HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: danny@athena.mit.edu (Daniel A Lagattuta)
Subject: Re: The Anarchy Paradox
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 14:46:55 GMT

In article <1a838oINNnc5@agate.berkeley.edu>, ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep28.144607.13489@athena.mit.edu> danny@athena.mit.edu (Daniel A Lagattuta) writes:
|> >
|> >	For the poorest people, private charities would probably spring up to pay
|> >for those people who could not afford any protection.  Very few people would fit
|> >into this category.
|> >
|> I don't think this would happen in a libertarian utopia.  If people are bombarded from birth
|> that the only reasonable way to act is in "rational self-interest", they would have to be some
|> kinda rebel to want to help other people gratis.  Would anyone who embraced libertarian 
|> philosophy participate in charity?

	Just because we have no government does not mean we will all be the
society will be filled with totally selfish people.  Most people belong to
religious groups that value charity.  Today, millions of Americans give to
charities that they do not have to.  People do have altruistic, though limited,
tendencies.  Since you seem concerned about the poor, I do not know why you would
think others may not feel similarily.  
|> 
|> >	Finally, you seem to have this attitude that rich people will just want
|> >to abuse poor people.  I see no evidence of this from people I know.  Rich people
|> >want the same things the poor want.  Except they have more money.
|> 
|> Sure, power over other people.  
|> 
	Money power is not the same as government power.  There are many rich
people but only one federal government.  Unless you believe that everyone in a
class act collectively, there is a big difference between the two.  Decentralized
power means less power.  And any analysis of an anarchical system must be
compared with the real world results of government.  And that is a government run
by an influential special interest groups for their own benefit.  
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee)
Subject: Re: Anarchy and Evolution (was Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LIBERTARIAN LEFT)
Reply-To: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:43:48 GMT

>In article <1992Oct4.040346.21580@vela.acs.oakland.edu> wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee) writes:
>>Destruction of life will be punishable by sentence to Hell.

In article <YAMAUCHI.92Oct4143450@sartre.ces.cwru.edu>, yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>
>Are you saying God will punish murderers, or that anarchists will
>create some Hellish area on Earth and confine murderers there?

Neither.  See, Hell is Mississippi...


Walter Lee    wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu, lee@plex-1.ann-arbor.mi.us

Keep the Aspidistra Flying!
From: ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman)
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Call for REVOLUTION.
Date: 28 Sep 1992 23:34:55 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: hailstorm.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Sep28.020345.12914@shearson.com> pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>>
>>I would like everyone to know that there is a perfectly legitimate
>>strand of political thought and tradition associated with the term
>>libertarian socialist.  These people believe that freedom is, among
>
>far more people use the term libertarian to mean our position than
>yours now. Just as we lost "liberal" to the fabian socialists early in
>the century, you have lost "libertarian" to us, and I suggest you stop
>using it, as given current usage, "libertarian socialist" is an
>oxymoron. Continuing to use it only confuses your audiance.

Tell it the Encyclopeadia Brittanica.  They identify G. Orwell as a "libertarian socialist."
I identify myself as one as well, even though my views are a little different than the IWW
line.  I believe in as diffuse a seperation of power as possible, recognizing that sometimes 
we have to concentrate wealth, decision making, etc to get things done.  I think this can 
be kept in check by a good system of checks and balances.  This country had pretty good
luck with a system of checks and balances for quite a while.  I certainly don't have all the
details worked out, but then again, I think that the only way to work out the details is in 
a collective body (like this one).

Jim Ausman
-- 
	"You are not thinking.  You are merely being logical."
				-Niels Bohr to A. Einstein 
				(during their famous debates on QM)
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: thant@void.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman)
Subject: Re: black herring on econ
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 22:00:15 GMT


In article <1a7s7qINNsic@uwm.edu>, glenne@csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes:

[...]

> I don't plan on doing anything big to change the world either.
> Rather than give all my possessions away to whoever asks for
> them, I give to those who I think appreciate it most, and do
> not expect it out of me, [...]

What gives you the right to decide who gets *your* posessions?
Remember: property is theft.

thant
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: Rebuttal of Brief Comments on ``The Anarchy Paradox''
Organization: Lehman Brothers
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 22:00:16 GMT

glenne@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Neuromancer ) writes:
>>Simple, are not the rich simply people achieving thier maximum potential?
>Ahh yes the maximum potential for a human being is to amass as much
>material wealth as (s)he can.  OPEN YOUR MIND!  Discover far greater
>goals for yourself.
> 
>>They are good at their business and rewarded justly.
>There are more meaningful standards to strive for than justice.
>Try Compassion.

Who did more for the poor 

-- McCormick, who, out to make a buck, built a reaping device that
raised the productivity of farmers by an order of magnitude and began
a revolution that today means no one starves to death in the US, not
even the homeless, or

-- That guy out with a begging bowl at the corner, who loves mankind
so much that he gives everything he ever gets away.

Who has fed more people? Who has given more people a better life?
--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
			 Extropian and Proud.
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Subject: Re: More on anarchocapitalism
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:38:09 GMT

In article <1992Oct3.211018.13157@shearson.com>, pmetzger@snark (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>>This seems very similar to today's world if you replace "security
>>companies" with "governments".  It doesn't seem to work quite the way
>>you describe.
>
>I don't know about where you live, but here in New York I have only
>one choice in my local government and can't sign up with an
>alternative one. If you know of this being the case anywhere in the
>country, I'd be very suprised.

Well, the similarity isn't exact - it is somewhat tedious to move to
another country everytime you don't like the government.

By the way, there _is_ an organization for "world citizens", and a
number of countries accept that organization's passport.  That might
help some as you'r not a citizen of the country, but you'll still fall
under the juridiscation of most governments.

//Jyrki
From: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee)
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: OPEN LETTER TO THE LIBERTARIAN LEFT
Date: 4 Oct 92 03:54:08 GMT
Reply-To: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI

Walter Lee    wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu, lee@plex-1.ann-arbor.mi.us

Keep the Aspidistra Flying!
From: drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
Subject: Re: freedom
Organization: MIT Dept. of Tetrapilotomy, Cambridge, MA, USA
	<1992Sep25.231924.23271@ultb.isc.rit.edu>
	<1992Sep28.022650.13060@shearson.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:47:17 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.022650.13060@shearson.com> pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
   The premise of what you say seems to be that we live in a zero sum
   world where if one man is rich, another must be poor. This is,
   however, not the case. The truth is that when one man works hard and
   betters himself, it does not come at the expense of others. 

Although there are different ways of looking at it -- people in the
ghettos of the US are rich according to world standards, but they feel
themselves to be poor.  Very often it is not absolute wealth that
counts, or even absolute comfort, but where one stands in the rank
orderings of one's society.  Very often people are willing to hurt
themselves in order to make sure that others don't surpass them -- in
one survey, a majority of Americans said they would be willing to
support international trade policies that "would prevent the Japanese
from overtaking us, even if it hurt living standards in both
countries".

An important example of this happens in countries or industries with
strong unionization or labor legislation -- the work week is shortened
dramatically.  In the US, where the ambitious can't be prevented from
working 40 or more hours a week, people *say* that they'd trade lower
pay for fewer hours, but very few workers actually do so.  If they
did, they wouldn't be able to keep up with the Jones's.

Dale
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Monopolies
Organization: Lehman Brothers
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 21:36:18 GMT

galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu writes:
>In article <BvFCvC.J21@rahul.net>, dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>>In <1992Sep24.040134.3921@hellgate.utah.edu>
>>galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt) writes:
>>
>>>I would someone to explain why it is better to be controlled by a company
>>>than a government.  And how exactly is it different?
>>
>>The word "controlled" sort of prejudges the situation.
>>
>>Nevertheless, a big difference between private companies and the
>>government is that you can't switch governments without changing your
>>residence.
>
>And with multi-national monopolies, you can't switch at all.  

Name a single multinational monopoly. One.

Indeed, I bet you can't name a single true monopoly or cartel in
history. (I can name one or two that might barely qualify, but I doubt
you will come up with them.) By a true monopoly or cartel, I mean an
organization that controls the supply of a good that faces no
competition from substitute goods and which is not operating as a
result of special government sanction. Alcoa was not a true monopoly,
for instance, because substitue metals existed that could be used
instead of aluminum. Your local phone, cable and power companies all
have a monopoly because of special government franchises, as an
example of the last feature. OPEC is not a successful cartel because
it has shown a dramatic inability to actually raise prices as it
desires. The supermarket in your neighborhood doesn't count because
you can drive to another one. Name an organization that has succeeded
historically in meeting all the criteria. I dare you. I have little to
lose, because I already know the likely outcome.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
			 Extropian and Proud.
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: anand@Cadence.COM (Anand Bemra)
Subject: Bakunin on Marxism (was Re: Engels on Bakunin)
Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:37:41 GMT

miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard) writes:

>... Bakunin maintains that the state has created 
>capital, that the capitalist has his capital only by the grace of the 
>state.  And since the state is the chief evil, the state above all must
>be abolished; then capital will go to hell of itself.  We, on the contrary,
>say:  Abolish capital, the appropriation of all the means of production 
>by the few, and the state will fall of itself.  The difference is an 
>essential one:  the abolition of the state is nonsense without a social
>revolution and involves a change in the whole mode of production.  

Well, we have seen the actions of communists in Soviet, the Spanish
Revolution (read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia) and China.
I know, those communists are probably wincing, saying that that was
not _true_ communism.

The simple matter is that Power corrupts and that is what has 
happened in Soviet and that is what is happening in China. Anarchists
believe in bottom up theory. i.e. power should flow from bottom up and
not as the communists think that it should flow from top down.

Anyways here is Bakunin on communism/Marx:

Bakunin:
 
 "I detest communism because it is the negation of liberty and I cannot
 concieve anything human without liberty. I am not a communist because
 communism concentrates all the powers of society and absorbs them into the
 State, because it leads inevitably to the centralization of property in
 the hands of the State, while I want to see the State abolished. I want
 the complete elimination of the authoritarian principle of state tutelage
 which has always subjected, oppressed, exploited, and depraved men while
 claiming to moralize and civilize them. I want society, and collective or
 social property, to be organized from the bottom up through free association
 and not from the top down by authority of any kind . . . In that sense I
 am a collectivist and not at all a communist."

"One asks oneself how a man as intelligent as Marx could conceive of such
a heresy against common sense and historical experience as the notion that
a group of individuals, however intelligent and well-intentioned, could
become the soul and the unifying and directing will of a revolutionary
movement and of the economic organization of the proletariat of all
countries ..."

Red Bureacracy:

Bakunin summed it up as follows: "Take the most radical of revolutionaries
and place him on the throne of all the Russians or give him dictatorial
powers ... and before the year is out he will be worse than the Czar himself."
 

--
Screw PBS & NPR news. Tired of news "sanitized for your protection?". Try:
misc.activism.progressive, "Lies Of Our [NY]Times", "Z" magazine (Boston).
KPFA 94.1 FM (Bay Area), 90.7 (L.A.), 90.1 (Houston, TX), 89.3 (Washington, DC)
These are my opinions, not my employer's. 
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections
From: secsu@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Ralph O. Clark)
Subject: Re: None of the above
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Date:  2 Oct 1992 18:58 EST  

In article <1992Sep29.105346.4923@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, mlinksva@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Linksvayer) writes...
>In article <1992Sep19.195409.17097@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuopala) writes:
>>OK, it is not quite like that.  I don't think there happens anything
>>if empty ballots win, and unless I'm mistaken the empty ballots are
>>counted only separately ie. if there are 5 empty, 5 party_A and 5
>>party_B ballots, the results are published as 33 percent empty votes,
>>50 percent party_A and 50 percent party_B and party_A and party_B each
>>get half the seats.
> 
>In other words, casting a vote for NOTA does nothing to
>reduce the power of those who do get votes, although
>more people may start thinking that those in power have
>less "legitimacy" which is a good thing in itself.
> 
>However, I think that those who do get elected should
>have their power reduced in proportion to the percentage
>of votes NOTA receives. 
> 
>I can think of two possibilities offhand -
> 
>1. Reduce the pay of those who get elected. If 1/3 of
>the ballots cast are for NOTA, those elected take a 1/3
>pay cut.
> 
>2. Require supermajorities to pass the programs of those
>who do get elected, as those who voted NOTA obviously do
>not support those programs yet do not have any
>representative in the legislature to actively vote and
>lobby against these programs. 
> 
>If we make the assumption that anyone palatable to the
>people who voted NOTA would oppose the programs of those
>elected AT LEAST 1/2* of the time, then a supermajority
>of 50% + (% vote for NOTA / 2) would be required to pass
>any of the programs of those elected. So if NOTA
>received one third of the vote, a (50 + 33.33/2)% =
>66.66% supermajority would be required in the
>legislature.
> 
>*this number could be changed to make it more palatable
>to those who think that the world would fall apart if the
>legislature could not easily pass new laws.
> 

Have fun not voting or voting NOTA to get these proposals implemented!

>--
>Mike Linksvayer   m-linksvayer@uiuc.edu   +1 217 344 1326

Ralph
Don't blame me, I vote Libertarian
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Subject: Re: More on anarchocapitalism
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 12:41:54 GMT

>Take, for instance, the "wouldn't a security company simply start
>forceably extorting money from its clients" argument. The answer is
>no, it could not; the clients would simply walk down the street, hire
>another company to protect them from the first, and suddenly the
>original company is in a position in which trying to extort money will
>result in their going into a costly war with another company. Since
>companies will likely have "reinsurance" and mutual aid agreements
>with each other, going "rogue" would likely get a company swiftly into
>a war with an overwhelming force -- the undesired behavior is
>therefore checked.

This seems very similar to today's world if you replace "security
companies" with "governments".  It doesn't seem to work quite the way
you describe.

//Jyrki
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: More on anarchocapitalism
Organization: Lehman Brothers
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 21:10:18 GMT

jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>>Take, for instance, the "wouldn't a security company simply start
>>forceably extorting money from its clients" argument. The answer is
>>no, it could not; the clients would simply walk down the street, hire
>>another company to protect them from the first, and suddenly the
>>original company is in a position in which trying to extort money will
>>result in their going into a costly war with another company. Since
>>companies will likely have "reinsurance" and mutual aid agreements
>>with each other, going "rogue" would likely get a company swiftly into
>>a war with an overwhelming force -- the undesired behavior is
>>therefore checked.
>
>This seems very similar to today's world if you replace "security
>companies" with "governments".  It doesn't seem to work quite the way
>you describe.

I don't know about where you live, but here in New York I have only
one choice in my local government and can't sign up with an
alternative one. If you know of this being the case anywhere in the
country, I'd be very suprised.
--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
			 Extropian and Proud.
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
Subject: Re: Which brand(s) of anarchy?
Followup-To: alt.society.anarchy
Organization: MIT Dept. of Tetrapilotomy, Cambridge, MA, USA
	<1a9q2gINN86e@uwm.edu> <1992Sep29.181321.1831@shearson.com>
	<1992Sep30.085933.6133@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:16:05 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.085933.6133@hellgate.utah.edu> galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt) writes:
   But who builds, fixes, and produces things?

A question which has always interested political thinkers.  But it's
interesting to remember that merchants have been denigrated in many
cultures simply because they didn't "produce" anything.  In many
cultures, merchanting was left to various hated minorities (Jews in
Central Europe, Chinese in Vietnam).  (The minorities were often
slaughtered for their parasitical ways, too.)  The flaw in the
reasoning is that one must recognize that a merchant, simply by moving
an object from A to B, or by buying in bulk and selling retail, *is*
producing something, but it's an intangible transformation in the
availability of the goods, not something physical.  Nonetheless, that
service is valuable; sometimes it is more valuable than the object
itself.

The same sort of analysis can be applied to the myriad bloodsuckers of
Wall Street.  The act of getting money from those who save it to those
who can usefully invest it is the same sort of action:  moving it from
A to B, combining and splitting quantities, etc.

Even the Trumps of the world have their place -- the art of making a
deal is not useless.  Anybody can buy a pack of gum at the
supermarket, and most people can negotiate a car purchase.  But it
takes a lot of work and skill to put together a real-estate deal --
there are usually a zillion parties, and their needs can be very
complex.  Getting everybody to come to an agreement is not necessarily
easy.  Doing it with maximum efficiency in the outcome is quite
difficult.  And if a guy can save you 0.2% on a $1 billion deal,
paying him $1 million is a real bargan.

Next time you see a parasite getting rich, ask:  Why don't the people
he's middle-manning between just cut him out of the deal?  Sometimes
they would (sometimes they *do*), and the guy really *is* a parasite.
But often the middle-man offers some sort of service which really *is*
valuable to the other players, and they wouldn't give that service up.
(Although they'd gladly stop paying for it!)

Or better yet, ask why the critics haven't all flocked into that line
of business.

Dale
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt)
Subject: Re: Anarchy as a newsgroup?
Date: 1 Oct 92 10:06:13 MDT
Reply-To: galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu
Organization: University of Utah, CS Dept., Salt Lake City

In article <BvFCvC.J21@rahul.net>, dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In <1992Sep24.040134.3921@hellgate.utah.edu>
>galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt) writes:
>
>>I would someone to explain why it is better to be controlled by a company
>>than a government.  And how exactly is it different?
>
>The word "controlled" sort of prejudges the situation.
>
>Nevertheless, a big difference between private companies and the
>government is that you can't switch governments without changing your
>residence.

And with multi-national monopolies, you can't switch at all.  

Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: Re: freedom
Organization: Lehman Brothers
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 21:08:46 GMT

entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:

>With regard to Government being responsible for most of our
>ills, I cannot agree.  I know that the rate of alcoholism in
>our country jumped 25% from 1971 to 1981--I'm sorry, I don't
>have current figures.  I find it hard to place the responsibility
>for that at the feet of the Government.

I find this hard to believe, given that alchohol consumption has been
falling for decades. I'll also not that even if what you say is true,
it is hardly necessarily an extragovernmental problem -- alcoholism
was a huge problem in the former Soviet Union, largely because
government generated economic problems made life so bleak. From 1971
to 1981, the economy in our country was quite unhealthy.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
		  Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
			 Extropian and Proud.
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy