From: thomasr@cpqhou.compaq.com (Thomas Rush)
Subject: Re: The end of the Reagan Era
Reply-To: thomasr@cpqhou.compaq.com (Thomas Rush)
Organization: Compaq Computer Corporation
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 22:57:59 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.035923.16710@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>In <1992Nov09.174449.1486@cpqhou.compaq.com> thomasr@cpqhou.compaq.com (Thomas Rush) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Nov6.134927.26640@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>>In <1992Nov05.230556.24041@watson.ibm.com> johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000) writes:
>>>
>>>>The government doesn't use gas tax money to do anything about air 
>>>>pollution.  
>>>
>>>What the government currently does is irrelevant to a discussion of
>>>tax policy as a corrective action insofar as full costing goes.  The
>>>government makes no effort to impose full costing via tax policy.
>>>However, last time I checked the discussion was over hypothetical
>>>changes, not over what we're doing now.
>
>>Use a mirror, Fred.  "What the government currently does is
>>irrelevant to a discussion of social policy as a corrective action
>>insofar as full retirement benefits goes."
>
>The situations can hardly be described as analogous.
>
>>But you argure that we can't scrap SS, because "it's there."  Sigh.
>
>Pardon me, but I said we should do away with Social Security some time
>ago.  What I say we shouldn't do is simply chop off all those people
>who are currently relying on it because they don't have the time to
>change plans at this point in time (and hence we have to have income
>from somewhere to enable us to continue to pay those benefits in the
>short term).  I also don't buy this fallacy that the employee is
>suddenly going to see the money that the employer has been
>contributing to the system.

Ok, we agree on this.  Libertarians have proposed phasing out SS for
some time now - I saw a proposal recently that was ten or more years
old.  

I don't want people starving, either -- but if we don't turn around 
expectations, a lot of people will. 

>If the preceding is the sum total of what you've managed to get out of
>what I've said, either I'm not writing what I think I am or you aren't
>reading it.

Well, I think it may be some of each.  I'm sorry for my part of that
miscommunication.  And, btw, I have gotten something else out of 
your posts.

>> [....]
>I seem to understand you just fine, judging by what you go on to say.
>It is also predictable, however, that anyone who tries to point out to
>a libertarian how their pipe dreams won't work winds up being deluged
>with personal insult, accused of being a thief, a socialist, etc.
>Sure works to convince ME you're in the right.  Yep.

Well, I don't believe I've called anyone on the net a thief.  I've 
surely not called you a socialist, so do try to keep us libertarians
straight -- I know we all look alike.

>>To clear this up for you, the Libetarian Party believes that the
>>initiation of force (either overtly or by fraud) is wrong.  We
>>beilive that government interference in free markets, including tax
>>policy, incentives, and regulation, are illegitimate uses of
>>government authority.  It is because of those interferences that
>>the current markets represent anything _but_ free markets.
>
>Tell me something I don't know.  One more time, from the top.  The
>'free markets' that libertarians extoll have their own distortions
>because of externalities (both positive and negative) and the ability
>of 'free riders' to benefit from the postive ones and for consumers to
>foist the negative ones off on folks who don't get the benefit of
>consuming the product.

I'm not claiming that there won't be free riders in a libertarian 
society -- what I do claim is that our government has shown itself
to be anywhere from inefficient to fully inept in the social and 
economic spheres.  Giving that same government the power (and 
charter!) to try to eliminate ecomomic inequities of a free market
ensures that, at best, you won't have a free market.  

Perhaps what bugs me the most, though, is that I see no provision 
in the Constitution for the federal government to try to minimize
free riders, or perform any other kind of economic leveling.  Even
James Earl Carter knew that "Life isn't always fair."

>>>Oh, one thing of note is that absolutely full costing is just about as
>>>impossible to do as the 'perfect markets' that libertarians assume.
>>>It is, however, an attempt to move in the right direction.  Hey,
>>>nothing's perfect; not even a perfect stranger.
>
>>We do not assume that today's markets are perfect markets.  If we
>>did, we would be fighting to keep things just as they are.
>>Instead, we know that the federal government, in particular, has
>>created wildly _un_free markets, and we wish to eliminate that
>>interference, while you seem to think that the same government that
>>has screwed things up this well can straighten them out with just a
>>little more regulation.
>
>You seem to have missed my point, if you are under the impression that
>I think that current markets behave as perfect markts and that that is
>all there is to the point I'm trying to raise.  But you assume that
>sans regulation, there will BE perfect markets.  That just won't
>happen, which is why regulation and such arose in the first place.

Well, I guess this is the real debate -- I think that most regulation
arose to counteract government interference in the free market, or to
provide benefits to those with the government's ear.  Example of the
first: we've just passed a mammoth cable regulation bill that at its
heart says that we can find what good and competitive cable service is
by looking at areas where there is cable company competition.  Why isn't
there more cable competiton?  Because cities all over the country have 
signed cozy agreements with cable operators giving them monopolies.

Example of the second: lets take tobacco subsidies.  We allocate
tobacco acreage to make sure they don't grow too much.  We pay the
farmers directly, too. 

There may never be such a thing as a "perfect market," but I think 
that the best shot at it is to decrease the amount that the government
gets to meddle in it.


thomas rush			compaq computer corporation	
thomasr@cpqhou.compaq.com	their employee, not their opinions.
I believe all human interactions should be based on mutual consent.


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