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From: carmine@qusavx.UUCP (Carmine Scavo)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Libertarianism
Message-ID: <192@qusavx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jul-84 16:44:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: qusavx.192
Posted: Tue Jul  3 16:44:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jul-84 23:42:53 EDT
Organization: Quantime Corp., Cincinnati, Ohio
Lines: 32

I think I would be much less critical of Libertarianism if it could
address two problems I have:

How can we expect that all people are actually created equal and that
they all compete on an equal level when each is born with an 
accumulation of inherited wealth?  If libertarians believed that all
wealth accumulated within one's lifetime was forfeited upon death, I
might actually think they BELIEVED in equal competition, etc.

How can each of us individuals be expected to compete (on an equal
basis) with the mythical 'individuals' called corporations?  If I
were to sue General Motors, IBM or even (horrors) AT&T, I sure as
hell would want the government on my side!!  A neutral government, 
in such a situation, is one which is actually opposed, at all times,
to the interests of the individual citizen and in favor, at all times,
of the interests of the corporate citizen.

Libertarians often use the example of forest ecology to 'prove' the 
idea that nature exists rather nicely without the guiding hand of a
government and the image is a nice one.  But remember, that this is
the case only from the perspective of the forest, as a whole.  From
that perspective, it doesn't matter a great deal if half the squirrel
population dies.  Equilibrium will reassert itself at quite a different
level.  From the squirrel population, such a loss has a very different
meaning.  As a member of the squirrel population, I think that the 
loss of a great deal of our population through some natural act (like
poverty or disease) which an activist government might avert, is a
tragedy which is beyond imagination.  I would certainly hope that you
fellow squirrels out there believe the same thing.  After all, . . .


             WE'RE NOT LEMMINGS, ARE WE?