From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:34:29 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

tmhoff@oogoody.Corp.Sun.COM (Todd Hoff) writes:

>In article 11075@panix.com, jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>So a three-way negotiation [among anarchists, libertarians and socialists]
>>with lots of difference-splitting could end with libertarianism. 

>No chance. Libertarianism is in no way a mean between socialism and
>anarchy. Libertarianism completely fails to address any of the concerns
>a socialist might have.

How so?  Socialists want social justice enforced by government.  One
part of social justice is not having individuals or groups with greater
physical strength simply (that is, without color of law) taking what
they want, or reducing the weaker to servitude.  Libertarians and
socialists would agree that the government should repress that kind of
conduct; an anarchist would not agree.  So libs and socs have at least
some concerns in common that are not shared by everyone (like
anarchists).

>>In the United States today, a lot of issues are decided by the Supreme
>>Court ignoring vote-counting and basing their decisions on principles
>>that the justices and the people they look to for approval think are
>>the right ones.  How does that situation fit into your scheme of
>>things?
>
>I'm not quite sure what the problem is.

You seemed troubled by the view of many libertarians that there are
certain principles that should govern what the government is and is not
entitled to do, without regard to whether the government measures in
question or the principles themselves have popular support.  It seemed
worthwhile pointing out that that view is currently accepted as part of
the fundamental law of the United States.

>There's only a difference in scale not effect [between disaster relief
>and relief to families whose breadwinner is out of work]. And if you
>summed all the the families who needed help throught the us they would
>equal or surpass the  problem in Florida.  It's only because the problem
>is so diffuse in relation to individuals that you perceive a difference.
>To a family it hardly matters if their lives were destroyed by a
>hurricane or a terminal illness. 

I don't agree.  It seems to me that the basic argument of free-market
types is that in the absence of government intervention people will
develop ways of dealing with the things that arise in the normal course
of events.  For example, people deal with the risk of unemployment (your
original example) by choosing stable jobs when they have a choice, by
saving part of their income to tide them over hard times, by developing
skills that seem likely to be useful, by moving where the work is, by
recognizing the obligation of helping out family members, relatives and
neighbors who are having difficulties, by voting against politicians who
do things that burden economic activity, and so on.

It seems clear that that approach (look out for yourself and yours, 
recognize an obligation to help out your friends and neighbors and leave
economic activity free) will work best with regard to problems that are
not completely unexpected and don't suddenly afflict you, your entire
family, all your friends, relatives and neighbors and everyone in your
entire community at the same time.  For that reason, it seems to me that
large-scale natural disasters are distinguishable from a breadwinner's
unemployment.

>>Having said that, it seems to me that a lot of disaster relief is
>>extended because politicians like to appear to be doing something about
>>things that are in the news and a lot of it relates to things that
>>people should insure or otherwise provide against.  

>This is a bit cynical for me.

Is it so cynical to believe that politicians often favor measures that
look good but aren't really justifiable on the merits?

>One of the purposes behind goverment is to distribute risk. Florida will
>have a hurricane one year, California will have an earthquake another
>year, the farm belt will have drought another year , the Pacific
>northwest may have a volcano or floods, or one region can enter economic
>decline. Individually no one region has the resources nor does the
>insurance  industry to the damage, but as a country we can.

There's a cost to distributing risks that people can do something about
or that constitute a forseeable cost of doing something (like building a
house on a lot that's likely to be flooded every 20 years).  Also,
economic decline seems to be in a different category from volcano
eruptions.

>>Why can't people deal with
>>the world in an organized way other than through the government?  Why
>>is the agency that possesses a near monopoly of force also necessarily
>>the agency that is responsible for all final substantive decisions?
>
>Decisions don't mean much if they can't be enforced. Since the ultimate
>power of enforcement is the government they are the only ones who can
>provide certain services. 

My decisions to lend money to my brother-in-law and to give money to the
Salvation Army, and the decision of the Salvation Army to help out A, B
and C, are enforced by the government through the government's
protection of property rights.

>>The idea of private property is the idea that some final substantive
>>decisions are left to agents other than the government, and that the
>>role of the government is the limited one of protecting the right to
>>make such decisions.  What's wrong with that?

>If that's what you believed then you would also believe the government
>has no business collecting taxes for defense, courts, and police. But
>you believe more tha ethat. You believe the goverment should help
>protect the rights of property owners.

I don't understand your "more than".  By "protecting the right to make
such decisions" I meant protecting property rights and laying taxes to
provide the means for such protection.

>That's fine. But I also believe the government should do a little more
>than that, not much more, but little more. What's wrong with that?

Depends on what the "little more" is, what effect it would have on what
other people do to have government do the "little more", and whether as
a practical matter government action could be limited to the "little
more".  You seemed to suggest, for example, that the government should
tax other regions to help out regions of the country that are
experiencing economic decline.  Once that sort of thing becomes an
accepted function of government it may be difficult to keep the "little
more" little.

>Arguing about specific beliefs is to completely miss the point.
>Libertarians want government actions confined  to actions they deem
>appopriate. I'll go back to my orginal point that goverment is created
>by negotiation informed by a base set of playing rules where those rules
>are continually in contention. Libertarians want to say their rules are
>the only rules. As a general proposition this is BS. The reality is that
>society is populated with a set of players operating from different
>premises. Every child playing king wants to say their rules are the
>rules for all time and no king after them can change the rules. The next
>king of course says no fare  and changes the rules. Adults recognize no
>king can say these are the rules forever and expect other adults to take
>them seriously.

You seem to favor political arrangements in which everything is always
up for grabs in a perpetual negotiation involving all the members of
society.  I've pointed out that the current political arrangements of
the United States aren't like that, so it appears that libertarians are
not alone in opposing such a system.  I've also tried to describe how a
political system with a lot of players with radically different views
might come to accept the shortest possible list of government functions
-- in other words, libertarianism -- if only because of the
impossibility of getting people to agree on substantive values to be
promoted by government.  So I would say that that ideological
intolerance not is peculiarly characteristic of, nor is negotiation
antithetical to, libertarianism.  I would also say that arguments from
principle should be made if the principles are worthy, and that some
good things (like limitation of the functions of government) are
difficult to achieve without authoritative acceptance of principle, for
example in constitutional law.
-- 
    Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)