From: snail@lsl.co.uk
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Libertarian philosophy (was Re: Transport...)
Date: 18 Dec 92 16:22:57 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Laser-Scan Ltd., Cambridge

In article <29612@castle.ed.ac.uk>, fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
Actually its Mike Holmes and Emma Osman (lost the atribution, sorry):-
Mike writes first.

> There are a few things you can do without the help of government:
> 
> Buy one share in Nestle and ask difficult questions at shareholder
> meetings.

Not very effective, you need a lot of shares before people really start taking
much notice of you. ie: you need to be wealthy. Money is power.
> 
> Buy lots of shares in nestle and get the directors, and therefore
> policy, changed.

Yes, that'd work, but you'd need even more money than for the point above.

> Start a competitive company that follows the policies you'd prefer.

To be truly competitive (and take Nestle's market from them) would take even
more money than either of the previous options.

> 
> Boycott nestle products and advocate that others do the same.

Instant saving for the person who boycotts, unless done in large numbers
very ineffective. To do in large numbers requires the following:-
> 
> Educate the victims to avoid nestle.

And to do this for large numbers requires lots of money, and the company you
are trying to do this against has much better resources (most likely) than
you, end result, you most probably will educate a few, but the rest will just
see the advertising of the company and buy into that instead (See election '92)
>>>
>>>Only indirectly.  The *people* are given the freedom and power.  *If* they
>>>*choose* to pass that power on to the corporations, *then* the corporations
>>>will be able to abuse the power.
> 
>>No, sorry, I can't agree with this at all. The original thread was about
>>making improvements to roads, remember? The ordinary person just
>>doesn't have the money to do this - what you'd need is a consortium.
> 
> Yes. That's true. A consortium though is just a bunch of people who
> agree with you. All you really say here is that you'd prefer the current
> powers to co-opt people's money for your projects whether they agree or
> not. I'd say that it's a lot more democratic to only be able to obtain
> people's money to support your projects when those *people* support your
> projects.
> 
>>I think it would be very difficult to get enough people together to buy 
>>the "improvement rights" (or whatever) to the road they were interested in,
>>and *that's* always assuming that you could get a large enough group
>>together that were interested in the same road. Much simpler for a
>>company director, who has direct access to a whole heap of other people's
>>money and noone to tell him how to spend it
> 
> The shareholders are allowed to tell him how to spend it, and they are
> in fact, simply people who are interested in that road.
> 
>> (so long as he makes a
>>profit for his shareholders 
> 
> That's the job of a director.
> 
>>- and note that this is not necessarily
>>going to benefit the rest of the world)
> 
> Maybe not, but it's not his job to do that.

So he has a selfish disinterest in the rest of the world. He needs to be
selfish to keep the company going. I can understand that. Bit naff though
when you're responsible for a company policy like the Nestle baby milk one
though. No not a bit naff, bloody inexcusible really. All for a bit of money 
from a poor nation. That sounds fair (that word again!)
-- 
snail@lsl.co.uk      

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless
 means to side with the powerful, not to be Neutral."
                                                     Quote by Freire.
                                                     Poster by OXFAM.