From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: 9 Sep 92 00:22:13 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <92252.38976.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
>In <53003@dime.cs.umass.edu>, victor yodaiken writes:
>
>>In article <1992Sep4.145111.3924@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (St
>>>  Sorry, I guess it was all that text about racist discrimination that
>>>Libertarians supposedly engage in which mislead me.
>>>:\
>
>>The text was quite clear. To restate.
>>         1. All economic programs are based on ethical/political assumptions
>>            and unverified economic "laws"
>>         2. Advocacy of a deeply political ideology on the basis of its
>>            "scientific" foundations is either disingenous or the result
>>             of mistaking one's unexamined assumptions (prejudices) for
>>             fact.
>>         3. An excellent example of (2) can be found in the "libertarian"
>>         belief that government intrusion in to markets to forbid "fraud"
>>         can be justified on purely economic grounds, while government
>>         intrusion into markets to forbid racial discrimination cannot.
>
>There is no right not to be "discriminated against."  Doing so would infringe

That's your ethical belief, but it is not based on any fundamental 
principle which can distinguish between "real rights" and "non-rights".
I can equally well argue that there is no right to "own" land. Rights are
social and ethical constructs, not physical objects. 

>Consider the following.  Let's say that there is a deeply religious person,
>perhaps even a fundamentalist, who has a property for rent.  Let's also say
>that a gay person wants to rent it.  Now, you may think that the Fundie MUST
>rent to the gay (i.e. be coerced by the government), but what about the
>religious freedom of the landlord?  Does forcing the landlord to rent to the
>gay person constitute a denial of someone's First Amendment right of religious
>freedom?  What about any other reason--reasons which may seem bigoted or silly
>to us but perfectly valid to them?  Please excuse me for being a moral
>relativist :-).

If the society is going to set up and protect a marketplace, then I don't
see why any member of the society has a right to take advantage of that
marketplace while denying others that right. If you don't want to do
business in our society, that's your right, but if you do, you must 
accept the equal access to markets of all citizens. That's my morality,
yours may differ. 


>>         There is, of course, no scientific grounds to suppose that
>>         selling colored water as apple juice is any more deserving
>>         of police action than is refusing service to Native Americans.
>
>I'm a Native American...you're not trying to speak for me, are you?
>

No. Why would you get that impression? 

>>         Thus, to argue that racial prejudice in the context of economic
>>         activity is a private matter while lying about what one is selling
>>         is a public matter, is to reveal  a hidden assumption (a prejudice)
>>         which has no scientific basis.
>
>I think that the main quarrel that non-libertarians have with libertarianism
>is merely what are "rights" and what are "privileges."  The idea behind the
>libertarian ideology is that there is a basic set of individual rights which
>may not be violated, either by other individuals or by government.  In fact,
>the libertarian idea of "economic freedom" is merely a by-product of what is
>perceived as a "right" to earn a living without being impeded.

Yes. Agreed, so far.

>
>Of course, many people don't find the libertarian model as correct.  They are
>the ones who seem to want to manufacture rights which are dubious at best.
>Many Democrats talk about the "right to health care."  That assumes that the

Here we differ. Why is the "right to own land" an organic right, while the
right to health care is a artificial additive?


>people needing health care have a right to make me pay for it, and that they
>have a right to force a doctor to treat them.  This coercive force is what
>makes it unpalatable to libertarians.
>

All rights are based on coercion. 



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu