From: danny@athena.mit.edu (Daniel A Lagattuta)
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:30:57 GMT

In article <1d450mINN2q2@uwm.edu>, glenne@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Neuromancer ) writes:
|> dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) 
|>  
|> I do believe that being rich while other people starve to death is
|> equivalent to economic rape and murder.  However, I do not believe
|> in the Robin Hood principle of steal from the rich and give to the
|> poor.  Just as I do not believe in punishing people who rape and
|> murder, I do not believe in punishing people who economically rape
|> and murder.  I don't exactly think rapists and murderers should be
|> praised either.  But not only is letting the poor starve to death
|> passive violence and coercion, property by definition is backed up
|> with active violence and coercion.   Why must property be actively
|> violent and coercive?  Because it denys human need for the sake
|> of "merit".  Just what is it exactly that allows one to "merit"
|> property?  Generally it is the degree to how cutthroat a person is.
|> Who deserves a loaf of bread more, someone who was brought up in
|> an environment beyond their control and is starving to death,
|> or someone who has money because they had enough contacts and
|> little enough compassion to gouge others?


	I would disagree with you on the issue of being rich while others are
poor as being the economic equivalent of rape.  I would argue that it depends on
how the money is earned.  If someone is rich by using coercion against others
than they are unjustifiably wealthy because it is stolen money.  Coercion can
take many forms.  Kicking peasants off land by powerful landholders, forming a
lobbying group that gets special priviliged passed for its members, fraud, etc. 
But if one is paid money for a service performed, that wealth earned is because
of the creation of wealth not the stealing of wealth.  Inherited wealth is fine
as long as that was created too.  

	As for punishing those who rape, murder, and steal, I would say that is a
general principle of law that spans most cultures throughout history.  
Punishment is a form of coercion but it is different in character from the
orignial acts because it is a response to the original coercion.  

	Need is a difficult thing to define.  Ayn Rand talked at length about
need in her Atlas Shrugged and why it cannot be determined.  Who decides whether
one person's dentist visit is more important than whether a child gets new
clothes or not?  Anyone, people are dying in Somalia, not because people in
Massachusetts are doing well but because there is a nasty civil war in their own
country.  It is tragic but it is not the fault of us rich Americans being rich
(perhaps our fault because we armed some of them).  


|>  
|> There are always going to be more guns on the side that has the money.
|> And this is the bottom line of capitalism is he who has the guns gets
|> the bread.  Merit, yeah right.

	That is when there is a government to buy favors from.  The less
government, the less power organized special interests exert.  
|>
					Daniel A. LaGattuta
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian