From: ied1@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ingrid de Beus)
Subject: Re: Anarchy as a newsgroup?
Followup-To: oracle@usite-next.uchicago.edu
Summary: stop me if you've heard this one..
Reply-To: ied1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 17:29:55 GMT

My apologies for jumping in un-announced to this discussion.  I would
like to ask some questions of Perry and Dale, if I may.  

In article <1992Sep24.194540.9724@shearson.com> pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep23.221315.28694@shearson.com> pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>>   Failures to arbitrate would be costly; war is not in
>>   practice profitable.

Putting the perils of universal statements aside for now, I would like know
in what context Perry is placing 'profit', versus 'debit'.  If he is
speaking in a purely monetary context, I agree with him.  I think, however,
that monetary balances haven't been a high priority for governments since
the creation of the International Monetary Fund in the 1950s. 

[Dale]
>>Depends on whether you win or not, and what is to be gained if one
>>wins.  Consider the case of the European settlers vs. the Native
>>Americans in what is now the United States.  Or an even better
>>example, the Rome vs. Carthage wars -- in that one the losers didn't
>>even get a reservation, they were exterminated to the last person, and
>>the winners got a much larger empire.  Or any of the other hundred
>>thousand similar examples in history.
>
I agree with Dale's basic point that in wars of conquest, the influx of
land and treasure to the conqueror's coffers does make war 'profitable'.
On the other hand, I note that Dale starts before 1800 in his examples.
Have you considered, Dale, any wars in more recent times? It may be that
times have changed (inflation, treasury bureaucracies, changes in taxation
systems).

[Perry]
>I'll agree, injustices occur. 
A big cigar for the understatement of the week.  8^)

>However, you will note that the battles
>you mention were fought between governments. Even the presense of a
>government cannot guarantee your security. Voluntarists such as myself
>only state that our system is better, not that it is perfect. As your
>examples show, governments can fail. We know our system can fail, too,
>but expect that it would function better than all the others we know
>of.
Bravo, I applaud your humility.

>When I state that "War is unprofitable", I mean to say that in
>general, if you are depending on payments from customers rather than
>coercively extracted taxes to fund your operations, and if you are
>depending on employees who can quit rather than conscripts to fight
>your battles, you will likely find that it is very expensive and
>unprofitable to try to gain power by force -- among other things,
>people will actively resist you as they won't want to be ruled, and
>your original customers are going to be among the people resisting,
>and thus ceasing to pay your operating costs.
This doesn't answer my question about contexts.  Your statement in 
this paragraph begs a question from me.  What of the unemployed? I
don't mean to sound flip, but not everybody is necessarily a part of
this voluntarist business that you describe.  The representative system
that we currently suffer to exist has quite a few cracks for people to
fall through -- mentally ill, under-educated, unmotivated, or (speaking
for myself) over-educated 8^) people rarely find niches prepared for 
them, especially when the hospitals are full.  The system that I feel
that you are implying seems (ironically) even more strict in its
categorizations of people (as large cooperations must be), thus making
its (pardon the term) class borders less flexible then the current 
regime's.  How would you, Perry, allow for those of us who don't, won't,
or can't volunteer to be employed under your proposal?

>--
>Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
>--
>		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
>			 Extropian and Proud.

Thank you for your attention and your patience.  I would appreciate any
and all responses.

Ingrid de Beus


-- 
Ingrid Elvire Maria de Beus			there is no god
ied1@midway.uchicago.edu			only greed,dung,and lies
oracle@usite-next.uchicago.edu			you've got no soul     
eyes of green smoke and hair of gold		only rips in your eyes  
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy