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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: freedom, democracy, etc
Message-ID: <452@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 10:52:49 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.452
Posted: Fri Jan 25 10:52:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Jan-85 05:21:48 EST
References: <630@wucs.UUCP>
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Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 71

> C > = carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
> Y > = Gary F. York
> R > = renner@uiucdcs (Scott Renner)
> 
> C > Libertarians also seem to think that freedom is merely the absence of
> C > coercion. ...
> 
> Y > Correct!  My dictionary thinks so too.
> 
> Mine doesn't.  Carnes's doesn't.
> 
> When the dictionaries disagree, we should take a look at ordinary usage.  
> People commonly say that, for example, having easily available transportation
> (a car, for instance) increases their freedom.  Are they misusing the word?
> You had better have good reason for saying so.  Oh -- and "it doesn't fit
> my ideology" won't do.
> 
> R > Abraham Lincoln couldn't buy a television set
> R > or ride a plane to Washington, and I can; was he less "free" than I?
> 
> You mean, do such opportunities increase our freedom?  Yes.  If you were not
> coerced or manipulated by others, yet were constrained by poverty, illness,
> and technological and cultural backwardness -- how free would you be?
> 
> C > Libertarians, beginners in the study of political philosophy, and anyone 
> C > who believes that "the absence of coercion" is the only meaning that may
> C > legitimately be attached to the term *freedom* (or *liberty*, which I am
> C > treating as synonymous), may wish to read the essay "Two Concepts of
> C > Liberty" in Isaiah Berlin's Four Essays on Liberty (not that I am in
> C > complete agreement with Berlin).  Berlin brilliantly delineates the 
> C > concepts of "negative" and "positive" liberty and traces their history 
> C > in political thought.  It is the positive sense that I am bringing into 
> C > the discussion and that is either ignored or dismissed by libertarian 
> C > thought.
> 
But it isn't really ignored by the Libertarians, it is a central point of
most of their arguments even though they refuse to admit it.  The major
thing most Libertarians seem to rail about is paying taxes.  Well, how
much of a "restriction of freedom" is paying out some money?  Paying
taxes does not restrict your travel, your right to free speech, your
right to set up your own press or any other civil liberty.  It doesn't
even restrict your right to spend the rest of your income on anything
else you want.  The only argument *against* paying taxes is that it
*reduces one's income* and therefore reduces one's freedom to spend
as much money as you might like on whatever.  But if *reducing* one
person's income *reduces* their freedom, then *increasing* another
person's income correspondingly *must* increase their freedom.
Logically then, if taxation merely represented a redistribution of
income so that it is more equal then taxation is neutral with respect
to any increase or decrease of freedom.  The reduced income and consequent
freedom to spend it taken from one person will be balanced by the
*increased* income and freedom to spend it given to another person.
*IF* we take freedom as the supreme value (which I do not) then
taxation as redistribution is morally neutral a priori.
Then arguments about whether taxation and redistribution may actually
*increase* or *decrease* everybody's income are in the realm of
economics, history and facts: *not* philosophically or logically apriori
to an examination of the facts.
It is certainly possible that taxation *may* decrease everybody's income.
On the other hand it is also possible that taxation as redistribution
may *increase* everybody's income (and consequent freedom to spend).
On the other hand taxation for collective projects which benefit everybody
may be coercive to the extent that some individuals are being forced 
to spend their income in ways they don't like.
However, if such projects (such as public education!!) prove to increase
*everybody's* income, including the most heavily taxed, then even
those most heavily taxed may windup with *more* freedom because of their
increase in income due to a more highly educated and skilled society.
These are problems of facts and history: *not* apriori philosophy!
  
  tim sevener    whuxl!orb