HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Why not feudalism?
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 11:45:08 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.215840.1920@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> wchen@beirut.berkeley.edu (William Chen) writes:
}Agreed that our government has gotten much more socialistic this century,
}and has veered away from the original intent of the framers of the
}Constitution.  However, I don't believe we really want to return to some
}of the 19th Century govt. practices.

Whether "we" want to or not is irrelevant.  Whether we should is the issue.

For example back then there were 
}sweatshops, child labor, Chinese rail workers and more cases of extreme
}worker exploitation which the government ignored.  Some regulations like
}safety conditions and child labor laws had some good effects.

Wrong.  The permissibility of "child labor" was supported by liberals of
the time, in opposition to both conservatives who wanted them kept in cottage
industry, working harder in worse conditions, and Romantics who glossed over
their medeival alternatives with a veneer of fantasies of an idyllic youth.
My understanding is that the canonical text on this is "Child Labor and
the Industrial Revolution," by Clark Nardinelli.

What's wrong with exploitation (all it means it to benefit from), and how
were either sweatshop workers or the rail workers oppressed?

Also 
}we were a bit more expansionistic back then (54'40" or fight!) with 
}less regard for some people's rights (women, American Indians, etc...) 
}Actually I don't think the gov't of last century was much better than this 
}batch of fools. 

Manifest destiny isn't libertarian, but homesteading is.  The Indians have
been treated the worst, along with the blacks, but this is hardly by the
free market!  We oppose the oppression they've experienced.  Women have
also been oppressed, but largely by the government, not the free market.

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.libertarian
From: rcollins@ns.encore.com (Roger Collins)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Reply-To: rcollins@encore.com
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:45:25 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.190130.24501@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
|> i'd like to hear Mike answer some of the problems with a gold backed
|> currency too, but i can give you my explanation of the above. gold
|> would always be equal to $35, as you say. the problem was not that
|> gold wasn't worth $35 anymore, it was that $35 wasn't worth an ounce
|> of gold. meaning that the goods which could be had for $35 were
|> not worth an ounce of gold given what other countries would pay
|> for an ounce of gold.

It still doesn't make sense.  With gold backed currency, 35 dollars
would be an ounce of gold.  No vendor in the US would treat the two any
differently (given 100% confidence in US government).  Prices of gold in
other countries would only say something about the transaction costs of
moving gold, dollars or whatever "goods" you mention between US and
there, or confidence in the US government.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: Gold Standard? No!
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 12:21:53 GMT

bright@unlv.edu (Paul Conte) writes:

>IF this ever happened, and currency became a private enterprise, would
>not the printing of more or less money STILL have an affect on the
>value of what I own?  Even if we use ONLY gold coins, the discovery of
>or non-discovery of gold will have an affect on the value of my
>property.  A person should be able to choose what to use as a claim
>for their property.  The government takes away that choice and
>distorts the value of goods by monopolizing the press.

Paul, et.al.,  Are you guys playing a game of how many useless ideas
can we come up with ?

Today you nearly demand that everybody be able to print money and that
we should all carry hunks of gold around.  Okay let's take the big step
backward and imagine that has happened.

I'll buy your car for 50,000 T's (Tom dollars) will you sell it ?

Are they traded in your neighborhood ?  Will my purchase of anything
from your state require a dozen interim transactions to find a currency
that both you and I agree are stable enough to purchase ?

Will you demand hunks of gold be sent through the mail to pay for
utility bills and mail order purchases ?  Will your company accept
my $25 dollar chip of gold-colored metal in trade ?  Add some assaying
equipment to your video store or gas station...

Expect to wait in line at the bank each day you make deposits while
they melt your money down into a single ingot and run a few tests on
it.  Carry a hack saw to make change.

Perhaps you'll permit the U.S. government to still mint the gold coins
can't wait to see the pennies.

How we arrived at the situation we have now was through decade upon
decade of streamlining based upon centuries of experience.  You honestly
think that trading in paper money the world over is a quirk that could
have been avoided if somebody had read these ill-conceived messages ?

tom
>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: raphael@fx.com (Glen Raphael)
Subject: Re: gold
Organization: FXD/Telerate, Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 03:35:29 GMT

mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:

>There's a real question of whether any nation could compete any more with a
>gold-based currency.  No matter what the exchange rate, the other nations of
>the world could simply print currency to buy out all the gold of the GS
>nation.

Not with floating exchange rates, they couldn't. Example: Translyvania starts
printing billions of drachmas, which used to be equivalent to dollars. They
try to convert them to US dollars, but drachmas are now a glut on the market,
and they end up getting only one dollar per 100 million drachmas, a
reasonable indicator of the new relative buying powers of the two currencies.
With which they can buy very little gold.

>Mike Huben

Glen Raphael
raphael@fx.com
From: ebb7683@venus.tamu.edu (BLACKMAN, EDWARD B)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Somalia, Liberatarian State
Date: 11 Dec 1992 15:31 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: venus.tamu.edu
Keywords: minarchy, anarchy
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <Bz3KL0.59x@encore.com>, rcollins@1.com writes...
>In article <10DEC199221525315@venus.tamu.edu>, ebb7683@venus.tamu.edu (BLACKMAN, EDWARD B) writes:
>|> Because the Somalians lack a government that would protect individuals
>|> from the initiation of force and fraud.  Without the minimal state that
>|> libertarians wish to bring about, you have ANARCHY, not a libertarian
>|> minarchy.

>You are correct, except that some libertarians (the voluntarists) would
>love for that "minimal state" to be zero government.  They assume that
>zero government is sufficient to protect individuals from the initiation
>of force and fraud, or disregarding utopia, at least, protect
>individuals better than some government.  Most libertarians would be
>voluntarists, or anarchists, if they accepted that assumption.  My
>opinion: we're so far from minarchy, who cares?

I'm skeptical about that assumption, myself.  If an anarchy could protect
individuals from the initiation of force and fraud in the long term as well
as the short term, I wouldn't have any objections to an anarchy.  But I 
have serious doubts as to whether one could.

Personally, I want the government to be like a limbo contest: I want to see
how low we can go (while still protecting individuals from the initiation of
force and fraud, of course).

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
| Ed Blackman                        |    Another PROUD user of OS/2!!!     | 
| Internet: EBB7683@venus.tamu.edu   |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=|
| Fido    : 1:117/331.10             | For you anti-RTKBA people:  The era  |
|=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= of the American Police State is      |
| approaching - brace yourselves.  In our zealotry to conduct the "war on   |
| drugs" and to "make society safe from gun violence" we are dooming the    |
| Bill of Rights.                                                           |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=( Boycott Microsoft )=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 01:23:34 GMT

In article <11339@prijat.cs.uofs.edu> bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.221200.20158@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>|> 
>|> also, if your statement #2 is true, why did gold go up in value by
>|> an order of magnitude after the gold standard was *removed*?
>|> 
>
>You are assuming the value of gold went up when it is much more likely that
>the value of the pieces of paper actually dropped once they were no longer
>tied to anything of real value.

say what?
i must be missing some important neurons somewhere...

what exactly is the difference between the value of gold going up
and the value of money going down? they are measured against one
another, and since the gold standard was abolished the market has decided
that one ounce of gold is worth ten times as many pieces of paper as
it was worth before (it was actually 25 times at one point, of course).
that is exactly the point i was trying to make.

please explain.

--
charles
From: cb926@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Edmund Joseph Ryan)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Corporate Government
Date: 14 Dec 1992 23:47:15 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In response to Mike Huben's criticism of anarcho-capitalism:

Mr. Huben stated the abuses a corporation-as-government would 
commit. Nonetheless you would first have the choice of which
corporation to seek employment under. If the employer ever abused
your rights, you would probably have a number of individuals or
entities willing to protect you. You may scoff at my last 
remark, but even in our society there are individuals who
will do such a selfish act as to save another human being.

Virtually,

Edmund J. Ryan
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Labor Standard
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 14:15:15 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.043455.10630@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>>at15+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew Lewis Tepper) writes:
>
>>>Fix the currency at 1 unit=1 hour of unskilled labor. To keep the system
>>>honest, the way to produce currency is to have an actual person do 1
>>>hour of labor (either needed labor or unneeded), and then to give him a
>>>newly minted currency unit. This isn't as crazy as it sounds:
>
>>	Interesting idea, however it depends on what you count as an hour
>>of unskilled labor.  A classic example is ditch digging.  If we assume a
>>guy with a shovel can move 180 cu. ft. of dirt / hr; does a guy with a
>>tractor (say 5400 cu. ft of dirt / hr) get 30 units pay?
>
>It is hardly "interesting" and it really is as crazy as it sounds.
>
>I've just spent 1 hour doing unskilled labor reading messages, send me
>1 unit.  Oh wait, let me grab a shovel and dig a ditch I'm going to
>dig it 5 feet deep I could use the overtime.
>
>You do realize that a hole in the ground isn't explicitly worth anything
>right ?  Can I get 1/2 a unit if I find a hole that somebody else dug
>but nobody remembered where it was ?
>
>Gawwwwwwwd.
>
>tom
>>

	I don't think the author intended for everyone to get 1 unit of
pay, for everything they do all the time.  I think his intention was to
set up a standard pay scale.  I'll rephrase it.  The minimum wage in the
US is one unit.  Unskilled labors are paid minimum wage.....

--JMB
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: gold
Date: 14 Dec 1992 21:21:42 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <14DEC199214070161@venus.tamu.edu> gmw0622@venus.tamu.edu (Mr. Grinch) writes:
>Ok,  here's what it means to say the price of gold is kept "artificially low"
>when your currency is gold backed:
>
>Fort Knox used to contain a huge fraction of the world's refined gold.  If
>the U.S. pegs the price of gold at,  say,  20 bucks an ounce and the value
>of gold relative to other commodities goes up,  people will trade in their
>dollars for gold.
>
>If gold is at its "natural" value,  the amount of gold in FK should be
>reasonably constant.  By continually selling gold,  the U.S. could keep
>the price artificially low for some time.  But not forever.

Thank you.  We might also mention that the US specified the value of the
gold in dollars by minting gold coins denominated in dollars.  This makes it
difficult to revalue the dollar in terms of gold as the market revalues it.
Now that NO world currency is backed by gold, gold coins are minted in
units of their weight.

There's a real question of whether any nation could compete any more with a
gold-based currency.  No matter what the exchange rate, the other nations of
the world could simply print currency to buy out all the gold of the GS
nation.  I suspect that is the reason why no nation now has a currency based
on any real commodity.

Another problem is amassing enough gold to actually back the currency.
The demand for currency is independent of the supply of gold to back it, and
is based more on the amount needed for transactions and savings.

Mike Huben

"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked
at it the right way, did not become still more complicated."  Poul Anderson
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Gold Standard? No!
Keywords: Gold, zealot, oil
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:30:26 GMT

In article <liqedgINNra@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> kris@bsg8.Corp.Sun.COM writes:
>
>The Gold Standard is to the Libertarian party what abortion is to the
>republicans; an albatross with no understandable defense.
>
>The liberatarian party places a childlike, religious faith in gold as
>an economic cure-all. I find it especially astonishing that
>net-liberatarians support it!

I don't know how important the LP says a gold standard is....I'd say
that it would be a valuable help and protection, but hardly a cure-all.

>The value of any commodity, including currency, is the value that we
>collectively place in it. This is true of gold and currency. When the
>two are tied together the value of both will still fluctuate in the
>market as the supply and demand for each fluctuates.

The difference is that the valuing of gold is less under the control
of governments than the valuing of currency. It's harder (though still
possible) to devalue gold than to devalue a currency.

>> Flame space reserved here for liberatarians who don't understand >
>commodities or the free-market.
>
>
>Why don't liberatarians advocate the binding of pork bellies to corn?
>The price and production of corn actually is related to the price of
>the meat that it produces!
>
>The reason is simple: It doesn't make any sense.
>
>We in the computer community should be naturally adept in dealing in
>symbols and abstractions. Why then is it so difficult to deal with
>currency as an abstraction, that has no inherent value.
>
>From this perspective, it looks as though the republicans and democrats
>have one up on us here: They can comfortably live with the concept of
>currency as abstraction.
>
>The assignment of a value to the dollar, in gold or any other commodity
>(oil), would be arbitrary. This arbitrary assignment would place
>restrictions on the free flow of other commondities on which it
>depends, namely interest rates and other currencies, and would interupt
>the market just as all other government-imposed restriction do.
>
>Are we interpretting the constitution as _we_ see fit? Are the
>liberatarians saying that 'All men are created equal' and meaning, all
>european-descent, non-women, land-owning people are created equal? Or,
>are we interpretting it too literally, as the fundimental christians
>interpret the Bible. Maybe that's why liberaterians sound like
>religious fanatics when talking about the gold standard!
>
>The gold standard should be dropped from the Liberatarian Party
>platform.  No one can defend it. Everyone who tries to sounds like a
>zealot.

Do I? 

Nancy Lebovitz
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 11:11:50 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.211207.3429@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
}In article <1992Dec17.092711.20817@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>In article <1992Dec16.205810.5848@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
}>}
}>}	I think this is topic worth discussing.  Why are so many
}>}libertarians opposed to feminism?  
}>
}>I wouldn't say that it's that we're opposed to feminism per se, but that
}>we don't do enough to emphasize the individualism in feminism, and spend
}>all our time attacking the statism in it.
}>
}>Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
}>starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu
}>
}
}	But why not emphazide the individualism.  In other words, why is
}that magazines like liberty do tend to target feminism; and take the
}anti-feminist position on zillions of issues.

I don't know, but I think individualist feminism should be brought out more.
All I can say by way of defense of their conduct is to tell a story about
a great libertarian, Robert Anton Wilson.  When feminism broke out in the
early 1970s, he took many of the pamphlets they circulated, replaced "men"
with "Jews," and asked people where they thought it came from.  They
invariably guessed: "Mein Kampf."

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." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Organization: University of Maine System
Date: Saturday, 12 Dec 1992 12:00:42 EST
From: <REE700A@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Ayn Rand(What yo gonna do?)
 <MERRITT.92Dec9125458@macro.bu.edu>
 <1992Dec11.035345.1480@genie.slhs.udel.edu>

   My $0.02 worth is as follows:
Why do I care what stupid decisions are made by some other person?
If Lee Iaccocca won't make right-side drive cars until the Japanese buy
enough left-side drive cars, he deserved to suffer a loss w.r.t. Japan.

How does Lee's bussiness failure affect me?  Quite frankly, it doesn't.
I am not in the car bussiness.  If I were, I would make decisions that
I considered more rational.  In the mean time, If Honda wants to own
factories here, employing Americans, Japanese, or Martians, I simply
don't care.  As long as tsomeone is employed here, I have potential
customers for whatever enterprise I choose to undertake.

If Honda's plant fails, they lose their sizable investiment - to local
people of whatever extraction.

If it succeeds, it's a plus to local bussiness.


Now, as to the preceding arguement thread -
   In truly LF bussiness (to an extreme) America wouldn't be an issue.
Whether Lee I. or K. Sato perform the best in a given service doesn't
matter to the Country.  That has to be a definition of LF.  It may matter
a great deal to you, the employee, customer, salesman or employer.
   The big flaw in most of these posts is that a Collective (America) is
being used as a barometer for the social wellbeing of a group of
individuals.
   Each of us should take the responsibility of making our own decisions.
Case in point...  Why on Earth would the US need trade sanctions on any
country?  If enough people are willing to embargo a country, it is
effectively embargoed - provided we live by our convictions.
   But no, Americans scream and cry for government to pass a law telling
them to do something they already know they should be doing.  Americans
seem to need a Law telling them not to ingest cocaine, etc.  Next, there
will be a Law against drinking gasoline!   But I digress...

   Pick your convictions.
   Stick by them.
   Let others do the same.

Jeff Andle
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Hey, Tim Starr
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 10:02:20 GMT

In article <BzD1oL.2or@newcastle.ac.uk> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
}rbeckham@bnr.ca (Rick Beckham) writes:
}>mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
}>>Here's a guy that lacks your pollyana view that everything will magically
}>>be all right if only we all adopt libertarianism.
}>>
}>*sign*, it's been stated over and over again Mike. libertarians freely admit
}> there will be problems. We don't think all of mankinds woes will magically
}> disappear. The opposite is true with Dems/Repubs, where a belief that
}> social engineering will improve mankind's lot. This has never been
}> demonstated.
}
}The opposite is true?  You mean all those nasty pollyannic Dems/Repubs
}belive that with a bit of social engineering, all of mankind's woes
}will magically disappear?  How come they never say things like that
}then?

They have.  I've heard them say things like that, although with less
zeal and frequency now than in the past.

[Note: social engineering has actually improved mankind's lot.
}For example, giving blacks and women the right to vote is blatant
}social engineering.]

This isn't clear to me.  Why do you think that this constitutes social
engineering?

}> You've consistently stated you oppose libertarian philosophy. Does this
}> mean you back statism? Where do you draw the line? Are you a total
}> collectivist? or are you only socialist when it benefits you?
}
}This is funny.  Don't you love people drawing false dichotomies?

Easier claimed than shown.

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." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: The Larger Picture (was Re: Gold Standard? No!)
Keywords: Gold, zealot, oil
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:43:09 GMT

In article <1gkv9qINNjhq@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>One minor point: we already have competing currencies.  Every commodity that
>is traded on the exchanges is a de-facto currency, including national
>currencies.  With rare exceptions, these all "float".

baloney. they all float, but they are not currency, because they are not
liquid. try going into your local hardware store with a bushel of corn
and try to buy something. using that logic, you could call the Yen a competing
currency -- it is also a commodity.

liquidity and acceptability are essential characteristics of a useful currency.

--
charles