From: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com (Mark Slagle)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Reply-To: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com
In-reply-to: mrh@centerline.com's message of 22 Jan 1993 17:35:32 GMT
Organization: You wouldn't ask this if you'd seen my desk.
	<1jet6aINNp5j@armory.centerline.com>
	<SLAGLE.93Jan20155257@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com>
	<1jpb94INN664@armory.centerline.com>
Date: 27 Jan 93 00:25:04

In article <1jpb94INN664@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:

> In article <SLAGLE.93Jan20155257@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com> slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com writes:

>>You're just blowing smoke with numbers one and two, unless you
>>think there was more arable land in what is now the US than in
>>Mexico and South America combined.

> Well yes, there is.  Both in terms of amount suitable for
> sustainable crop production and amount suitable for livestock.

Well, I couldn't lay my hands on the exact numbers that I was
looking for on short notice.  But according to the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, the total arable land in South America is 124 million
hectares as compared to 269 for all of North and Central America
combined.  Now unless you think that the US accounts for vastly
more than half of that figure, you are purely and simply wrong.

> Keep in mind that most tropical soils are easily exhausted in
> just a few years, which is one of the reasons why native
> peoples have used slash and burn methods.

Now I would have thought that the soil exhaustion had something
to do with the crops and the farming methods.  For a subsistence
farmer in the presence of large quantities of undeveloped land,
it is expedient to plant the same crop in successive years until
the soil gives out and then move on to slash and burn surrounding
lands rather than to rotate crops and take the land out of
production in a sustainable cycle.  It's certainly true that the
soil is exhausted of certain necessary nutrients when subjected
to this treatment, but it is not simply a matter of the initial
quality of the soil which, in any event, is good enough to sustain
a lush jungle undergrowth in virtual perpetuity.

>>Number four assumes facts not in evidence.

> What do you mean?  With the exception of a few additional
> crops, there was almost a direct transplant of northern
> european agricultural practices throughout the northeast and
> midwest, which have proven to be more or less sustainable over
> vast acreages.  Unlike Central and South America.

In the first place, the practices were not sustainable in the US
either, or perhaps you have forgotten about the dust bowl.  But
your point number four stated that the system was, or should have
been, held in abeyance (your point was unclearly stated).  You
have not shown that this is so, nor have you shown that there is
any relevance to it if it were.

> A clear example here of libertarian filtering: only able to see
> the negative side of government, never granting any positive
> acheivement.

The statement that I made is that it is obvious that governments
can have negative effects, but that the demonstration of positive
effects is problematic.  It is often difficult or impossible to
calculate the real costs of government measures, since by their
very nature, they obliterate the messages that would otherwise be
transmitted by privately determined prices.  Without knowing what
value people would have put on the alternatives, you cannot know
that your program has done any net good.  I am often willing to,
and often do, admit that some or other government program does
some good.  But that, even in those cases where it is true, does
NOT constitute a justification for paying the opportunity costs
of governmental interference.  There may, in some cases, even
be some net good, but you need to show that.  You haven't.  The
default, against which you must measure your success is simply
to leave the decisions to those who are directly affected and
who must pay the costs if they are wrong.

> One of the major alternatives to giving the land away in
> allotments was to sell it.  Selling it would have resulted in a
> few, rich absentee landowners at the end of the speculation
> (which would have priced the land out of the range of farmers.)

This statement is itself pure speculation, if not just wishful
thinking.  But we know that land grants from the colonial powers
had this effect.  But perhaps you would like to argue that the
land in the original colonies, many of which were subject to just
such land grants, is now primarily in the hands of rich, absentee
landowners?  Perhaps not?  Perhaps these things just work out in
the market that subsequently develops.  But we also know that
continued interference by governments can have the effect of
perpetuating such an initial imbalance.  That was my point in
bringing the comparative experience of the people of South
America and Mexico into the discussion.  A point which you have
yet to address.

>>But what you haven't yet demonstrated is that the scheme
>>perpetrated on the homesteaders in the US was in any sense
>>optimal.

> Please demonstrate that any event in the past was optimal, and
> then we'll see if I can use those methods.

You are arguing in favor of intervention in the free exchange
between consenting individuals.  The burden is on you to show
that your meddling is justified, or even justifiable.  It is not
my responsibility to make your case for you.

=Mark
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Mark E. Slagle                                 PO Box 61059
slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com                       Sunnyvale, CA   94088
408-756-0895                                   USA