From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Libertarian philosophy (was Re: Transport...)
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:11:12 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Edinburgh University

eo@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Emma Osman) writes:

>You have mistaken my point. The point is that IN THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES
>THEMSELVES there aren't proper controls on "bandit" companies like Nestle.
>Why there are no such controls (personally I'd kick them out of the
>ccountry) is a subject for discussion all by itself. Thee fact that there
>aren't is what allows Nestle to continue to perpetuate its con trick
>(BTW if anyone doesn't know, the "con trick" in question is to supply
>free baby milk to new mothers in hospitals. After a few days of this
>their own milk dries up; at around the same time they are discharged
>from hospital and are left with no other option but to continue to
>feed their infants Nestle milk , which they now have to pay for of course , 
>mixing the stuff with unsterilised water)

There are a few things you can do without the help of government:

Buy one share in Nestle and ask difficult questions at shareholder
meetings.

Buy lots of shares in nestle and get the directors, and therefore
policy, changed.

Start a competitive company that follows the policies you'd prefer.

Boycott nestle products and advocate that others do the same.

Educate the victims to avoid nestle.
>>
>>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.

>No, sorry, I can't agree with this at all. The original thread was about
>making improvements to roads, remember? The ordinary person just
>doesn't have the money to do this - what you'd need is a consortium.

Yes. That's true. A consortium though is just a bunch of people who
agree with you. All you really say here is that you'd prefer the current
powers to co-opt people's money for your projects whether they agree or
not. I'd say that it's a lot more democratic to only be able to obtain
people's money to support your projects when those *people* support your
projects.

>I think it would be very difficult to get enough people together to buy 
>the "improvement rights" (or whatever) to the road they were interested in,
>and *that's* always assuming that you could get a large enough group
>together that were interested in the same road. Much simpler for a
>company director, who has direct access to a whole heap of other people's
>money and noone to tell him how to spend it

The shareholders are allowed to tell him how to spend it, and they are
in fact, simply people who are interested in that road.

> (so long as he makes a
>profit for his shareholders 

That's the job of a director.

>- and note that this is not necessarily
>going to benefit the rest of the world)

Maybe not, but it's not his job to do that.

[ stuff on how international politics is "libertarian" in character...]

>Misseds the point again, I'm afraid. Remember, at *national* level 
>"government" = "*overseer* of the economic game" , at *international*
>level "government" = "*player* of the economic game". Now at international
>level we appear to already have what libertarian philosophy is advocating
> - a system with a number of participants operating with no controls
>at all. 

And, as I've pointed out, that's why it isn't libertarian. If force is
permitted without arrest then you have anarchy, not libertarianism. Even
as a strawman, this is pretty poor.

This had not lead to any sort of "fairness" in international
>relations. Now you're advocating bringing that system here, to national
>level.

Nope. See above or see the previous post where I answered this one.

>Let's try democracy *first* , ok?

Nobody's arguing against democracy. Are we trying to set up a Democracy
versus Libertarianism strawman argument here?

>Emma

FoFP