From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Libertarian philosophy (was Re: Transport...)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 17:03:03 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

eo@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Emma Osman) writes (to FoFP):
> Firstly, road tolls. Your solution to the problem of congestion seems 
> to be to allow certain sections of the community - probably "big 
> business" as they are the ones with the money to spend - the licence 
> to improve roads as they see fit, (to improve congestion problems) 
> and then charge users to recoup the costs of these improvements. But 
> suppose the users don't *want* these "improvements" - after all, in 
> order to be a "success" the scheme only has to benefit the organisers 
> of it. They are then in a position where a resource which used to be 
> free has been effectively taken away from them and given into the 
> control of someone else to use for their own profit.

This is only really a problem when there is no competition.  But of course,
it's often inappropriate to build multiple competing roads in locations where
(a) there isn't the space and (b) there isn't the demand.  This is why I
think there's still a place for government to spend money on transport
infrastructure.

While I'm happy to see the government build railway lines, I can see less
justification for having government run the trains.

> it (say a few dozen) who I do trust. I don't trust directors of large 
> companies AT ALL - why should I? It' in their interest simply to screw
> as much money out of me and everyone else as they can in whatever ways
> are currently legal. If you think this is a bit of a biased picture, 
> just look what happens where there aren't proper controls on business 
> - Nestle flogging baby milk in the Third World for example.

If people were less accustomed to thinking that the Third World was the
Government's problem, they might actually consider what they should do
themselves to help the Third World.  Like not banking at Lloyds or buying
Nestle products, for example.

Big corporations can only screw others over because we let them -- that is,
we actively assist them in doing so on a day to day basis.  Government's not
like that; once Government's in place, they can screw others over without our
help.  They don't even have to justify how much they're spending on what --
they just take what they like.  And all we can do is choose a different
government.  And we all have to have the same damn government.

Government is like giving Nestle a direct debit mandate on your current
account to take as much money as they deem appropriate for the coffee they
deem it appropriate to give you.  You get to vote for either Maxwell House or
Red Mountain, and you get to request a particular size of jar, and then you
get whichever brand and size received the most votes.  You can only request a
change once every four years.  Is that an improvement?

Personally, I like the fact that Nestle don't get a single penny from me. 
I'd like to be able to opt out of many of the stupid and immoral things the
government does as well.

>                                                    And it is 
> these people who your proposal will give more freedom to, and 
> therefore more power.

Only indirectly.  The *people* are given the freedom and power.  *If* they
*choose* to pass that power on to the corporations, *then* the corporations
will be able to abuse the power.

I think that's better than being forced to give all the power to government.

> government, ie with US, the people. You may argue that that power 
> isn't really vested in us, just in a bunch of politicians to whom 
> we've given a license to do what they like for the next five years - 
> well that's an argument for making the government more accountable 
> (believe me, I've got *lots* of good ideas on how to accomplish that) 
> or for taking it away and giving it back to ALL the people EQUALLY, 
> not just to those who have a few million floating around that they 
> weren't sure how to invest.

Well, I'm quite happy to try democracy for a bit first, to see if it works. 
I'm just rather pessimistic.

> tell people what to do (except in the case of criminal actions). I say
> that to see such a society already in operation we need look no 
> further than international politics. There we have a whole bunch
> of "players of the economic game" (in this case countries rather
> than individuals) doing their thing without any sort of interference
> from a "government". And what do we find? Do we have an economic
> paradise? Do we have fairness? Do we even have free trade? Not bloody
> likely, just a bunch of powerful nations (most noticably America,
> although the European block seems to be aspiring to the same status)
> doing as they please, setting their own terms in everything, and 
> getting yet more wealthy off the interest payments from third world
> countries while the people in those countries sink further and further
> into the treadmill of debt.

Of course, the reason for this is that the gullible fools in the Third World
countries took the advice of these powerful nations.  They believed they were
getting free helpful caring advice from these "players of the economic game".
They, like you, thought governments could be compassionate and competant,
operating for the common good.  They have now found out that governments only
ever do what's best for themselves.  And your solution is to try even harder
to make governments into helpful caring unselfish souls?  How long have we
been trying to do that?  Or have we just not tried hard enough?


mathew
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