From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: Libertarians and the Rule of Lawyers (was Vote Libertarian?)
Reply-To: pmetzger@shearson.com
Organization: Lehman Brothers
	<PMETZGER.92Apr1164502@snark.shearson.com>
	<1992Apr6.160054.8398@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
	<PMETZGER.92Apr8104643@snark.shearson.com>
	<Apr.9.11.26.30.1992.2256@math.rutgers.edu>
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 22:21:31 GMT

In article <Apr.9.11.26.30.1992.2256@math.rutgers.edu> cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) writes:

   pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
   > folse@crs.cl.msu.edu (Mark Folse) writes:

   >    Do they still favor the elimination of Social Security and Medicare?
   >    Of the EPA and the FDA? Do they still favor legalizing  drugs?

   > I want to make it clear that we DON'T favor eliminating old age
   > pensions or medical care for the poor; what we favor is taking these
   > services out of government hands.

   Nice rhetoric.  What's your plan?  Is Marrou going to eliminate the
   Social Security system after elected, leaving the elderly poor to fend
   for themselves?  Is he going to set a date after which no new people
   will be sent checks?  Let's see some specifics.

I don't know what plan specifically Marrou would implement; I can only
speak to how I would phase out the current system. The government
should admit its unfunded pension debts, issue bonds to buy current
retirees private annuities, and then phase out the current system.
Most people could earn far far more for themselves by putting savings
of 14% of income a year into private retirement plans than by handing
it to the federal Ponzi scheme.

For medicare, I feel its important not to cut people off immedately
especially since the needed reforms to the health care system to lower
medical costs could take years to put the market back into balance;
I'd therefore couple a time-limited health insurance voucher program
for CURRENT medicaid/medicare eligible citizens in with the total
repeal of all current medicare/medicaid regulation and a package of
laws designed to repeal current legal restraints on free competition
in the health care industry.

Again, I want to emphasize that this is how I would manage to do it; I
haven't bothered to read Andre's latest position papers. I imagine he
plans something reasonable.

   > We also don't want to eliminate people's protection from polution; we
   > want a good job to be done of protecting the environment, and from our
   > perspective, that means taking the bulk of the job away from the
   > government, which we don't see as doing a competant job.

   The last time I asked a libertarian how the environment would be
   protected, I was informed that people would be given the right to sue
   polluters for any pollution that happened outside of "their" land.

They would be able to sue for damages caused to their persons or
property by pollution, just to make things clear.

   Leaving out the absurd notion that one person can "own" a piece of
   land

That absurd notion is accepted by the vast majority of this country,
so it doesn't appear that you are terribly mainstream yourself

   (ignoring the rights of future generations) this still strikes me
   as an absurd answer.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me. If your local hack 'n slash
polluter contaminates the groundwater in your town and causes cancer,
I'd say that a class action lawsuit for damages would be quite
reasonable. As it stands now, the government "permits" all sorts of
pollution even if it does contaminate your water supply, and unless
the government feels like letting you you have no right to take
personal action.

Your objection that the transaction costs involved in such suits are
unreasonable is unjustified; remember, the EPA and other such
inefficient organizations are hardly free of cost themselves.
The objection that this would lead to more lawsuits is probably
correct IN THIS INSTANCE, however, overall, libertarians propose such
sweeping reforms to the current legal codes that overall lawsuits will
probably be far, far fewer than we have now, so a multiplication in
tort suits to handle environmental problems is unlikely to be a big
problem.

This really seems like an environmentalists dream to me. Coupled with
our elimination of limited liability for third party damages done by
corporations, any environmentalist who wants to will now have the
power to strike personal terror of complete asset loss into any major
official of an organization harming the environment; at very best, one
would find that it was hard to get liability insurance unless you were
very careful about how you disposed of wastes. All you have to do is
find a group of people actually harmed by the polluters actions and
you instantly can take matters into your own hands. No more entrenched
and impossible to handle federal bureaucracies delaying action for a
decade or two.


--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
"That government governs best which governs least."
		-- Thomas Jefferson, former US President and early libertarian.
Restore the American Dream: Andre Marrou for President! Vote Libertarian!
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