From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Libertarian Bias
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:01:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: desire.1992Sep3.120117.3889
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <183384@pyramid.pyramid.com>, pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
> |> 
> |>         [sci.econ restored to Newsgroups line]
> |> 
> |> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
> |> >In article <52738@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
> (victor yodaiken) writes:
...
> |> >>>Additionally, I might add that some strains of libertarianism explicitly
> |> >>>attempt to wring morality out of politics.  They seek an economic basis
> |> >>>for all types of governmental law.  Morality and related topics
> should solely
> |> 
> |> >> And some type of marxism-leninism similarly attempted to exclude morality
> |> >> from their programs which were ostensibly based on a "scientific"
> |> >> understanding of history. The "libertarian" attempt to pass off
> prejudice as
> |> >> science is equally convincing.
> |> 
> |> >	All you are doing with such lies is damaging your net.credability.
> |> >Post the quotes where Libertarians attempt to pass off prejudice as
> science.
> |> 
> |> >	Go ahead, make our day.

	Clearly the above is about "morality" and not bias towards an economic
system.

	Below, however is a debate about relative worth.  Which is something
completely different.

> |> 
> |> Libertarians frequently claim that reducing governmental interference
> |> in markets makes them freer and more efficient, so that they will
> |> expand faster than otherwise.  They claim that public sector spending
> |> is always less effective than private sector spending.  I trust I
> |> need not give references for these claims?  Yet, they are undemonstrated,
> |> and so prejudice rather than science.
> 
> The point doesn't go far enough:  even if demonstrated, a more efficient
> market is simply more efficient, and a less effective private sector is
> simply less effective.  The implied value is that 'more efficient' is 
> 'better'.  This is clearly a value judgement.  I frequently agree with that
> value judgement, but the point is that such a value judgement is unprovable
> and usually not made explicit by the person making the post.  Instead, there
> seems to be an almost hidden assumption that if one can demonstrate a purer,
> more minimalist, more efficient, more logical, private system then one "wins"
> the debate.
> 
> Consider this perhaps silly example: there is a profound sense in which
> Mother Teresa is arguably more efficient and less profitable at providing
> services than any personal provider in either the public or private sector  --
> basically, she provides better services than any single "competitor" for free,
> and in so doing turns economic logic on its head.  Clearly an army of Mother 
> Teresa's would wipe out the competition, but, after all, good Saints are
> so hard to find that I don't think anyone seriously considers the prospect
> of creating a company of them, or of filling a government with them, or of
> basing an economic theory using their behavior as a model, though clearly
> such a model would theoretcially be superior to any other that I can think of.
> 
> If a love-based economics modeled on the behavior of the Spiritual Inspired 
> sounds silly to you, then you can understand how a logic-based
> economics based on the behavior of the Rationally Efficient seems to me --
> something practiced more frequently in thought than in action and one
> not particularly relevant to the human beings that I know.
> 
> Libertarians clearly have a bias and a morality.  Let them be honest about
> it and say so.

	Bias towards less government, of course.  Just as some have a bias
towards more government or higher taxes.

	A "morality"?  Everyone has a different one, to some degree.  But
almost all agree that one person's morality should not be made to influence
another's.  If you want to base your economic system on morality, I'd be
against it on principle.  Not the ends which you are trying to achieve, but the
means by which you propose to do it.
                        
Brett                                                      
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