From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: Re: Libertarians
Date: 12 Jan 93 22:04:11 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <ARCHER.731.726863156@utkvm1.utk.edu> ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. Archer) writes:

|In article <90226@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM> mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
|>In <1993Jan12.025829.11030@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
|>
|>|In article <1993Jan12.015430.29461@pony.Ingres.COM> garrett@Ingres.COM (WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS) writes:
|>|>In article <1993Jan11.092637.7245@microsoft.com>, leecr@microsoft.com (Lee Crocker)                           writes...
|>
|>|: While many Libertarians, myself included, are guilty of prophecying
|>|: contrived wonderful free-trade societies that we think would result
|>|: from our policies, our opponents always drag out these contrived
|>|: counterexamples that also have no basis in reality.
|>
|>|	But some enterprises _have_ to be big, and much too big for
|>|the sort of romantic individualism that Libertarians and certain
|>|others profess. How does one keep them from misbehaving?
|>
|>|	"Contrived counterexamples that have no basis in reality"?
|>|More like "I don't want to hear about unpleasant facts like the
|>|occurrence of monopoly and near-monopoly capitalism".
|>
|>Why do you have this fascination with big companies.
|>-- 

|He has the same problem that I do with "pure libertarianism," I think.  Lib 
|philosophy clearly identifies coercion of the individual with force, either 
|phycial (literal strong arm robbery or kidnaping) or intellectual (fraud.)  
|On thing that I am yet to be satisfied with is "force by economic power."  
|A large company or extremely wealthy individual can coerce the less well off 
|by virtue of the ability to buy entire industries or land areas, and lib 
|philosophy appears morally deficient in the way that it addresses this 
|concern.

probably because we don't see how such a strategy can work.  Even if
one person were to be wealthy enough to buy up an entire industry
(which means to me that he has to buy every company currently in that
industry).  Your proverbial big man would still have to prevent anybody
else from starting up a company and entering the field.  He would also
have to find a way to prevent consumers from substituting.
IE travelling by car, train or rollerskates instead of flying.
For every product there is a range of products that can be substituted
for it, if the price differential were right.

I have yet to see anybody propose a monopoly situation that was not
either the direct result of government or that did not fall apart on its
own in a couple of years.

BTW, with the rapid advance in technology, both economies of scale are
becoming less important and the ease with which substitution products
can be introduced is increased.
-- 
Mob rule isn't any prettier merely because the mob calls itself a government
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Wilson's theory of relativity: If you go back far enough, we're all related.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc