From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Re: The Moral Basis of Property   was Libertarian history
Date: 24 Jul 92 11:38:22 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <4410009@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> flower@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Graham Flower) writes:
>>   It is worth noting that we live in a country where private property
>>   is heavily written into the constitution by our founding fathers.
>>   The record is clear that property rights were a subject of great concern
>>   for them. This being a founding principle of the land I dont feel it
>>   needs more justification. 
>
><Rationality and human rights were certainly held as more important
><principles by the writers of the US constitution, and blind reverence
><for the past was not highly valued by them.
>
> Ah yes, but if you know your history well you know that the founding
> fathers would clearly have much sooner dispensed with free speech, and in
> fact toyed with the idea, than property rights. Property rights would have
> taken priority I'm sure, they were extremely important to the founders, and
> were seen as a basic human right. 

I must have missed out on this fascinating aspect of American history. Care
to provide a pointer to the, no doubt, voluminous writings in which the
"founders" advance this idea? Certainly the Hamiltonians and Adams advocated
the a strong state to impose the "rights" of the rich on others, but 
they were quite clearly repudiated by the electorate and were a minority
faction of the revolutionary and constitutional leadership.



> 
>
><As Joe Slovo, longtime head of the South African Communist Party, pointed
><out, the record of capitalism is not so damn wonderful either. The
>
>  Joe "KGB" Slovo.... I really dont care what he thinks.

I'm sure he would be deeply hurt.
>
>  Now that the numbers are coming in on the pure Socialist Soviet Union
>  its interesting to note that GNP per capita is higher in South Africa,
>  So Joe probably liked the increase in living standards. In fact the estimates
>  I saw somewhere implied that the black population in south Africa actually
>  has higher GNP per capita than the Average Russian. I note that these numbers
>  are in considerable flux due to exchange rates etc but the essential fact is
>  that the Russians had a 3rd world standard of living. If You want to trade
>  for that OK but I dont want any part of it. 

This is utter bullshit. The GNP per capita for South Africa is a meaningless
figure because the of the two tiered apartheid economy. White South
Africans live in a 1st world economy, black South Africans live
in a 3rd world economy -- averaging the two is a meaningless operation.
Compare life expectencies for black South Africans to life expectencies
for the "Average Russian". Or just look at living standards in the Transkei
and Soweto and try to imagine human beings actually surviving at a lower
standard of living.  The dishonest numbers shuffling it require to "prove" that
Apartheid was better than Soviet-Bureaucratism is one of the key reasons why
Sam "Mad Dog" Huntington was rejected as a NAS fellow. 

In any case, you miss the point entirely. Slovo was admitting to the
failure of Soviet Communism, but point out the obvious failures of 
US-style capitalism. While Stalinists and their ideological compatriots
the Free-market-ideologues insist that there is no choice other than 
Stalin or Pinochet, not everyone agrees.

>  Socialist societies have not had a better record on ecology, actually much 
>  worse as snapshots like Chernobyl have shown. You realize that much of the
>  food grown in that region is being dispersed throughout russia and sold.

Much as Windscale contaminated mutton is sold in the UK.

>  Check out some of the pollution stories like Irktusk (sp?) they clearly
>  exceed by far what has occurred in any Eurpoean, US, or Japanese large
>  city. Their CFC record owes more that they are not producing the goods
>  yet than any ecological sensitivity. 

It would be absurd to attempt to defned the environmental record of 
the xUSSR, but it is equally absurd to argue that the xUSSR devasted
the environment in ways unknown to the west. The Windscale generated
"plutonium lake" in the Irish Sea is a disaster on a par with anything
that the Soviets could boast, the health of those Americans who live
surrounded by lead smelters and chemical plants in East St. Louis
or near the oil-refinery belt between Houston and New Orleans is nothing
to boast of, the clearcutting of the North American forests, the 
PCB contamination of so many rivers and fishing grounds .... these
are all serious failures of common sense that would have made the most
ambitious soviet apparatchik proud of himself.

>  
>  I make no bones about capitalism being humane, its a disciplined system
>  that is set up with incentives and penalties that can be extremely rewarding
>  or quite severely punitive. Its a tough system, applied darwinism.

Another commanality between Stalinism and propertyism is a specious 
"scientific basis", either in so-called "dialectical materialism" or in
"applied darwinism", both about as scientific as rabbits-feet good luck
charms.



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu