From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Economic Discrimination in Libertaria
Date: 27 Sep 92 12:35:59 GMT
	<1992Sep25.013128.25447@panix.com>
	<ISBELL.92Sep25113138@panther.ai.mit.edu>
	<1992Sep27.002244.1769@panix.com>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: jk@panix.com's message of 27 Sep 92 00:22:44 GMT

jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
|isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
|>I suspect that the biggest problem with the Liberteria solution to
|>discrimination (ie suggesting that it won't matter, and will have its
|>worst effects on theose discriminating) is that it tends to ignore
|>that the discrimination is widespread ususally.  In other words, we
|>don't have to worry about restaurants alone, we have to worry about
|>banks and other loaning facilities, schools and other education
|>dispensers, real estate developers, employers, the courts & police
|>officers, etc, etc.
|>
|>Each taken in a vaccuum might indeed be unimportant, but taken all
|>together, it spells trouble for the discriminated against.

|It seems to me that the problem you point to will normally be greatly
|mitigated if the class suffering generalized discrimination (let's call
|them "Croats") is large, transportation and communications are good,
|and the economy is diverse and continually changing.  Then to the
|extent the others (call them "Serbs ") don't want to have much to do
|with them, the Croats will be able to set up their own businesses,
|restaurants, banks, schools, and so on.  Since such enterprises would
|receive no government aid in Libertaria whether run by Croats or Serbs,
|the ones founded by the Croats would be able to compete on more equal
|terms with established Serb enterprises than in a non-libertarian
|political order.  Opportunities would increase still more for the
|Croats if they were faced not with a uniform mass of hostile Serbs but
|with a diverse agglomeration of peoples, mostly Serbs but also Slovenes
|and others, as well as Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim religious
|communities. (I should add that if our "Croats" really were faced with
|a dominant mass of hostile Serbs there would be no possibility that the
|government would enact anti-discrimination laws anyway.  So that can't
|be the real situation we're talking about.)
[...]
|I suppose one way to approach the issue you raise is to ask what makes
|sense for a group to do that finds itself poor and discriminated
|against in a setting like the one I described.  I imagine that if I
|were a member of a group in that situation the things that would run
|through my mind might include the following:

	   1.  Experience shows that it's possible for people in our
|situation to prosper.


	   2.  The groups that have done so most have not gotten where
|they are by getting more government aid than other people.  Rather,
|they have been helped by the qualities they have valued -- family
|cohesion, mutual aid within the group, industry, love of learning,
|enterprise.  We are capable of those qualities and I would like for us
|to exemplify them.

Actually the Chinese in America are among the poorest in this country
(per capita).  Despite the popular myth (which depends on household
income, a skewing statistics in a household with three or four wage
earners), the American dream still hasn't come true for them. Source:
various TV shows on the subject over the last five years.

Furthermore, it is a myth that Asian-Americans do not get "govt help"
(ie Affirmative Action):  their AA help tends to be in the social
sciences where they are underrepresented while Black folx mostly get
theirs in the sciences where they are underrepresented.

Further, as a liberterian, I would expect that one would find the
requirement that one "assimilate" (that is subjugate one's individual
cultural mores to the mainstream) in order to succeed somewhat
distasteful.  Why is it that it doesn't engender that response?

Also, it is a myth that Blacks aren't better off in a whole lot of
ways since the 1960's.  At current trends, >50% of Blacks will be in
the middle class by 2000.  The income gap between Black families
(two-income households) and White families has narrowed (interestingly
enuff, the gap is almost completely contributable to the disparity
between White male and Black male incomes--both Black & White females
seem to experience the same kind of wage discrimination in the same
jobs while Black males seem to do worse than their White counterparts
inthe same jobs).

	   3.  Government aid as the foundation of a way of life is
|habit-forming, which means it leads to the acquisition of qualities
|that cause people to continue to need such aid.  Those qualities don't
|lead to happiness or prosperity.

Which is why the middle class is in such trouble, what with the
mortage subsidies, and so on and the rich who have done much better
with govt intervention over the last 15 years are so much worse off.

	   4.  If it's really true that most of the world doesn't think
|much of people like me, then I'd be happier associating with people
|like me who respect me, and trying to get something good going among
|ourselves, rather than trying to force the majority to pretend to
|respect me.

You're way behind the curve on this one.

	   5.  Therefore, rather than trying to advance by getting help
|such as anti-discrimination laws from the government, it will be better
|for us to pull together and make our own success.

Why not both?

|>Of course, there is another argument.  Anti-discrimination laws make
|>sense because they help to keep the minority from getting so unhappy
|>that they revolt and kill all the people declaring their right to free
|>association.  For example, one can see that in a case here at MIT.  An
|>MIT student was killed by some guy from one of the less affluent parts
|>of town last week.  The campus is up in arms and morally outraged, etc.
|> A judge puts this kid's bail at something like $1 million.  The kids
|>from his block are like, "hey man lots of other people in our hood get
|>killed and the murderers get out in a year or two and their bails are
|>never that high...."  The message is clear:  your lives aren't worth as
|>much.  This compounds the problem they existed in the first place.  For
|>the discrimination laws, the message is clear:  we don't care if the
|>banks, schools and everyone else dumps on you; we got ours--go get
|>yours.  Eventually, someone is going to get pissed enuff to do
|>something that everyone (at least everyone who has something to lose)
|>will regret.
|>
|>In short, this is a good idea because it gives the illusion (if not
|>the reality) of a real stake in the system and its promise of
|>opportunity for the hard-working individual.  Without that stake, an
|>individualistic system like Liberteria loses whatever moral backing it
|>may have.

|The MIT example you give is of discriminatory government action that
|would have no justification under the laws of Libertaria.  Certainly, it
|has no connection to freedom of association.

Bullshit.  Both systems would have human judges and I suspect that it
would be impossible to claim that one system will not have the
problems of the other in this regard (I suppose you could posit a
change in human values, but that would just open you to the charge
that you're living in an unreal fantasy).

|I don't think of Libertaria as all that individualistic a place.  It
|seems to me that if people can't rely on the government to do much for
|them beyond repress force and fraud, then informal social ties to
|family, friends, neighbors and the like will be taken more seriously. 
|If those ties are strong then the kind of alienation you refer to, in
|which it seems that there is me on one side with no power except the
|power to destroy, and social institutions like banks and schools that
|are indifferent to me on the other side, will be less common.

One of these days, I'm going to have to explain why I think Liberteria
will, over time, degenerate (if that's the right word) into what we
have now.  Except that maybe the drug war wouldn't have been
declared....
--
Peace.
       "We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not 
        have prevailed without them in 'Red Storm Rising'."
                         -- Vice President Dan Quayle
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