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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> The usual massive and capricious snippage.
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
>
> > Which came 1st, the egg or the chicken? One way to view Libertarianism, is
> > that it is a good idea taken to its illogical extreme. Saying the world is
> > moving towards libertainaism is, in my view, like saying a stone I through
> > at the moon may reach it.
>
> I'm not sure I'd agree that the degree of change (since the enlightenment,
> or more specifically, in the last 20 years) is that small. Certainly it's
> not as large as I'd wish it but it's a lot more than the .0001% or so that
> your analogy suggests it to be.
You are, off course, assuming a linear scale. I'd view it as logarithmic.
> Governments in some cases pay lip service
> (Bill Clinton *said* "the era of big government is over", but I doubt he
> actually MEANT it, he was just trying to tap into popular sentiment), and
> sometimes take half measures. And when goverments implement libertarian
> principles imperfectly (consider RailTrack, for example) the outcome is
> often way less than optimal, and tends to give free markets a bad name.
One of the big criticisms of the LP argument is that they harp on too much
about the evils of "Big Government", without tempering that sentiment with a
reflection of the evils of big business. Witness the Ford/Firestone problem.
Witness the global tobacco industry. Witness Microsoft’s ongoing problems.
My understanding of the LP stand is that these big companies would have even
more “freedoms”.
Further, if we accept that some politicians/public servants/captains of
industry have there figures in the pie, we also must consider the LP itself:
This is from http://www.realchange.org/browne.htm
Controversial Campaign Official
Michael Emmerling Cloud (who until recently called himself Michael
Emmerling) is Harry Browne's chief fundraiser and consultant. Darren
Capriotti, a member of the LPUS mailing list, posted charges on February 28
that Cloud had raise $125,000 for 2 PACs, Project 51 - 92 and Project 51 -
96, that worked to get Libertarians on the ballot in all 50 states. However,
Capriotti charged, only $32,000 of that money was ever distributed and the
rest is unaccounted for. His implication is that Cloud ran up expenses and
directed some of the money to friends.
We don't have any way of checking the strength of these charges, but other
Libertarian sources have confirmed that charges have dogged Emmercling Cloud
for years. He was a major official with the Andre Marrou Libertarian
campaign in 1992, and was ch-chairman with Marrou of Project 51.
A libertarian (Hugh Akston'), writes about this an other “issues” (My PC
has problems with the currency symbols in this page):
http://libertarianparty.freeservers.com/
>
> But I'm going to stand by my assertion of direction of movement and disagree
> with yours of the degree.
>
> > The "illogical extreme" argument is why I asked the yes/no questions
> > yesterday. However, I think libertarianism is moving towards trying to
> > answering these:
> >
> > Read Chapter 41 David D. Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to
> > Radical Capitalism"
> > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Contents.html
>
> Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
>
> I had heard of Friedman, but not read any of his work. That appears to be an
> oversight. One cannot read every text extant, of course but I regret missing
> this one. This book looks to be fascinating reading and I've ordered a copy
> from Amazon.
>
> Based on just chapters 41-43, I may have to reexamine my conviction that a
> purely rights based analysis always gives correct answers.
You have my increased respect Larry.
> But I am no
> stranger to utilitarian arguments, and have made them in the past in this
> newsgroup, so I'm certainly not uncomfortable with them.
>
> Friedman's outcome in chapter 43 isn't that different from Libertarian
> policy and desired outcomes for societal organization, (if at all, other
> than introducing damages, which are not a completely foreign concept to
> libertarians, relying as we do on tort) although he arrives there using a
> different path that strict rights based calculus (as shown by his "you have
> to steal a rifle in order to stop a madman" example in which the rifle
> owners rights have to be violated in order to save the crowd) and different
> than strict utilitarian (as shown by his "it's not *just* to frame someone
> for murder even if it will stop 5 lynchings" example in which the
> utilitarian increase in amount of happiness (four more people live than when
> 5 people are lynched) is insufficient to justify framing an innocent person).
>
> That is to say, he uses a mechanism called "economic analysis of law", and
> that's a fascinating idea, with interesting outcomes, conclusions and
> implications.
>
> I'll confess that in the past I have tried to explain these sorts of
> examples away by showing that they are unlikely. I still think that's the
> case, but I'm willing to adopt a better mechanism for determining proper and
> just laws than pure property rights calculus if it produces as good or
> better results in all (or the vast majority of) cases.
The thing about "unlikely" situations, is that there are those in society
who are willing to exploit them. This is my it is important to define your
boundary conditions in an theory - be it scientific or political.
>
> Economic analysis strikes me as likely to often be more work than rights
> based calculus (in itself non trivial if the number of parties is large) so
> I would argue that using property rights is a good starting point, even if I
> (which I am not sure about) were to accept economic analysis of law as superior.
>
> It's premature to change my mind based on reading 4 chapters of one author's
> work after all.
>
> I'll say that I am not an anarcho-capitalist and I am not prepared to cede
> the governmental function, itself, to private entities, although Friedman's
> discussion, in chapter 33, of reputation based enforcement of contract
> requirements is fascinating and seems eminently workable.
I have not read Chapter 33. I shall try to make time to do so.
>
> I acknowledge that since I don't have the text I can only judge based on the
> portions that were webified (that he chose to webify ??).
>
> Did you raise this cite merely because it in vacuo provides a refutation of
> property rights calculus as always arriving at optimal outcomes, or because
> you agree with larger swaths of it?
I chose it as it shows how, on the surface, the rights based system can be
argued to be a "good idea". However, the deeper we go, the less atractive it
is. Basically, the same reasoning lay behind my yes/no questions two days ago.
Scott A
>
> ++Lar
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: LP POINT 1
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| <cut> (...) Opps. I forgot to say, that fact the LP would stop me from switching the lights on in my own house, is not the only problem I have with it, or libertarianism. Most of the rest evolve from what we discuss here: (URL) And I already told (...) (24 years ago, 29-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: LP POINT 1
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| (...) and doesn't have the currency symbol problems. I haven't done the research to tell what's real but I don't like the sound of it at all. I'm ready to move on to point 2 if you're ready to concede that the original statement by the NPR wannabe (...) (24 years ago, 29-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LP POINT 1
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| The usual massive and capricious snippage. (...) I'm not sure I'd agree that the degree of change (since the enlightenment, or more specifically, in the last 20 years) is that small. Certainly it's not as large as I'd wish it but it's a lot more (...) (24 years ago, 28-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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