From: KAMCHAR@ibm.cl.msu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: The word "Libertarian" was invented by Spanish Anarchists
Date: 12 Sep 92 00:54:55 GMT
Organization: Kamchatka Charlie

"Tim Bomgardner" <bomgard@moose.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>bashford@scripps.edu (Don &) writes:
>}It seems to me that most of the people running around these days calling
>}themselves "Libertarians" (e.g.  Libertarian Party, Self Governors,
>}Ayn Rand groupies, etc.) are really just timid and truncated Anarchists.
>     What complete nonsense.  So a doctor with a scalpel is just a timid
>or truncated butcher?  For those of you who don't know (and I doubt there
>are very many) anarchy is the total absence of government and law.
>Libertarians are the strongest advocates of law that I know of, at least
>concerning laws that protect individual rights (as opposed to laws which
>confiscate goods from those who can and do produce them, and deliver them
>to those who can't or won't).
     Truncated Anarchist:  An anarchist wannabe who wishes government off THEIR
back, but want the government to protect them from those with whom they
disagree.  Drugs are okay but DAMN YOU IF YOU DRINK AND DRIVE (never mind that
a 50 year-old drunkard is probably a better driver drunk than your average
18-year older sober)!  I can control the market and your rental property
through the fact that I have a lot more money than you but DAMN YOU IF YOU POOR
FOLKS SHOULD TRY TO UNITE INTO A COOPERATIVE AND BUY A PROPERTY I WANT!
     In other words, might makes right.  Just because the Libertarians define
might (and therefore right) as money instead of guns does not make them any
different than the redneck who uses his bun to blow away the man who was given
his daughter's honor.

>}They oppose concentrated power in the form of "Big Government" but
>}seem blind to the need to oppose concentrated power in the form
>}of big business.
>It is an obscenity to equate political power with economic power.  Politcal
>power, the kind exercised by a government, is the power to force obedience
>under threat of the expropriation of property, physical injury, and death.
>What is economic power?  It is the power to produce and to trade what one
>has produced with others.
     Let me guess:  Political power and economic power are two different
animals which can never combine, coalesce, or augment each other, right? 
Sorry, but I must disagree.  Say what you will about how mixing economic power
and political power is wrong; the two are INTERTWINED, and any bellowing you do
about their being separated will not change reality.

>Economic power can only be achieved by the voluntary agreement of all
>those who participate in the process of production and trade.  (Yes, our
>government has tremendously distorted this process.) This is the essential
>distinction between freedom and slavery.
     Hmmm...I volunteer ten hours a day, five days a week at my job for the
PRIVILEDGE(?????) of survival, whereas he voluntarily allows me to work for the
the RIGHT (?????) to profit off my labor...and I have no reason to argue
against it since I could ALWAYS be unemployed, or DEAD (which I wouldn't be
suprised if you happened to like)...sounds awfully self-serving to me, IMNSHO.

>Big business becomes and stays big in only one way: by offering value in
>the marketplace.  You are free to offer better values at a lower price,
>or not participate at all.
     Simplistic.  Big business can also drive out other competition in the hope
of creating profits later on, by lowering prices at the expense of quality, by
combining with its competitors so as to segment the market--and that's just in
the economic sector.  When they feel free to enter the political sector
(obviously something Libertarians cannot comprehend of happening, from my
continued dealings with them over the years), it's anything goes in the quest
for corporate profits and enslavement of the worker.

>}They spend their energies railing against taxation
>}and some of the Govt's more odious invations of privacy (WoD, etc.)
>}but ignore the tyranny of the workplace.  They even seem to have
>}fallen in love with the marketplace as if "Man is the measure of
>}all things" were replaced by "The market is the measure of all things"
>What exactly is the "tyranny of the workplace"?  Is it the tyranny of
>having to earn the food you eat and the clothing you wear?  Is it the
>tyranny of being paid what you are worth as determined by the uncoerced
>judgment of those who need your services?
     Tyranny of the Workplace:  Working at a company where you're promised 45%
of your intake and you're doing an average of $110-120/day gross and yet you
only get minimum wage because every so often you do an $80 day, and your boss
won't give you full time (for a cabby that's 54 hours/week) even though he
promises it to you because you'd end up getting vacations and eligibility for
blue cross (even though I already have health insurance thanks to my sister),
and he's skimming $1,000 a week from the company AND running the company to the
ground (one would think that they would invest into the company for THEIR
long-term benefit, never mind mine).
     And, to top it off, I can hear the cries from the Objectivists and the
Libertarians from their CORPORATE IVORY TOWERS that I'm being vastly
overpaid--even though I'm getting Minimum Wage and less than promised.  Why? 
Information has it that there is a mass of workers who are earning $3.00/hr
before taxes when the "indepentant contractor business" (read: a legal way to
rip off the worker and have them like it) figure out how much they're earning
after lease fees and gasoline.  That these people rarely last less than a month
(and, it appears, aren't meant to) does not matter, after all these people are
getting THEIR (the cab driver) TRUE WORTH AS DETERMINED BY THE UNCOERCED
JUDGEMENT OF THOSE WHO NEED THEIR SERVICES (the cab company owner), and since
I'm doing the same stuff for what is obviously an excessively high wage
(minimum wage), it is obvious that I'm overpaid.

>If the marketplace doesn't determine your wages, the only alternative is
>the government.  Hey, there's an idea--let the government decide who gets
>paid what, what and how much of each item can be produced, where and for
>how much it should be sold, and what should be done with the profits.
>Hmmm...  Sounds familiar somehow...
     How about collective bargaining?  Wait a minute--that would mean workers
getting together, and GOD KNOWS workers getting together to defend their rights
independant of (indeed, from) the heroic, benevolent businessman can't be
anything but COMMUNISM (SHUDDER!), can it?

>And what exactly is the alternative you propose?
     I may not have the ultimate alternative, but I know well when I run into
something worse than what we have now.
Later
Kamchatka Charlie          KAMCHAR@ibm.cl.msu.edu
ObLib:  When the Objectivists get their to their senses and start talking to
the Libertarians, the Libertarians will start to make good sense.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian