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From: rpk@mit-vax.UUCP (Robert Krajewski)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Ethics and others in libertarianism
Message-ID: <2501@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Jul-84 02:42:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.2501
Posted: Sun Jul 15 02:42:38 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jul-84 07:09:06 EDT
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Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
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[I have moved this discussion into net.politics]

	From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP

	It always seemed to me that
	objectivist/libertarian/what-have-you
	philosophies claim the "I am the best judge of
	what's best for me" notion as the foundation of
	their beliefs.  Unfortunately, where what's best
	for them may interfere with what's best for (or
	what's chosen by) other people, their "what's
	best for me" ideals still win out, rather than
	invoking reason and compromise to best work out
	things with other people around them.

Certainly people are entitled to their own judgement.  What makes one system
of government (or lack thereof) different from another are the constraints in
the interactions of people when they try to do what they think is best for
themselves.  Libertarianism as construed in its modern American sense has
constraints, though probably not as many state socialism or a progresive
mixed economy.  Fascism, in a sense, has almost no constraints in the sense
that individual action has no meaning; only the state is a moral entity.  Law
and order in a fascist state is a mechanical problem and not a legal one.
Anarchy seems to have no constraints, but there are many self-regulating
entities that have many constraints.  Libertarians search for or espouse a
set of constraints that will allow people to try to get what they want
without violating each others rights.

Immediately, one can raise two objections.  If you say there is no such thing
as a right, you will have to explain why you'd want a government at all,
unless you think, cynically, it's the best way to keep the masses or misfits
or eggheads or chronically competent under control, and comfortably
constrained and exploited (though perhaps not harshly).  And a lot of people
have taken exactly that route.  The other approach is to try to get people
what they want, violating those acknowledged rights now so that everybody
will be deleriously happy later on, when the Ten Year Plans and breeder
reactors are all finished.

	It also seems to me that such people are quick to
	point out their rights without acknowledging the
	fact that they have to share the world with other
	people.  ("I can drive 80 on this road if I want
	to.  So what if it's just a two-lane dirt road!
	*I* know what *I'm* doing!  If someone else in
	front of me is going too slow, I'll cut around
	them!!  Who cares if their money paid for these
	roads, too?")

No matter who owns the road, I don't have the right to run you off it, or to
endanger your life in any way.  I'd like for you to produce a tenet that says
you can.  Proprietors of roads, both public and private, set rules for using
them because they are more useful that way, and thus will attract more
customers (at least in the private turnpike case).  Actually, a state could
let everybody run wild on the roads and theoretically not make them safe.

In your example, is anybody liable for what happens ?  What exactly stops
somebody from commiting crimes ?

Actually, statist approaches have historically been antagonistic to the kind
of ``reason and compromise'' that you so admire.  For example, the highway
system in the United States is falling apart.  For now, let's assume it's not
in the best interests of the users of those roads, who are also taxpayers, to
let this happen.  Then why has it ?  Because the government has crowded out
the private sector, or even ``incentives'' or fees related to the usage of
the resource, to provide feedback on a resource.  Trucks are the most
punishing vehicles to the road system nowadays, and yet they don't pay their
share of the maintenance costs.  Now, one may argue that this situation is
merely an administrative problem irrespective of the econmic structure of
transportation, but it is the statist approach itself that encourages the
free rider problem.  There is no mechanism attaching costs to users; there is
merely the hope that people will selflessly not abuse a resource.  Thus, to a
libertarian, it is puzzling why a ``Tragedy of the Commons'' example is an
indictment of the price system of allocating a resource.  It would seem to be
a lesson that one cannot run a system for long if those who use it the most
(thus taking up more of it) are allowed to do not bear a fair share of the
costs.

I am more of a capitalist libertarian that a communitarian (that's communist
libertarian, actually, but I feel the word has been abused), but reading
communitarian tracts has forced to rethink problems about community and
economic externalities.  In particular, I don't think that certain basic
resources are going to be any easier to manage in a market system.  State
approaches tend to pit various social groups against each other, and
encourage them to make the state more powerful, so they can control it for
their interests.  There is something to be said for an unforced sense of
community.
-- 
``Bob'' (Robert P. Krajewski)
ARPA:		RpK@MC
MIT Local:	RpK@OZ
UUCP:		genradbo!miteddie!rpk
	or	genradbo!miteddie!mitvax!rpk