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Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Property,justice,freedom
Message-ID: <239@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 17:10:00 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.239
Posted: Sat Nov  9 17:10:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 06:33:31 EST
References: <1099@mtuxo.UUCP> <238@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 46
Summary: Libertarians versus freedom

In article <238@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:

>In Libertaria you would be forcibly prevented from driving someone
>else's car without his or her permission.  

I neglected to add that you would not be free to drive on the streets
without the permission of the owner of the streets or payment of his
fee, at least in some versions of Libertaria.  When libertarians
figure out how air and sunlight (or the sun itself) can be privately
owned, you will have to pay for these too (if the owners wish to
sell).  So much for the claim of libertarians to be defenders of
freedom.  "Libertaria," in fact, is a gross misnomer -- the concept
of Libertaria (in its various versions) has no particularly close
relation to liberty.  But "liberty" is one of those
doubleplusfeelgood words.  The signs on the barbed-wire fences
surrounding the hypothetical libertarian society should read
something like:  "Private Propertaria -- Keep Out."  

Turning from a hypothetical to a historical example, in the various
enclosure movements in England, the ownership of the "commons" (the
tracts of land that were available to all for the grazing of sheep,
growing of crops, habitation, etc.) was transferred from joint
ownership to private ownership.  This was a significant diminution of
the freedom of the commonfolk (as of course it still is), and was
perceived as such.  As a Norfolk laborer said:  "You do as you like,
you rob the poor of the Commons right, plough the grass up that God
sends to grow, that a poor man may feed a Cow, Pig, Horse, or Ass;
lay muck and stones on the road to prevent the grass growing."
(Quoted in E.P. Thompson's great study, *The Making of the English
Working Class* [pp. 230-231], which should be force-fed to
libertarians; or alternatively they should be forced to read it.)  

"Libertarian" principles also diminish such civil liberties as
freedom of speech and assembly, in that quote-unquote libertarians
(let's call them "entitlement theorists") hold these freedoms to
derive entirely from the rights of private property.  Without a
"public space" in which to speak or assemble, the proponents of views
unpopular with large property-owners (like the abolition of
capitalist private property) will find it difficult to publicize
their views.  If the owners of Usenet decide that Marxist ideas are a
little too much to tolerate on their network, then it's hasta la
vista for some of us.  


-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes