From: ssoar@tekig5.pen.tek.com (Steven E Soar)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Summary: too simplistic to be useful
Date: 6 Oct 92 19:55:52 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.021852.25657@shearson.com>, pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
> parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin) writes:
> >pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
> >
> >>Whenever two people make an agreement in the free market, they are
> >>both engaging in a voluntary act. You want my $10 more than you want
> >                    *********stuff deleted
> >Now you may make the claim that a truly free market would make these
> >commodities competitive and non-coercive, but that's a utilitarian conjecture
> >about the end result, far removed from this categorical type of argument.
> >stuff deleted
> 
>  In what way is an agreement
> between two people to exchange goods without either threatening force
> non-voluntary? I can't see how I'm being simplistic here.
> --
> Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
> --


First of all, no economic transaction is today's world is as simple as you
make it out to be.  My eight year old trading metal cars with a neighbor
kid is probably as close as you can get. Your supposition that in a free
trade situation no party can exploit the other is naive at best, and presents
Libertarians as hopeless idealists.

Take the example of the company town, a common fixture of an earlier (and
more laissez-faire period).  The company ran the only game in town, and
they owned the plant, the lodgings, and the store.  The wages and prices
were fixed such that over a period of time, the best a worker could do was
slowly go deeper and deeper in debt to the company.  This was, after all,
a voluntary transaction.  Workers were "free" to leave, except, they had
to pay off their debts to do so. I submit that this is a perfectly logical
development of the laissez-faire system which is, in fact, no better that
slavery.

Take the example of "free trade" as practiced by the US since WWII. This
misguided idealogy has had two major results:

1. Wages, working conditions, and environmental standards are steadily
being pulled down to the lowest common denominator available within the
free trading universe, not the other way around.  

2. Free trading without an industrial policy allows allows infant
technologys to be strangled in their cradles, and mature industries to
be harvested by foreign competitors with an industrial strategy, patient
capital, and willingness to "dump". This is why the US lost half its
machine tool industry, 99% of the DRAM industry, 50% of the auto industry,
and 100% of consumer electronics. Flat panel displays are currently being
destroyed, and commercial airliners are 2/3 gone (Lockheed and Mcd-d
bankrupt, and
Boeing fleeing into the arms of the Japanese.)

Argue theory all you like; these are the concrete results of laissez-faire.

If your unafraid of having your ideas tested by opposing thoughts, try
reading:
"Trading Places"  Prestowitz, Japanese trade and industrial policy
"Rising Sun"  Crichton,  a murder mystery with a trade message
"Politics of Rich and Poor" Phillips, loss of the middle class in the
Reagan years
"Fat Years, Lean Years"  Nossiter, US economic policy since WWII
"The End of Laissez- Faire" Kuttner, damage to US due to L-F economics

By the way, as a "reformed" libertarian, I`ve read most of the L tracts and
have a fair understanding of the theories involved.


steve soar
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian