HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: iccsap020@spacm1.spac.spc.com (David Cohen)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarianism and Government
Date: 10 Apr 92 13:38:50 PST
Organization: Security Pacific Automation Co., LA, CA

In article <46291@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
> In article <1992Apr8.152145.425@spacm1.spac.spc.com> iccsap020@spacm1.spac.spc.com (David Cohen) writes:
>>I'm getting the idea, from references in various threads, 
>>that people are taking libertarianism to be based on anarchism.
> 
> Try to be a little more clear with terms here. "Anarchism", like
> "libertarianism" is an word with several referents. The 
> Anarchism of Kropotkin and Bookchin, for example, is  a political
> philosophy which seeks to replace private-property/centralized-state
> systems with those based on communalism and personal liberty. 
>  
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
  
Yes, I was a little uneasy with the term "anarchism", but anarchy
didn't sound right either.  I simply meant a society without
government.
From: hgm@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarianism and Government
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:37:40 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Apr9.233020.16418@odin.corp.sgi.com>, thant@horus.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) writes:

> 
> And what personal liberty actually means without private property
> is left as an exercise for the reader.
> 

Yes, and that is the kind of personal liberty enjoyed today by those with
insignificant private property. We must re-examine the sources of property
rights before we allow people uninterrupted liberty in their enjoyment.
 Helen Marsh
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 8 Apr 92 21:34:15 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <LEE.92Apr8142855@meercat.wang.com> lee@wang.com (Lee Story) writes:
>stated clearly.  And the whole Marxist edifice seems to require some
>notion of a will of the masses---whatever "masses" are, and in
>whatever mystical way "the will" can be collective.

Have you ever read anything by Marx, or are you just regurgitating what you
have been told? 

>I'm perfectly content to dodge the arrows of the professors and
>polemicists and declare that both Marxism and theoretical
>Capitalism (which I take to be the belief that there is usually
>sufficiently complete information and sufficient will-to-act to
>make the "invisible hand" of the market stabilize and/or optimize
>economic outcomes) are great and fascinating, but ultimately and
>essentially unscientific modern religions.

Agree, except about the fascinating part.
But, Marx is not "Marxism", and cannot be so easily dismissed.

>--
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>        Let your mind go, and your body will follow.
>                   _L.A._Story_
>  Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc.
>     (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: hgm@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 8 Apr 92 23:32:59 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Apr07.145312.24509@watson.ibm.com>, platt@watson.ibm.com 
(Daniel E. Platt) writes:
> 
> I would go a step further and say that some of the 'ends' that the means 
> must satisfy are that people's rights have not been violated along the way. 
> 
Exactly, and no laws about property rights can be justified if they violate
people's natural property rights.

Helen Marsh
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 17 Apr 92 19:41:34 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <DRG.92Apr17104931@bubba.ma30.bull.com> drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R Guilderson) writes:
>In article <46698@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>   Well, you'd like the "market" to "guide the economy". We have several
>   choices in understanding this. First, we can see "the market" as being
>   a complex social construct in which such forces as consumer demand, legal
>   strictures, national borders, wars, and culture are all involved. But, 
>   you seem to find "market" as something completely other than "government".
>
>Maybe I should have said that I want people (no tiny fonts here) to
>freely guide the markets rather than have government guide the
>markets.  I think your being picky about semantics.  Saying that I
>want the people to guide the markets rather than governments does not
>imply that I favor no government at all.  As an analogy, consider a
>hockey team which has four average players and one great player.
>Saying that I want the great player to set the pace does not imply
>that I want the other players to get off the ice.

Governments are usually staffed with people. 

>What is clear to me is that (sci.econ cliche alert) "people of your
>ilk" want the government to have the most influence on the game.

Reminds me of a story told by a visitor to rural China in the 1930s.
The visitor was wandering down some back country lanes, on his way to a
small rural town. At a fork in the road he walked up to two peasants to
ask directions. The peasants, having never seen a foreigner before, stared
at him in amazement as, in reasonably fluent Chinese, he asked which
direction lead to town. Although he asked several times, the poor visitor
received no reply -- the farmers just continued to stare, silently.
Finally, he gave up in disgust and marched off, picking a direction
randomly. But, as he walked off he heard one farmer say to the other:
"I could have sworn that thing was talking chinese." "Yes", said the
other farmer, "it sounded like it was asking which road led to town."


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians, slaves and company towns
Date: 7 Apr 92 19:37:25 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <121936@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin) writes:
>In article <46160@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>I'm just trying to understand the limits of contract enforcement in the
>>libertopia. Who determines what is "duress"?  
>
>"It's a legal matter, baby." (the Who).  Jury of peers, laws, community
>standards, maybe, as you suggest, little booklets.  That's ok.  Just more
>work for -- well, you know who.  What is duress for one person is not
>necessarily for another, that's for sure.  The legal standard, as far as
>I know, is the "reasonable person" test -- would a "reasonable person" view
>it as duress.

Reasonable people might disagree. And what is reasonable one year: e.g., that
a slaveowner's property must be returned to him, is grossly immoral the next. 
As you might say, "to live outside the law you must be honest", but it seems that
"liberarians" are not honestly facing the role of the state in their proposed 
entreprenuers paradise.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: re Airline Deregulation
Date: 15 Apr 92 00:37:56 GMT


 
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

>   I think allowing a certain
>>  percentage of slots to "evaporate" every year, i.e. put
>>  them up for grabs, might not be unreasonable although
>>  it's not clear to me why this couldn't be done by the 
>>  local airport authorities.   But beyond ensuring that 
>
>Think about how popular the airport commission of Pitt would be if they
>annoyed one the major employers in the area by cutting USAIR's number
>of alloted gates. Ditto for Delta in Atlanta.

 Perhaps Mr. Yodaiken should do a little research before speaking.  
 Atlanta has been TRYING to entice other airlines to move in
 ever since the demise of Eastern.


>How's about predatory pricing regulation? People's express was making a
>profit with fares that other airlines matched until People's bit the
>dust. Having deep pockets enables an established corporation to murder
>its competition. 

  People's had lots of other problems, too, like excessive debt 
  brought on by too-rapid expansion.  In any case, these days 
  the "predatory pricing" is usually practiced by the bankrupt
  airlines.

---peter
From: kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians, slaves and company towns
Date: 7 Apr 92 16:44:12 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab.

In article <46160@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>I'm just trying to understand the limits of contract enforcement in the
>libertopia. Who determines what is "duress"?  

"It's a legal matter, baby." (the Who).  Jury of peers, laws, community
standards, maybe, as you suggest, little booklets.  That's ok.  Just more
work for -- well, you know who.  What is duress for one person is not
necessarily for another, that's for sure.  The legal standard, as far as
I know, is the "reasonable person" test -- would a "reasonable person" view
it as duress.

You use the term "libertopian", from which I gather that I stepped into a
discussion that I hadn't been following.  Oh well, happens all the time.
I didn't think of the previous poster's comments as being particularly
pro or con, as far as libertarianism is concerned -- just pointing out
another view of the "company town" discussion.

>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Kent
--
Kent Crispin				"No need to get excited",
kent@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke....
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory	<Standard disclaimer>

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: degroff@IntelliCorp.COM (Les Degroff)
Subject: Government share question
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:30:33 GMT


   Is there evidence connecting "governmental stability" to specific
percentages of National income captured by government taxes.  I have
recently been exposed to a couple of strong arguments of the 
"revolutionary potential" of national debt/unfundable promises  but
am curious if any one has done a formal/quasistatistical analysis?
Is there evidence for there being a significant "threshold" of taxation or
social imbalance that destabilizes society. Les DeGroff
From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:36:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: xuucp.9204081405.AA01945


From: kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin)
>In article <9204052014.AA05137@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
>>  BTW, it is worth noting that marxist societies have not failed to
>>  materialize for lack of trying (unlike libertarian ones).
>
>I suppose we can infer from this that Marxism has been far more successful
>than libertarianism?  THAT's an amusing thought.

   Perhaps some other helpful news reader can locate a reference in my
   comment, above, to the "success" of such societies.  (hint: there is
   no such reference to be found)

   Just because many societies and "intentional communities" have 
   organized themselves along lines which they deemed "marxist" 
   does not mean that they were successful in doing so.  Indeed,
   one may well wonder what motivated Mr. Crispin's comment.

---peter
From: tucker@shiva.edsg.hac.com (George Tucker)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians, slaves and company towns
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:47:51 GMT
Reply-To: tucker@shiva.hac.com (George Tucker)
Organization: Hughes Aircraft Co., El Segundo, CA

In article <46652@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <1992Apr16.012852.3511@clipper.ingr.com> ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
>>Which reminds me of our little chat about the lowly worker in the company
>>town.  Here's a quote from William Pitt the Elder:
>>the crown.  It may be frail--its roof may shake--the wind may blow
>>through it--the storm may enter, the rains may come--but the King
>>of England cannot enter--all his forces dare not cross the threshold
>>of the ruined tenement!"
>
>Look at Pitt's deeds, not his words. In fact, as many a factory worker and
>rural laborer found out, his/her tenement was no barrier to either the
>King's bailiffs or the hirelings of the landed gentry.   Note that it was

Whenever a ruler or politician (either incumbent or serious candidate)
specifies something harmful that the government will never do (like
"No New Taxes"), immediately assess the threat and try to protect
yourself or head for the border, as appropriate.  If a President ever
says "The tanks will never roll on American cities", sell at any price
and get out fast if you can!  Once they think of the possibility, the
urge becomes too strong to resist.  Politics is like investing - it
is highly tempting to buy the stock that is already up because you
can see the possibilities so clearly and become blind to the danger.

BTW, they break into American houses all the time, in all kinds of
neighborhoods, whenever they like.


	George Tucker        tucker@kali.hac.com
		Just say NO to incumbents.
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 7 Apr 92 12:20:24 GMT


From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
>>  No concrete instances of a society structured along lines 
>>  consistent with the variety of Marxism espoused by Mr.
>>  Langer have been shown to exist in a stable form.   And
>>  I claim that economics is not a sufficiently rigorous science
>>  (in the sense of being able to create nontrivial theoretical
>>  models with reliable predictive power) to tell us WHAT the
>>  characteristics of a marxist society might be.   So it comes
>>  down to the same "cars -vs- magic carpets" arguments we were
>>  having on libertarianism.
>
>
>By this logic, the American Revolution, the labor movement, and the
>invention of electric lightbulbs were all intellectually dishonest.
>Proposals for change have to be evaluated on their own merits, on their
>logical consistency, and on extraplations from the current reality. 


  "Logical consistency" requires a set of formal knowledge to which to
  apply rules of logic.  Such knowledge exists in rigorous form in, 
  say, mathematics, or in physics and chemistry.   But not in economics.

  The "invention of the lightbulb" illustrates precisely what I'm talking
  about.  Given the knowledge of the day, the proposal for a lightbulb
  was quite reasonably met with skepticism.   In hindsight we can see 
  that Edison was correct, but for every Edison's lighbulb, the world
  has seen a hundred perpetual motion machines, pyramid razor sharpeners, 
  "100 MPG" carburators, and so forth.  Contrast this with, say, semi-
  conductor lasers, which physics predicted should be possible *before*
  one was actually developed.     

  What can Mr. Yodaiken possibly mean by evaluating proposals for change
  "on their own merits" ?  How does he propose that we determine what 
  those merits might be?   I say, as I did above, that there are only
  two intellectually honest methods:  develop a concrete instance, or
  demonstrate that economics has sufficient rigor on which to base an 
  abstract model.

  In the case of any change as sweeping as libertarianism or marxism,
  any "extrapolations from the current reality" are PURE speculation.


----peter
From: drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R Guilderson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 16 Apr 92 21:59:59 GMT
	<DRG.92Apr15154749@bubba.ma30.bull.com> <46624@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Bull World Wide Information Systems, Billerica MA USA

In article <46624@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:

   >The economy is being guided by a government structure which was never
   >designed to guide economies.  Those of you who would like the
   >government to guide the economy should vote for a king.  Those of you
   >who would like the economy to be guided by markets should vote for a
                                                      ^ You can't see
    it but I wrote here in a very tiny font, which only Victor can
    see, "(which is a euphemism for 'the rich and powerful' but in
    actuality I believe that they are supernatural forces)".

   >Libertarian.  Those of you who are not sure should move to Canada.

   "markets", above, is a euphemism for "the rich and powerful". Your
   belief that a "market" is a supernatural force is testimony to the power
   of unexamined beliefs.

I didn't mean to write that.  I actually meant to write:

   The economy is being guided by a government structure which was never
   designed to guide economies.  Those of you who would like the
   government to guide the economy should vote for a king.  Those of you
   who would like the economy to be guided by markets should vote for a
   Libertarian.  Those of you who are not sure should move to Canada.

Your ability to read that tiny font is testimony to the power of a
hard blow to the head.
From: cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Airline Deregulation
Date: 14 Apr 92 16:50:37 GMT
Organization: Landmark Graphics Corporation

In article <9204141458.AA02040@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
			.
			.
			.
>  Barriers to entry are a genuine problem.  As the Economist
>  pointed out last October, some 150 new airlines have been 
>  started since 1978;  of these only ONE is still in business
>  and not in bankruptcy (some did get acquired).
Mr. Nelson, I think you're saying something
on the order of
1.  structural barriers-to-entry exist;
2.  if the structures could be dissolved,
    more new air carriers would be founded;
3.  if we had more new air carriers, con-
    sumer surplus would improve.
When "150 new airlines have been started ...",
I do *not* follow you to your conclusion that
"barriers to entry are a genuine problem."
Perhaps it's so, but I'm missing something.
			.
			.
			.
>  I tend to agree somewhat with Robert Crandall (CEO of Amer-
>  ican) who says that airlines go under so often these days 
>  because nobody can make any money in the business, and he
>  says one reason for this is that bankrupt carriers are allowed
>  to remain under the protection (from their creditors) of 
>  Chapter 11 for too long, all the while undercutting prices
>  in the industry.  He proposes, and I support, a *limit*
>  on how long an airline can operate while in Chapter 11,
>  of about 3 months.     
I'm reluctant to fiddle *again* with bankruptcy
laws, but wish to emphasize that this is part of
the sad story of banking in the US.  There is
agreement in at least some circles that US bank-
ing has excess capacity.  The Fed's policy of
propping up failing institutions (typically by
subsidizing BancOne, CitiBank, ..., and other
deep-pocket purchasers) has the effect of main-
taining overcapacity.  This induces a cascade of
"failures", as progressively stronger banks are
obliged to compete with the growing field of
failed-but-protected ones.
			.
			.
			.
--

Cameron Laird				+1 713-579-4613
cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713-996-8546 
claird@Neosoft.com
From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: distribution of wealth
Date: 7 Apr 92 05:08:00 GMT
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide

If we added up everybody's bank balances and cash-on-hand, in the world,
and divided by the world population what would each of us get?

What does this result mean?

If we include assets into the calculation, what happens?
From: hgm@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: distribution of wealth
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:35:22 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <46452@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
> In article <1992Apr10.231836.7367@waikato.ac.nz> hgm@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>>The way I envisage it being done indivisibility is not a problem as long as you
>>can measure how much someone controls. We have fishing quotas. We don't divide
>>the fish up and say this fish is part of this quota. 
>>
>>The right to pollute is one of the rights associated with the environment which
>>has economic value and therefore should be assigned equally to everyone. A
>>volume of any pollutant equal to the highest amount of pollution any sector of
>>the community believes can acceptably be released into the particular
>>environmental sink is defined. Everyone is given the right to a share of this,
> 
> Not so easy to determine, and subject to change, ain't it?

There is no problem changing it and within limits it is O.K. for one person to
ask for it to be raised as others can reserve part of their share and so the
final level will reflect everyone's values. We are just given some money to put
where our mouth is. My son pointed out that if set ridiculously high by one
person their share could end up being as much as they wanted to use in the
first place. So we think some limit would have to be set in terms of standard
deviations from the mean. Really not hard to determine. Just let a few experts
make a few recommendations and then have a referendum. The point is this isn't
an absolute that you have to find a way of measuring it is a fairly arbitary
starting point. The 'market' will decide the final level but it can only reduce
the level not raise it so it should start high.

> 
>>equivalent to the amount divided by the total population. An agency, initially
>>probably the government, leases these shares to the highest bidder and pays the
> 
> Rent or sale? As Ralph Nader likes to point out, here in the US the public
> has essentially sold the airwaves for pocket change.
> 

Exactly, definitely rent and only for a specified period.

> 
> It seems as if we are in the latter stages of an enclosure movement that has
> gone on longer than anyone would have envisioned. First common land, then
> rights to hunt and fish, and now even body parts and the air and oceans
> themselves have been turned into commodities available to those with 
> capital, and forcibly grabbed from those without. 
> 

You are not joking. I am boringly evangelical about the need for a popular
movement to reverse this process before they stop fobbing us off with universal
adult suffrage. 

Helen Marsh