From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: In a libertarian society Was: Re: "New Right" Libertarians?
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 20:13:25 GMT

In article <TZ9mXB11w165w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu>, caliban@cybernet.cse.fau.edu
(James) writes:

|>hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:
|>
|>> Are you suggesting that if all the people who need my expertise got together
|>|>> a cartel and decided to offer peanuts then that is their right? Is it a
|>> Libertarian society when one person is able to give another the choice of
|>> offering employment from him or doing manual work?
|>
|>No one is saying that your only two choices are to work 
|>for "peanuts" (probably better than the average wages in
|>the UK right now) or else do manual labor.  You could always
|>seek employment in some other field -- write novels, for
|>example, or teach school, or take training in some other
|>area.  In a libertarian society, people don't have the
|>right to demand that they be provided with a guaranteed
|>living in the field of their choice.  


Nor do they have the right to protection from the theft of that right which
would be theirs in a free ecconomic system.

You see in Libertopia it is rights themselves that would be bought and sold on
the free market. You would have only the right to protest about the government
as inalienable, since the government would not exist this would mean no rights
at all.


|>> The Utilitarianism that underlies the Libertarian point of view argues for
|>th
|>> greatest good of the greatest number. Yet based upon this criteria the
|>ultra
|>> free marketeers are unable to get past the greatest good of those that have
|>> power.
|>> 
|>Some libertarians (like Mill and Bentham and Friedman) are
|>utilitarians, and some are not. 

John Stuart Mill was a Liberal and later became a Socialist. It is his tradition
that I am defending, don't insult his memory by claiming that your bogus
philosophy has anything to do with his.

Strange that you can name the Libertarians who were Utlititarians but none of
the ones who were not. Could it be that the Liberal Utilitarians and
Libertarians were one and the same?


|> Libertarians want to see a
|>society with a higher standard of living and more personal
|>freedom, and we believe that the free market and mutual
|>respect are the best way to achieve this.  

You can drop the "we". You have already admitted my saints into your pantheon
and thus admit that I am a Libertarian too on your own definition. 


|>After all, free
|>market capitalism is the most productive economic system in
|>history, and competition between employers for labor will
|>help increase wages even further.  And the virtues of not
|>imposing arbitrary personal beliefs and viewpoints on the
|>whole of society are too obvious to be mentioned . . . 

Mills was none too complementary about Lassiez faire I seem to recall.


|>> The free trade arguments of the New Right are entirely different from those
|>o
|>> the Nineteenth century liberals many of them like to see themselves as. I
|>am
|>> Phill Hallam-Baker
|>
|>Since I consider myself a neoliberal libertarian, I'm a bit
|>confused about all these "New Right Libertarians" you keep
|>talking about -- I've never met one, and I don't know anyone
|>else who has.  

Well its an old political tradition that no group gets to chose their own name.
Just as the name Tory means an Irish Catholic sheep buggerer and was given it to
them by the Whigs, the self christened "Libertarian" party need a more
descriptive name. They sit quite happily in with the Pat Buchannans etc as a
sort of militant agnostic wing but wanting essentialy the same thing, a retreat
to the old world parochial certitudes of never never land.

The Neo-Liberal bit is also a bit rich but the gaff was blown on that one years
back. The Nineteenth century english liberal tradition was not one of removing
government intervention, far from it since they passed most of the factory acts.
You can call yourself a Neo-Liberal if you like of course but if we omit the
classics in favour of a more modern dialect you are really calling yourself a
New-Liberal. I don't even think that Ronald Regan acting on particularly odd
instructions from his wifes astrologer would call you that. 

--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:69968 alt.atheism:27065 talk.religion.misc:27647