From: corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley )
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Date: 8 Nov 92 23:26:22 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <37571@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky) writes:
>In article <1992Nov3.222018.9935@vax.oxford.ac.uk> denning@vax.oxford.ac.uk (Iain Morrison) writes:
>>
>>Why should the poor rely on charity? A touch demeaning dont you think.
>>How can one justify vast differences in income?
>
>Demeaning? What, people should just be given everything? The justification
>for vast difference in income is that the rich have, in most cases,
>served the consumer the best. It seems to me that its demeaning that
>the responsible hard workers should be punished for it by being forced to 
>pay for those who won't work.
>
>
>Common ownership is theft. Common ownership implies you have taken
>from those who produce and given it to everyone else. This is theft.
>

First of all, let me apologise for the strange deletions from this
thread.  I am not entirely comfortable with my text editor and I
am sorry if I have omitted something important.

I will try to defend the egalitarian ethic in its most general form
and then I will move to the separate idea of common ownership.

Egalitarianism is NOT an economic policy.  It is NOT a legislative
mandate.  It is certainly not the removal of private property
from the rich to give to the poor.  Egalitarianism is the belief
that all humans are created equal (PC version of Dec. of Indp. :)
and therefore their rights, responsibilities, and thus their
priveleges should also be equal.  Before we address the practical
aspects of egalitarianism, I hear a voice from the back of the
room objecting: "But all people are NOT created equal! Some are
smarter or faster or better at one thing than another person!
What about them?"  Philosophically, the answer is clear: natural
aptitudes must not affect social position in a negative way
(that would be unfair to the person with the aptitude), but
neither should those aptitudes lift the person above the rest
(that would be unfair to the people WITHOUT the aptitude).
Egalitarianism, in this regard, is _profoundly_ dependent upon
mutual respect, trust and humility.

As a practical economic philosophy, egalitarianism has its flaws.
Most of these revolve around Mr. Hanicky's (I think) objection
that removing property from the priveleged is unjust and,
indeed, contradicts the values egalitarianism is based upon.
But as a different poster (whose name I have forgotten and who
I accidentally deleted) quoted P. J. Proudhon, "Property is
theft."  Think about the nature of property, irrespective of
the possessor.  Regardless of whether an individual or the state
possesses an item, it is inherently unfair to the rest of the
community.  This is very important, so excuse me for using caps:
PROPERTY, as a notion of social reality, HAS NO PLACE IN AN
EGALITARIAN SOCIETY.
In other words, Mr. Hanicky (if that was who it was) was
right: taking property from the rich is unfair, but the idea
of property as a whole is even _more_ unfair.

	Thank you for your time.
	Jason
	Southern Arizona Gizmonic Institute