From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Libertarian Bias (Was Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...)In article <BtyC8K.JBt@newcastle.ac.uk>, Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
Date: 2 Sep 92 23:17:23 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

|> 
|>         [sci.econ restored to Newsgroups line]
|> 
|> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
|> >In article <52738@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
(victor yodaiken) writes:
|> >> In article <87453@netnews.upenn.edu> vvallopp@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
(Vinod V Valloppillil) writes:
|> 
|> >>>Additionally, I might add that some strains of libertarianism explicitly
|> >>>attempt to wring morality out of politics.  They seek an economic basis
|> >>>for all types of governmental law.  Morality and related topics
should solely
|> 
|> >> And some type of marxism-leninism similarly attempted to exclude morality
|> >> from their programs which were ostensibly based on a "scientific"
|> >> understanding of history. The "libertarian" attempt to pass off
prejudice as
|> >> science is equally convincing.
|> 
|> >	All you are doing with such lies is damaging your net.credability.
|> >Post the quotes where Libertarians attempt to pass off prejudice as
science.
|> 
|> >	Go ahead, make our day.
|> 
|> Libertarians frequently claim that reducing governmental interference
|> in markets makes them freer and more efficient, so that they will
|> expand faster than otherwise.  They claim that public sector spending
|> is always less effective than private sector spending.  I trust I
|> need not give references for these claims?  Yet, they are undemonstrated,
|> and so prejudice rather than science.

The point doesn't go far enough:  even if demonstrated, a more efficient
market is simply more efficient, and a less effective private sector is
simply less effective.  The implied value is that 'more efficient' is 
'better'.  This is clearly a value judgement.  I frequently agree with that
value judgement, but the point is that such a value judgement is unprovable
and usually not made explicit by the person making the post.  Instead, there
seems to be an almost hidden assumption that if one can demonstrate a purer,
more minimalist, more efficient, more logical, private system then one "wins"
the debate.

Consider this perhaps silly example: there is a profound sense in which
Mother Teresa is arguably more efficient and less profitable at providing
services than any personal provider in either the public or private sector  --
basically, she provides better services than any single "competitor" for free,
and in so doing turns economic logic on its head.  Clearly an army of Mother 
Teresa's would wipe out the competition, but, after all, good Saints are
so hard to find that I don't think anyone seriously considers the prospect
of creating a company of them, or of filling a government with them, or of
basing an economic theory using their behavior as a model, though clearly
such a model would theoretcially be superior to any other that I can think of.

If a love-based economics modeled on the behavior of the Spiritual Inspired 
sounds silly to you, then you can understand how a logic-based
economics based on the behavior of the Rationally Efficient seems to me --
something practiced more frequently in thought than in action and one
not particularly relevant to the human beings that I know.

Libertarians clearly have a bias and a morality.  Let them be honest about
it and say so.

Paul Collacchi

  




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