this is compatible with their goal.  

Our goal?  Utopia again?

>To many of them the
>possibility doesn't appear to occur that this particular form of
>property rights may institutionalize injustice, which I believe was
>the point Larry was trying to make.  

Try this, then: Libertaria seems to us to be LESS liable to institutionalize
injustice because it minimizes the primary mechanism for systematic 
injustice while rewarding just behavior.

>In particular, a working class
>is essential to capitalism, and the modern working classes were
>created through massive coercion and fraud (enclosure acts, etc.).

Let's not blur any distinctions, or gloss over any conceivable crime
of the capitalists.  WHAT fraud?  Also, who is pressing the legal claim
of the working class to their rights to become tenant farmers again?
I've heard it argued that when you give up a court case, or when you give
up pressing your claim, you give up the claim.  Why?  Because if you 
didn't, you could always press the claim again, regardless of whether you
had benefited short-term from concessions made by the person your claim
is against.  

>Perhaps it will be objected that however the working class was
>created, it provides security for its members, and people may have a
>preference for security over risk-taking.  Whether or not this is
>true, let us note that this is the classic justification of slavery,
>and I believe of serfdom and despotic governments as well. 

How amusing!  It's one of the great claims of socialism that it provides
security for its citizens.  What's wrong, Richard?  Don't like it if
capitalism makes it too?

>[Nat Howard]
>>>>Excuse me, but I doubt if that's true.  It amounts to an acceptance of
>>>>the notion that only the rich get richer, and that they
>>>>don't sometimes get poorer.  Simply not true.
>>...
>>Well, Larry, pull out the ol' dog-eared copy of "Losing Ground" by
>>Charles Murray, and look at page 65.  You will notice a there a  graph
>>of "Percentage of persons living under the poverty line"  vs year.
>>The graph of "official poverty" from 1950-~1970 is pretty much
>>steadily downward, showing about 30% below the poverty level in 1950
>>to about 13% in 1969 or so.  What happens after that is for
>>Murray to say, but the point is that poverty has also been on a pretty
>>steady decline (or at least it was until fairly recently -- read the
>>book).
>>
>>The point of all this is that it is NOT surprising when the poor
>>get richer.  It *IS* surprising when the poor become rich, but 
>>not when they simply become better off.  In fact, it is surprising
>>when they do not.  So it is again untrue that it is "a surprise when
>>it happens, even noteworthy".
>
>So there is some upward mobility.  

No, Richard, let's make it clear.  There was systematic, widespread, 
NET upward mobility.  That is, a lowering of the poverty rate.  Got that?
Not just "some upward mobility", but a NET upward movement.

>This totally fails to address the
>issue of whether there is any systematic exploitation going on.  I
>thought this was the issue Larry was raising when he wrote about
>the free market perpetuating injustice.  

Excuse me, but libertarians don't object to "exploitation", merely to
initiation of force or fraud.  I also "totally fail to address the
issue of whether there is any" increase in religion among the poor.
Why?  Because the issue is not whether the poor are being exploited
or converted, but whether their lot is, as Larry and others would have
you believe, steadily worsening under a free economy.

If I understood Larry correctly (and no doubt he'll point it out if
I didn't) his argument was that imposition of a free market at any 
moment would institutionalize  whatever inequities existed at that moment.
My response to this charge is that "imposition" of a free market tends
to erode all entrenched fortunes better than does (say) imposition
of socialism.  Why?  Because while socialism changes the rules, so that
it may result in the destruction of many old fortunes, it tends to make
economics more responsive to political requirements.  This means that
fortunes (whether in terms of capital or in terms of power) become
institutions DEFENDED by the state, rather than simply tolerated by the
state. 

I remind you both that the choice is not between corrupt libertarianism
and ideal socialism, but between human and flawed implementations of them
both.

>Why not read something by, say, Douglass C. North and learn something
>about economic history, Nat, instead of singing the same old "The
>Only Good Government Is A Dead Government" song and only looking for
>evidence that fits this preconceived notion?  

I'll remember the name.  Is this one of the people who tried to argue
that one outcome of free market forces was monopolies?

>I've already agreed
>that governments have done and continue to do a great deal of harm,
>and I've also pointed out some benefits of the state including making
>economic growth possible through establishing efficient property
>rights and providing economies of scale for a society.  Your
>objection that these benefits require a world government is a non
>sequitur if I've ever seen one.

Oh really?  And here I thought I was responding to Larry Kolodney, who
summarized his position as "... my claim that non-trivial economies
couldn't exist without government".  He also succinctly, if not too
nicely,  summarizes my retort as follows: "I was then told that there
was a world economy, but no world government, so there."  You will note
only a tenuous relationship between what you claim (that I objected that
[ efficient property rights and economies of scale ] requires a world
government, and what I said, that there IS a thriving world economy,
even though there is no world government.  In short, Richard, you are
barking up the wrong tree.  Larry's claim is that that governments were
a necessary condition for a significant economy, my retort was that there's
a counterexample.  In short, we have here a riddle: "what's the difference
between Richard Carnes and a builder of Straw Men?"

>>>>In China, it didn't happen this way, despite a very large degree of
>>>>government control over commerce.  In fact, the degree of prosperity went
>>>>up when the Chinese government RELAXED its control, so I hand you
>>>>a counterexample, not a non sequitur.
>
>I wish someone would be specific about what has happened in China's
>economy, and what has permitted the relative economic prosperity
>China has experienced since the revolution (no famine, population
>coming under control, etc.).  

What an intriguing idea!  No famine, since the Revolution?  Are you
willing to apologize to us all if I find references showing China appealed
to the world for food since then?

>If I were writing on the wondrous
>benefits of capitalism, China is not the country I would choose for
>an example.

You might if the famines of the 1960's ended only AFTER farmers were 
permitted to sell a certain percentage of their goods at prices of their
choosing.....