From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians, slaves and company towns
Date: 16 Apr 92 13:41:16 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Apr16.012852.3511@clipper.ingr.com> ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
>In article <46160@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>At the base of the system
>is the common law, which is not written by legislators, but by juries.
>Superimposed on the common law is a constitution which defines certain
>minimum responsibilities for a national govt, and which forbids the
>transgression of the people by the govt in certain areas (Bill of
>Rights).  (But we mean it this time!)
>
>Contract law, taxation, bankruptcy law, property claims, etc. are not at the
>center of this universe, but in the fine print, hashed out by
>a combination of the legislature and the judicial system (which includes
>juries, as the moral check on the system by the people).
>
>Modern libertarianism is not a monolithic ideology, it is an "area" of thought 
>whose only common denominator is a respect for the principle of 
>toleration of others.  Non-coercion is proximate to toleration,
>but not identical to it.

That's an interesting claim, but it seems as if the common denominator
is rather a belief in "value as price", the principle of
and minimal restraints on commerce. Note that Quakers and the
Communist/Anarchists have both suggested "toleration" as basic principles,
but have not been so enamored of the "government by exchange" mechanisms
so beloved to "libertarians".


>>Who determines what is "duress"? If I bounce checks so that
>>my family can eat, is that ok? 
>
>If you are asking if you have a right to steal, ask Gordon Fitch. (8-)
>The best hope for the poor is for a wealthy society to uplift them,
>which it does.  Reference the Russian peasants who were near riot
>when it was found that the poorest Americans had pickup trucks and VCR's.

I'm not asking for cliches about the virtues of the market system.
Please note that Americans have rioted as well, and that many americans
do not have pickup trucks and VCR's. I'm asking instead, what "minimal
government" really means in the libertarian context. If the task of
government is to enforce contracts freely made, then one needs to 
know what "freely made" really means. In my naive opinion, the current
distribution of wealth in the US, as in other nations, is in no way the
result of voluntary contracts, but is largely the
 result of violence and deceit. From the days of slavery and the genocide of
the American indians, to the days of Pinkertons and machine gunned strikers,
to the days of corporate welfare/warfare, the economic history of the
US is a far cry from the "libertarian" fairy tale in which rational
and independent agents strike hard bargains with each other. So, 
"enforcement of contracts" seems like just a euphemism for "violent
protection of theft."
 
>But if theft is justified due to need, then what is to prevent some
>other hungry person from stealing from the one who has just gotten
>some food?

I don't justify "theft", but we may quarrel over the definition. 
For example, making a family homeless because they can't pay an unfair
rent seems like theft to me. Taking a railway line from a corporation 
which is not running it well, does not. You'd probably argue the other way.
But, to me, theft is the act of taking something to which you have no moral
right, not taking something which is registered as the "property" of
another. And one's moral right to property is a complex social contruct
that should not be reduced to mere commodity tracking. That is, I don't
see why property rights should be purely a matter of commerce or last for
unbounded time spans. A skilled worker who has invested a lifetime of
labor and craft into a business, seems to me to, thereby, acquire a moral
property right in the business, no matter what 10 lawyers say. Similarly,
just because Don Trump or someone of his ilk has obtained a piece of paper
certifying that he "owns" an apartment building in New York, does not
seem to me to be sufficient to grant him the right to displace families
from *their* homes. And, of course, such limitations on property rights
are deeply embedded in the common law you claim to find so wonderful.


>Victor, dont be an idiot.  If you want to feed people, feed them!  Dont
>set up huge bureaucracies and legal machines which will consume more 
>energy than the poor will ever receive. 

The Archbishop of Brazil once said "If I feed the poor, they call me a
saint, if I ask why there are so many poor, they call me a communist."
BTW, it is tiresome to be constantly upbraided for being in favor of
huge bureaucracies by people who want to emesh life in the tentacles of
an all intrusive commerical law code. 

>Liberty lies somewhere between anarchy and tyranny.  It does not consist of
>answers to every minute question of societal interaction, but it provides
>a PROCESS for resolving such questions as they arise.  
>Perhaps I disappoint you with
>my admitted relativism and pragmatism, but I see the Classical Liberal 
>ideals as eminently
>practical, and still quite valid, as a framework in which to operate a
>society.  There may be some coercion involved in order to minimize
>coercion, but that is part of the challenge of living with millions
>of other humans.

Those ideas are a good starting point, but you've gone off in the wrong
direction with them.

>
>Which reminds me of our little chat about the lowly worker in the company
>town.  Here's a quote from William Pitt the Elder:
>
>"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of
>the crown.  It may be frail--its roof may shake--the wind may blow
>through it--the storm may enter, the rains may come--but the King
>of England cannot enter--all his forces dare not cross the threshold
>of the ruined tenement!"
>

Look at Pitt's deeds, not his words. In fact, as many a factory worker and
rural laborer found out, his/her tenement was no barrier to either the
King's bailiffs or the hirelings of the landed gentry.   Note that it was
Pitt the Younger who  suspended habeus corpus and
launched a massive attack on those who had the temerity to advocate
democracy (including our own Tom Paine).


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: sci.econ