HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Collective bargaining (was Re: Help Dis Totenberg!)
Date: 23 Nov 1992 10:41:31 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, kbanaian@bernard.pitzer.claremont.edu (King Banaian) says:

>In article <MDL.92Nov20161456@ak.cypress.com> mdl@cypress.com (Matt Landrum) writes:
>
>>What is the Libertarian position on collective bargaining?
>>Are there any regulations that a Libertarian would support
>>in order to insure that those not possessing capital
>>would be able to profit in proportion to their contribution?
>>
>>Should companies be allowed to replace striking workers
>>with permanent replacements (I'm fairly sure of this one,
>>but I wanted to hear someone elaborate)?
>
>I haven't read the preamble nor the Libertarian platform.  I agree so often 
>with what they say I didn't bother to check the fine print.  But it's safe 
>to say that Libertarians would not support collective bargaining, and it's 
>for very sound economic reasons.

I would have to strongly disagree with it.  I cannot speak for the party,
but I am a member, and I have read the platform etc.  It seems to me that
a trade union, as a voluntary association of individuals in pursuit of a 
common goal, is the very epitomy of libertarianism.

Having said that, a Libertarian gov't would not doubt repeal many laws which
currently give special rights and status to unions:  laws preventing strikers
from being fired, laws using state power to enforce a closed shop, laws
requiring gov't projects to be undertaken with union labor, and so on.
However, if a group of workers voluntarily formed a union, and the 
employer voluntarily chose to negotiate wages and other terms and 
conditions of employment with that union, I cannot think of a reason in
the world why a libertarian gov't would oppose them.

-- 
******************************************************************************
The opinions expressed by the author are insightful, intelligent and very
carefully thought out.  It is therefore unlikely that they are shared by the
University of Iowa or Case Western Reserve University.
From: bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian Platform
Date: 18 Nov 92 15:17:15 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing Sciences

In article <BxKHB4.6E6@newcastle.ac.uk>, Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
|> 
|> The counter-argument here is that if government is reduced to these
|> three services, there would be more crime and also more civil court
|> cases, so the size of these would be considerably increased.  As there

Isn't this a rather broad jump in logic??  Wy does the elimination of a lot
of un-necessary and wasteful government functions automatically going to
lead to an increase in crime??  There are already a lot of countries with
less government that the US and I don't see any of them as havens for crime.

How do you justify this statement??

bill

Actually, based on the behaviour of our elected officials, it would appear 
that eliminating them would cause an immediate decrease in the crime rate.
But that's another story.

-- 

     Bill Gunshannon          |        If this statement wasn't here,
     bill@cs.uofs.edu         |  This space would be left intentionally blank
                              |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: svanegmo@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen Van Egmond)
Subject: Re: Libertarians in Canada? Elsewhere?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 06:41:35 GMT

You may find it worthwhile to look into the Reform Party of Canada. I 
can provide an address to which you can write, and they will send a copy of
their Principles and Policies "Blue Book", which outlines their approach
to various problems and situations within Canada, and the principles by which
they stand, which are fairly good principles, from this Objectivist's point of
view.

Another interesting organization is the National Citizens Coalition which is
slightly farther to the right.  They are based somewhere in Toronto, and
I do not have an address, but they occasionally shake things up. They were very
active during the public-sector employee strike, and succeeded in making
the public employees look like a bunch of arrogant knuckleheads (at least the
union leaders), which was what they really were.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard)
Subject: Re: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchyREFRESH
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 01:16:07 GMT


>>
>>Pardon me for aspiring to a more egalitarian future.
>
>Pardon me for stating that egalitarianism is doomed from the start.
>
>
>This is the basic principle of the free market, but it means *everyone* should
>have the right to reach their *highest* potential, and those of very high
>potential should not be punished by being taxed to support those of lesser 
>potential.

>>Who mentioned coercion? 
>
>You are kidding, right? How do you expect to enforce this egalitarianism--above
>you state the state will get this money from the communites, what by asking?
>The most fundamental aspect of government is force, pure and simple. Taxes are
>not gathered by asking--if you fail to pay you go to jail. For egalitarianism
>to survive, those advocating it must force it upon others, or egalitarianism
>will die off because it rewards inability at the expense of ability. Why would
>those of ability continually work for others; why would those of inability 
>work at all? I think if most people saw it this way, and saw that this is 
>what our system is all about, perhaps they would rebel against it; or perhaps
>they would just feel too guilty about it....
>>> jason
>>> 
>>
>>iain
What is ability?
Don't doctors depend on garbage collectors to keep the rate of infection down?
The absolute individualist forgets the fact that he/she depends on others to
create the world and to sustain civilization.  That's the nature of the 
division of labor in a modern society.  

"The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which
it will exchange, depends upon the relative quantity of labor necessary for its  production, and not on the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labor."

David Ricardo
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

The fact that the wages system is coercive is never given a second thought
by those self righteous souls who believe themselves to be superior
and therefore, deserving of their top spots in this dog eat dog world.
As much as I hate to be a contrary cus, it seems to me that it is 
a hierarchical society which demands coercion, not an eqalitarian one.
And yes, of course, the Soviet Union, Cuba etc. were not eqalitarian,
ever.


-- 
Don't just complain; organize! e-mail miballar@leland.stanford.edu
Ph: (415) 863-9627. Time is money; steal some today.

Don't just complain, organize! e-mail iww@igc.org  Ph: (415)863-WOBS.
From: atfurman@cup.portal.com (A T Furman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarians in Canada? Elsewhere?
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 19:44:23 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: na
  <1992Nov12.072323.12680@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
  <1992Nov16.034655.20405@tcsi.com> <1e78c0INN7v5@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>

>I'm curious about how far libertarianism is spread in Canada, or other
>places outside the USA. I know there are Libertarian Parties in Canada,
>but I want to get a better idea of how its distributed.

The best source for this information is the International Society for
Individual Liberty, reachable by e-mail at 71034.2711@compuserve.com.
Half of ISIL's 2000 members are outside the USA.  I believe that in
the Netherlands the ISIL membership is in the same proportion to the
population as in the USA.  The _Index on Liberty_, published in
Norway and distributed by ISIL, has 35 pages of libertarian-related
organizations listed from all over the world.

The Reform Party in Canada is supposed to be more libertarian than the
ruling party in the USA (Republicrats), but that is not saying much.
The ISIL newsletter had an article about them earlier this year.  Vince
Miller, the president of ISIL, is from Ontario, so he ought to be able
to answer the really nitty-gritty questions about libertarianism in
Canada.

Anyone interested in finding out more about ISIL can e-mail them a
snailmail address; they will send a sample newsletter.


    Alan T. Furman         | Don't blame me -- I voted Libertarian
---------------------------+----------------------------------------
  atfurman@cup.portal.com  |   (800)682-1776 for more information
From: Jeff@news.duke.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
Subject: NAFTA
Keywords: NAFTA, tariff, free trade
Date: 23 Nov 92 03:55:54 GMT
Followup-To: jafarr@acpub.duke.edu
Organization: me, myself, and I

Dear all-

For one of my senior seminars, I'm doing a case study of NAFTA and its effects on
specific sectors of the economy.  Unfortunately, I know virtually nothing about
NAFTA at this point, and I only have a few weeks to complete this project.

What I need is your input on what the effects of the agreement would be, if
approved in its present form, as well as what some of the main arguments for and
against the agreement are, especially from the viewpoint of various industries in
the U.S.  Any suggestions about people to contact, industries to select, etc.
will be much appreciated.  Who knows, it may even become a thread for y'all to
talk about over the next couple of weeks...

Thanks again.

Jeff
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:20:25 GMT

craig@jido.b30.ingr.com writes:
>In article <1992Nov20.105710.845@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>   In article <MDL.92Nov19114005@ak.cypress.com> mdl@cypress.com (Matt Landrum) writes:
>   }
>   }What is Hayek's solution to unemployment?
>
>   A market free enough to exclude even such well-entrenched interventions as
>   central banking so that stable currency could prevent business cycles.
>
>Aha! That's what I subscribed to this group for! Can you sketch the
>proof for the (intuitively appealing) proposition that "stable
>currency could prevent business cycles"?

Well, I don't have a Hayekian proof, but I can sketch a part of the
argument from George Selgin's book on free banking. Selgin is an
Austrian schooler, so it should be close enough. Basically, the
problem is that a central bank has no way to track the supply and
demand for currency in a market driven way. In a pure free banking
system, the excess clearing rule (did I have the name of that one
right) more or less dictates that banks end up following a strict
market discipline in setting their reserve capital percentages, which
means that the money supply and interest rates will rise and fall in
close couplings with the demand for currency. Inflation, caused by
excess currency, would end, and deflation, caused by insufficient
currency, would end. Money would tend to stabilize. Selgin's "The
Theory of Free Banking" is an easy read -- I recommend it.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
"They can have my RSA key when they pry it from my cold dead fingers."
Libertarian Party info: Phone 1-800-682-1776, E-Mail 345-5647@mcimail.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Keynes vs. Hayek
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 22:01:40 GMT


O.K., you guys, I can't stand it any longer. They'll take back my Ph.D.
in Economics if I don't correct the "Subject" field's spelling.

Please reply to this thread, or correct the header in replies to the
other one.

:-)

-- 
David Sternlight


Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Basic Questions of Political Economy
Keywords: political economy, foundation, greeks, aristotle
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 05:52:41 GMT

ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben) writes:
>    Many writers during this period were interested in countering
>the notion that a nation's wealth was determined by the amount of
>gold or silver it had. 

      Yes, this reflects the financial crisis that knocked Portugal
out of world-power status.  With Spain and Portugal importing
silver and gold from the Americas in large quantities, these
countries were experiencing inflation, since their medium of exchange
was increasing in quantity and thus becoming less valuable relative to
other goods.  But inflation wasn't understood yet, and the problem wasn't seen.
People thought they were getting richer.  After all, more gold and silver 
than ever were floating around.  All this new money produced lots of
economic activity.  More demand for luxury goods.  Big expenditures on
even more gold and silver mining in the Americas.  But no overall
increase in productive output.  Eventually, a crash came.

      Kind of like leveraged buyouts in the early 1980s.

						John Nagle
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 10:57:10 GMT

In article <MDL.92Nov19114005@ak.cypress.com> mdl@cypress.com (Matt Landrum) writes:
}
}What is Hayek's solution to unemployment?

A market free enough to exclude even such well-entrenched interventions as
central banking so that stable currency could prevent business cycles.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
From: malexand@aludra.usc.edu (Michael Alexander)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Date: 20 Nov 1992 09:51:26 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu

There's been an article in the WSJ recently bringing up a new study which 
shows that the multiplier-model does not materialize. According to the
publishers, there is no evidence that e.g. the FDR & WWII federal expenditures
were the main contributers to sustained growth. Are there any reactions yet to
this (sorry don't have the exact reference of that recent WSJ article) claim?

Cheers,


**************************************************************************
*  Michael F. Alexander               University of Southern California  *
*  --------------------               Ma-Bel-Network:    (213) 955-0069  *
*  MVS:       malexan@mvsa.usc.edu    ---------------------------------  *
*  VM-Bitnet: malexand@uscvm.bitnet     "It's a window system named X,   *
*  UNIX:      malexand@chaph.usc.edu     not a system named X Window"    *
**************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert)
Subject: a naive question about supply and demand schedules
Organization: Vanderbilt University Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 05:44:00 GMT


   Hello.  I'm somewhat curious about something relating to supply
and demand graphs which often appear in elementary economics texts.
I have only the slightest formal training in economics, so please pardon
if this question is a little unclear or too naive.

   When they present a supply schedule, say, they will often have
price along the x-axis and quantity supplied along the y-axis.  For
simplicity they usually draw an upward sloping line (or a nondecreasing
curve).  Now of course, I don't take them to mean that this function is
linear, or even particularly easy to describe.

   But now here is where my question comes in.  I wonder whether it 
might not be better to use a "probabilistic" approach.  Thus, instead
of saying that, e.g., a price of $5 yields a quantity supplied of
10 units, a price of $10 yields a quantity supplied of 20 units, there
would instead be a probability density function:  a price of $5 will
"probably" yield 10 units, give or take.  For simplicity, you can
think of a "bell curve" sitting along the line x = $5 with the peak
of the curve at y = 10 units.  And likewise with the other prices.
What you would get, if I visualize rightly, is not a straight line,
but a sort of mountain ridge, where the peaks would indicate most
likely production levels.

   What would happen then if you consider the supply and demand
ridges simultaneously?  I have hunch, but it is only a hunch, that
the most useful thing to do would be to multiply probabilities, and
where the resulting probability is highest would be the most probable
equilibrium.  Thus, you have a negatively sloping ridge of quantity
demanded, and a positively sloping ridge of quantity supplied.  Where
the ridges meet would, I think, result in the greatest product of
the probabilities.

   I guess the main reasons I even bring this idea up are that it
seems more true to life; i.e., probability seems the rule in market
processes, and that it seems apparently more flexible than the usual
straight-line approach.

   Well, here are some questions I had:
   1. Does this make any sense?
   2. Any intelligible references?  (As noted, my training is little)
   3. Know of any computer simulations along these lines?
   4. Additional comments?

   Thank you for your consideration.


John Rickert					No place affords a more
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu		striking conviction of 
						the vanity of human hopes,
						than a publick library.
						   -- Samuel Johnson
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: craig@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson)
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Reply-To: craig@jido.b30.ingr.com
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, Alabama
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 16:48:53 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.105710.845@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
   In article <MDL.92Nov19114005@ak.cypress.com> mdl@cypress.com (Matt Landrum) writes:
   }
   }What is Hayek's solution to unemployment?

   A market free enough to exclude even such well-entrenched interventions as
   central banking so that stable currency could prevent business cycles.

Aha! That's what I subscribed to this group for! Can you sketch the
proof for the (intuitively appealing) proposition that "stable
currency could prevent business cycles"?

Thanks,

-- Craig Presson <pressonc@ingr.com>
  There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and his
  family.  But he can't make a living for them AND the government, too, the way
  his government is living.  What the government has got to do is live as cheap
  as the people.					    -- Will Rogers
From: rcabrera@netcom.com (Raphael Cabrera)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Help for U.S. history????
Summary: I would suggest you read a book, visit a library (don't they
	 have any in San Luis Obispo :), or perhaps, pick up a
	 newspaper.
Date: 23 Nov 92 06:01:53 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Nov23.044430.164640@zeus.calpoly.edu>, smonge@zeus.calpoly.edu (-SURGE!-) writes:
> In article <1ek4tvINN3oh@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> jiangh@ucs.orst.edu (Jiang Hao) writes:
> >
> >hi, could anyone tell me 5 things about each of those following statement?
> >1.worldly affairs. 2.art.. etc. 3.government,war,politics.4.OREGON.5.women. 
> >6.sports.7.technology,industry.(I like to know the things happened in U.S. and
> >is between 1787-1850)
> >thanks for the help!!!!
> >dj
> > 
> >
> 
> If you can get a hold of the Volume Library(tm) set of reference books
> its got some great comparative history stuff in volume two and three.
> Three big blue books...
> 
> ---
> smonge@athena
>
From: jiangh@ucs.orst.edu (Jiang Hao)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
Subject: Help for U.S. history????
Date: 21 Nov 1992 01:55:11 GMT
Organization: University Computing Services - OSU
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: ucs.orst.edu


hi, could anyone tell me 5 things about each of those following statement?
1.worldly affairs. 2.art.. etc. 3.government,war,politics.4.OREGON.5.women. 
6.sports.7.technology,industry.(I like to know the things happened in U.S. and
is between 1787-1850)
thanks for the help!!!!
dj
From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Date: 22 Nov 92 17:32:29 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:

[about why stable currency can prevent business cycles]
>Well, I don't have a Hayekian proof, but I can sketch a part of the
>argument from George Selgin's book on free banking. Selgin is an
>Austrian schooler, so it should be close enough. Basically, the
>problem is that a central bank has no way to track the supply and
>demand for currency in a market driven way. In a pure free banking
>system, the excess clearing rule (did I have the name of that one
>right) more or less dictates that banks end up following a strict
>market discipline in setting their reserve capital percentages, which
>means that the money supply and interest rates will rise and fall in
>close couplings with the demand for currency.

It would seem an important question here is just how close the couplings
are.  Certainly with exchange rates, the punters continually overshoot
and move together in a kind of lemming fashion.  What reason is there
to think that either this wouldn't happen in a "free" system, or that
the overshoots would be better than the errors we all know governments
make?  Control theory generally requires damping factors on feedback
loops; if the economic equivalent isn't to be found in a regulatory
mechanism, how does it arise?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Systems design flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art...
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Keyenes VS Hayek
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 08:22:37 GMT

In article <92325.165612U23590@uicvm.uic.edu> <U23590@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
}This is _not_ the only way the economy can get into doldrums.
}The regulatory expansion of the Bush presidency, for example,
}could easily create a long-term slowing of growth or production
}itself, but it has no periodic charachter.

True.  Deficit spending is also inflationary, although I don't think it
causes business cycles.  This is one of the things I'm curious about
Reaganomics for: what's the difference between Carter-style inflation and
the borrow-and-spend political economy that's been practiced since?

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics