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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism
Message-ID: <2815@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Nov-84 21:25:22 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.2815
Posted: Sat Nov 24 21:25:22 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Nov-84 04:05:47 EST
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Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA
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>      There is a difference between society, on the one hand, and
> government, on the other. Society exists whenever there is human
> interaction. Government, on the other hand, is an attempt by some
> group of individuals to control what interaction may occur.
> Government seeks to change the patterns that form society; if it
> succeeds, it will alter the form of society as a whole.

No, rather government is an attempt by a majority of individuals, acting
as a group, to form some system to regulate social interactions in some
ways.

>      For all that, government, like all human activities, is an activity
> of individuals (even though they may act in concert). It is an attempt
> by a group of people to shape society as they would have it shaped, to
> bend the pattern to their will- and to dictate to other individuals the
> ways in which they may interact, no matter how much they might wish to
> do otherwise.
> 
>      Many people, apparently including Mr. Rosen, say that government
> is the voice and representative of society as a whole, and that it
> may exercise prerogatives that that whole possesses. They believe that
> one owes the benefits one has accrued in interacting with others to
> create society to that creation itself, and that government, as its
> representative, is entitled to collect on that debt.

Not necessarily. Government is not formed because some people think that
it should collect on people's debt to society. Its function is purely
pragmatic -- society could not exist without government.

>      Mr. Rosen himself says "Democracy provides for majority rule...".
> If a government rules in the name of a group of individuals (the
> "majority"), then how can it claim also to rule in the name of society
> as a whole? Is it even likely that society, taken as a whole, has
> goals or desires from which to derive the decrees of government?

Yes, these goals are the natural ones of self-preservation and self-
improvement.  What is good for society is a difficult question which
I made some statements about in a posting a while ago...

>      Indeed, not only can government not truthfully claim to rule on
> behalf of society as a whole; it cannot even truthfully claim to
> represent "all the people". People have conflicting beliefs and desires.
> For any decision made by a government, many of the governed can be
> found who disagree; if no such could be found, there would be no need
> for a government decree. These people are forced to accept the decision
> and to act accordingly. This necessary coercive element in the operation
> of government should alone lead anyone interested in individual liberties
> to wish to severely restrict government involvement in human life.

You are right, but anybody who is interested in both individual liberties
and collective goods (like education) will take a long look at what
he is considering eliminating from government.

>      Mr. Rosen says that "Democracy... sets up rules governing how the
> benefits a society is supposed to provide get distributed...". But
> clearly the benefits of interacting with others are self-distributing;
> they accrue to those who interact beneficially. In fact, these benefits
> are no in essence provided by society at all; the interacting parties
> provide them to each other. By doing so, they CREATE society. All the
> government can hope to do is to decide who is to interact with whom
> and how (with or without the consent of the interacting parties), or
> to confiscate and possibly redistribute any material gain from the
> interaction.

Society without government is a probably better than no society at all
(no interaction between people). But when government is working
properly, it makes it much easier for individuals to interact in
productive ways. Some of this rests on the assumption that government
intervention in economics is sometimes good, which I don't want to
argue about any more, but such things as public education and the
judicial system are clearly cases of productive government regulation.

> If anyone on the net wishes to name a useful service, not involving
> interference with people's rights to self-determination, now provided
> by government, I'll be glad to propose a private alternative, either
> of my own or from the libertarian literature.

National defense, education, and police are a few that come to mind.
I can think of a lot more that are less obvious, like regulation of
consumer goods, control of the economy, amd so forth, that I'm not
so sure about and many of the people on the net would be very quick
to attack, so I won't propose them.

Another interesting point about libertarianism that I have noticed is
that it seems to be very anachronistic. In the 19th century, when
lassez-faire was the prevailing system, libertarianism would have
been right at home. But in the 20th century, every trend seems to be
away from this sort of philosophy. Communism is its absolute antithesis,
and it dominates half of the world, and the rest of the world is either
dictatorships or welfare states of varying degrees (I think that as
welfare states go, the US is about the most libertarian nation in the 
world). And yet, libertarianism still exists and seems to be growing
in the US. Is its day really past, in the modern world of communist
dictatatorships and welfare states, or will we experience a swing back
to small government?

	Wayne