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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics,can.politics
Subject: Re: Liberty and Isolation are not the same things.
Message-ID: <1117@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Sep-84 17:05:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1117
Posted: Tue Sep 18 17:05:32 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Sep-84 17:15:52 EDT
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Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
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From Brad Templeton:
===========================
I get tired of all this mispresentation of the philosophy of liberty.
Where do people get the idea that capitalists and libertarians (small l)
don't believe in cooperation?   That's the very essence of capitalism.

....

The socialist is the opposite.  They say that they have spotted the common
goals, and that since not everybody agrees with them, we must use force
to ensure that they "cooperate."   The reality is that one does not
cooperate with a socialist or any other totalitarian.  One complies.
===========================
Ok, so people misrepresent theoretical capitalism.  But equally, you
misrepresent socialism, perhaps in a more devastating manner.  As a matter
of practice, one does not cooperate with a capitalist of great monetary
power, one complies.  Perhaps there is a Geneva Convention for the
conduct of capitalist trade, but in practice it has not been adhered
to when those with power are given the chance to use that power.  We
are dealing with people, not neat systems with nice gentle rules.
The Mafia works in a nicely capitalist way, providing services that people
want to trade for, and using force where necessary to ensure their dominance
of the trade.  They cooperate among themselves very well.

On the other hand, socialists are neither better nor worse in this
respect.  In theory there is no semblance of totalitarianism, but in
practice people with power to make choices will do so and will compel
people to conform when such compulsion is possible and seen to be more
effective than persuasion.  In theory, some aspects of the economy are
owned by all of us and run for the maximum benefit of society as a whole.
In practice, some publicly owned enterprises are well run, and some are
not, just as is true for privately owned enterprises.  The difference is
primarily that the main purpose of a public enterprise is to serve the
public, whereas that is an incidental effect of the private enterprise.

It is silly to argue for extremes in either direction. (At least that is
my humble opinion). A mixed economy seems to benefit everyone, both
entrepreneurs and people with less talents or opportunity, better than
either total state control (disaster) or total freedom to manipulate
markets and exert all available monetary power.

In private correspondence, Brad and I have been misunderstanding one another
about who should have the right to make decisions.  I believe that checks
and balances are appropriate, not only in the interplay among unequally
strong individuals, but also between strong individuals and the delegates
of groups of individuals at all levels of group size (ie regional, national,
and international governments).  The same is true of the interplay between
that kind of government and those other, orthogonal governments called
multi-national corporations.  The point about a balance of power is that
there are both many enough and few enough players to permit the balancing
servo-mechanism to work.  The point about having power is that some things
should actually get done, despite countervailing forces.

I don't like unnecessary restriction and regulation, but I am sure that
the optimum is not at zero.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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