From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: An Observation
Organization: Partnership for an America Free Drug
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 19:42:09 GMT

KAMCHAR@ibm.cl.msu.edu writes:
>pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>>Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>>What happens if you get struck by cancer and die of it? Life isn't
>>fair, Chris. Not every problem can be solved. Utopia isn't possible.
>
>Hmmm...a Social Darwinist declaring life unfair.  Can you smell an oxymoronic
>situation, folks?  (sorry for the sniping tone, but...I'll chat on this point
>later in the article...)

Not only am I not a social Darwinist, but it would appear that your
sentence lacks semantic content. What are you trying to say,
precisely? That I'm wrong and utopia is possible? That every problem
can be solved? What is it precisely that you object to over here?

>>To be more specific, what happens when in spite of hundreds of
>>billions of dollars being spent every year by the government you STILL
>>can't afford to eat? You can't wish certain problems away, Mr. Holt.
>>When you claim that system A has flaws, we must also consider whether
>>those flaws are not in fact worse under system B.
>
>     Debating between Neo-Stalinist Communism and a mythological version of
>Capitalism based on a rosy version of America in the late 1800's does not do
>the discussion justice.

Who was bringing up neo-stalinist communism? Why not just compare
housing prices and homelessness in New York and Houston?

In New York, where the horrors of the free market have been replaced
by a system in which housing prices are controlled, thus destroying
the rental market and forcing all new construction to be of coops and
condominiums that the poor can't afford, in which new construction is
made prohibitive by restrictive zoning, thus creating a lack of new
units of any kind, where zoning is used as an excuse to demolish
"substandard" housing, thus eliminating more housing for the poor (the
logic used being similar to the notion that by demolishing all
inexpensive restaurants the poor will be able to patronize the
expensive ones), where, in short, vast effort has been expended by the
local government to assure fairness, there is no affordable housing
and lots of people live on the streets.

In Houston, where no effort has been made to keep housing "affordable"
and where there is no zoning, such horrors have somehow been avoided.

Strictly speaking, comparing two cities isn't fair since they aren't
identical. However, if you want you can be fairer -- for instance, you
can compare homelessness levels before and after New York went on a
ramapage destroying all the "substandard" housing. You can compare
smaller cities with and without rent control. When you do this, you
always reach the same conclusions.

This is one of dozens of examples I could give. Compare Japan to
India. Compare Hong Kong and mainland China. You could compare poverty
levels before and after the Great Society programs. Plenty is available.

>Other systems which existed around the world BEFORE
>Europeans started their souljourn around the world actually kept their peoples
>well off and in a population balance.  I've yet to see the European system
>variants (and capitalism in particular) do this, indeed they seem to have a
>line about poor people deserving their fate running through them.

Evidence, please. Keeping "population in balance" seems to be
something the evil European Phalologocentric White Supremicists seem
to do very well -- birth rates in the developed world are quite low,
and the poorest people in the U.S. do far better than the average
person in Bangladesh. If you have evidence that I'm wrong, I'd like to
see it.

>>Your argument would have a certain degree of validity of government
>>actually could fix poverty, but since it can't, arguing that a few
>>people are poor under capitalism and capitalism is therefore bad seems
>>specious when you consider how many more are starving under socialism.
>
>     As long as you look merely at eco-political systems, you're right.  There
>ARE other forces which make their effects knows ALONGSIDE the eco-political
>world.

What exactly is an "eco-political system"?

>     You wouldn't believe how rich the yoeman of 1800 was.  He had his source
>of food complete with some control over how it came about (the farm), he had
>twin sources of social and cultural stimulation (the church and the pub), a
>rock-steady set of expectations and rewards for belonging in a society which
>helped him to develope the ways he could (note that I didn't say spoon-fed him
>everything he wanted), and a government which went as far as it could in
>protecting his investment and didn't NEED to try to create a society.  I see
>none of this (especially the society aspect) going on today.

His wife would likely die in childbirth. In winter, he froze. In
summer, he sweated. His children would likely die before the age of
five. He'd spend dawn to dusk all summer long in back-breaking labor,
and his children would have to pitch in, too. The food wouldn't always
show up -- some years, bad weather or insects or other causes would
make all his crops fail.  Starvation would often occur (or have you
forgotten horrors like the Irish potato famine).

His average lifespan was under 40 years.

Yup. Sounds groovy to me.

Thanks, but I'll take my comfortable heated home, my high-tech
healthcare, my supermarkets, and my electricity. I can do without the
church, which preaches things I don't believe in, and I've got all the
pubs I need.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
Laissez faire, laissez passer. Le monde va de lui meme.
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism