From: tumidity@netlink.cts.com (Joel Garry)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Date: 4 Nov 92 22:52:37 GMT
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) writes:
> >society [has] "already been tried in the Soviet Union?"  This is
> >patently an absurd claim.  The former Soviet regime embodied the
> >epitome of statism in the modern world, pretty much 180 degrees
> >opposed to anarchism, left, right, or backwards.
> 
> I am saying that the statements I responded to were pretty much Marx in a
> nutshell, that which would occur after the dictatorship of the proletariat
> whithered away.  The main problem with such an idea is that since people
> differ in their abilities, talents, and motivation, classes will eventually
> reappear.  Some people, because of these differences, would not be able to
> meet all of their needs, and everyone has different self-perceived needs.
> How can these practical deviations are then accounted for depends on the
> government surrounding the economic system.  The Soviet Union chose strict
> statism and still failed.  Under anarchy or minarchy, society has 
> continually returned to free market capitalism.  
Well, the Soviet Union showed what happens trying to pragmatize a 
Marxist ideal.  The result withered away to... capitalism.  

The Great Depression show what happens trying to pragmatize capitalism...
socialism.  (The current Great Recession shows what happens when trying
to pragmatize socialism).  

I detect a trend here, of normalization of economic types.  Can 
anarchy withstand such a powerful force?
> 
> 
> 
> >I submit this sort of behaviour arises when there is seen to be no
> >link between a person's economic input (usually his labor), and his
> >economic output (standard of living, etc.)  The same behaviour can be
> >seen in Americans who would rather live on welfare than get a job,
> >because all the jobs available to them are less attractive than
> >welfare.
> 
> 
> Of course, if we do away with welfare (in its present form, anyway), then 
> that problem wouldn't be much of a problem, would it?
Nope, it could be much worse.  
> 
> >History, as they say, is written by the winners.  I would say
> >Corporate Capitalism, which is what we have, bears little relationship
> >to the Petit-Burgoise Capitalism of the sort that Adam Smith advocated
> >in _Wealth of Nations_, and which de Toqueville observed in his tour
> >of America.  A nation of shopkeepers and entrepenuers would probably
> >be the most equitable form of capitalism, but cannot hold its own in a
> >dog-eat-everybody capitalism of J.P. Morgan, Standard Oil Trusts, and
> >government sponsored bias against labor and small business.
I noticed in several European countries, particularly Austria and 
thereabouts, there is a much more egalitarian distribution of small 
businesses than in the US.  Too bad they are doing so bad there econ-
omically.
> 
> The trick is not to do away with all laws, but to get rid of the laws that
> protect corporate deviance and enforce the laws that protect people.  If
> we're going to do away with welfare, we also ought to do away with
> bankruptcy laws, and instead make the owners of those companies personally
> liable.  If we're going to do away with environmental regulation, we should
> also do away with the laws that prohibit private citizens from suing
> corporations for pollution 'trespassing' (right now, such suits must be
> approved by the EPA and then only pursued as a class-action suit).
> 
> By freeing individuals AND holding individuals responsible for their
> actions, even actions masked by a corporate blindfold, free market
> capitalism will come much closer to being the fair system it's supposed to
> be.
Absitively Posolutely.  You may have converted me to politically 
incorrect Objectivism.
> 

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