Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 25 Sep 1992 14:02:00 EDT
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.BITNET>
Subject: Re: New Government

> >I've long thought that libertarians could get more support among the
> >general population if they emphasized civil liberties much more
> >strongly.  All I seem to hear from them is talk about economic
> >liberties, and in many cases I see those as interfering with civil
> >liberties.
>
> You don't think that economic liberty is a significant component of civil
> liberties?  Most libertarians I know realize that "other" civil rights flow
> from economic freedom.

Does that mean if you don't have much money you don't have many civil
rights?  Because that's what Libertarian thought seems to boil down to
in practice.  When you view property rights as so important that you
can use your property in ways that are plainly harmful to others, I'd
say that the concept of civil rights has flown out the window.  At
least, other people's civil rights.

That, btw, is what I find objectionable to your statement in another
post that the loss of property rights due to anti-discrimination laws
is more important than the loss of another's rights due to
discrimination.

> > >You see, your middle paragraph doesn't really follow from the other two.
> > >Because when your boss or someone else abuses their power over you, you
> > >don't have any protection except government (in the guise of the law).
>
> I'm not sure who wrote this, but its not quite accurate.  If your boss abuses
> you, you can quit and the abuse will stop.  When the government abuses you,
> though, its coersion is ultimately backed by the armed forces -- there's
> nothing you can do about it.

I wrote it.  Of course you can quit, IF you can afford to quit or you
can find another job quickly.  If you can't (and how many can when
unemployment is above seven percent?), are you really free to quit?
And what if the abuse is standard practice among employers in your area
or field of work?  And what if the boss uses the threat of job loss to
increase the abuse or extort some concessions from you (there have been
cases of employees ordered to break laws or lose their jobs)?

The law should be the little guy's ally in cases like these.

> I think most libertarians would agree that businesses shouldn't abuse their
> employees, but a business's ability to abuse its employees is infinitly minute
> compared to the gov't's power to abuse its citizens.  When a business abuses
> its employees, it is partly by thier own choice, since they could always quit.
> This is why libertarians usually care more about government abuses of power;
> they are far more dangerous than any other.

The size of the organization doesn't matter.  What matters is that the
abuser is bigger than the victim.  When an individual is screwed over
by an employer, her first thought isn't "How glad I am that they're
not the government!"

Besides, you're in contact with your employer much more than with the
government.  And you depend on your paycheck for your day to day life
more than you depend upon the government.  That gives your boss a lot
more opportunity to exercise power.

The matter of choice is an interesting one.  Libertarians generally
oppose the measures which would ensure that a worker's choice of
employer is truly a free one.  Measures like income support, generous
unemployment compensation, public health care which would lower the
cost of quitting a job and so put a little of the power into the hands
of the workers.  What we have now, with high unemployment and falling
real wages, is a situation in which market forces can never work,
because even the worst employers can find someone desperate enough to
work for them, at least for a time.

How come when costs or regulations are being discussed, nobody ever
says "businesses take on these costs by their own choice--after all,
they can always go out of business."  Or is that an unacceptable
choice for that class?

And Libertarian rhetoric just goes off the deep end sometimes.  The LP
candidate for Vice President, a woman named Lord (I forget her first
name), came to North Carolina recently.  She was with the candidate for
Governor.  They visited the area of the Hamlet chicken plant fire, which
killed about 25 people a little over a year ago.  You may recall that
most of the victims died when they couldn't get out of locked or blocked
emergency exits.  One of these candidates actually blamed the deaths on
government regulation!  They said that if there had been fewer
government regulations, more plants would have been likely to settle
near Hamlet, and the victims would have had other jobs.  This about a
plant that had never been inspected for health or safety violations.
You've got to wonder about that strong an attachment to dogma.

Best,
Peter

> >Peter
>
> Jason
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