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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism as ideology
Message-ID: <1024@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 02:52:47 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.1024
Posted: Thu Mar 21 02:52:47 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Mar-85 01:21:41 EST
References: <inmet.2042> <1467@dciem.UUCP> <834@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 51

> In article <1467@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes:
> >I think this failure of distinction may well lie at the root of
> >the philosophical differences between libertarians and the people
> >libertarians like to call "socialists."  Libertarians seem to regard
> >society as the sum of its people, whereas "socialists" recognize that
> >the *organization* of society itself contributes very strongly to the
> >benefits people get from society.

<mike replies:
> Martin makes the common mistake of confusing a collection of people with an
> entity that can act on its own.

(1) point of trivia:  The preferred libertarian term of derision is not
"socialist" but "statist", of which socialists are seen as but a subset.

(2)
A contention I have seen in libertarian writings is the one which appears
to the be the subject of this discussion; namely, that there is no such
thing as a "society", but only people.  I find that I must disagree with 
this statement, at least in so simple a form.  The problem is one of 
levels of description, and is a fairly common phenomenon in science (or
indeed religion or any other realm of discourse).  

Example:  I have a collection of transistors, capacitors, and so forth,
on the table in front of me.  I can describe it in terms of each component
and its relationship to each of the others; or I can describe it as a 
radio.  It is obviously false to say, "there is no such thing as a radio";
"radio" is a perfectly valid term to refer to a subset of all the possible
arrangements of electronic doohickeys.  The question of interest, however,
is not "do radios exist?" but "does the description of all the parts and
their relationships completely explain the radio?"  The answer is yes--
*on the level of components, voltages, frequencies, etc*.  We could even
go down a level  further and give a full--and complete--description of
what is going on at the quantum mechanical level (albeit a godawfully
complex one).

The point is that there is no effect or phenomenon which can be described
at the electronics level, say, which can be understood by a description
of the radio at the household appliance level better than by the 
(complete) description at the electronics level.  Indeed, usually when
you go "up" a level (ie a level which takes aggregates of the one "below"
as units) you *lose* descriptive power (to gain conciseness).

Similarly, a description of society as a whole or in terms of aggregates
is a perfectly valid way of talking.  And aggregate social entities do,
*at this level of description*, "act on their own". However, there is
nothing in an aggregate description of "society" that is not *better* 
explained by descriptions of individual actions, motivations, and 
relationships.

--JoSH