Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism and the Police Message-ID: <7800338@inmet.UUCP> Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 02:22:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.7800338 Posted: Tue Jun 11 02:22:00 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 02:47:50 EDT References: <55@umcp-cs.UUCP> Lines: 85 Nf-ID: #R:umcp-cs:-5500:inmet:7800338:000:4251 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jun 11 02:22:00 1985 >/**** inmet:net.politics / umcp-cs!mangoe / 10:52 am Jun 8, 1985 ****/ >In article <1340170@acf4.UUCP> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes: > > >>> . . . I've seen peasants (that's what they >>>call them) being beaten up in the street by bourgeois business men >>>because they tried to sell them a box of Chicklets. > >>In a libertarian society such behavior would be against the law, of >>course. > >Of course? How? I suggest you take the advice in Sykora's next paragraph (learn!) by reading "The Machinery of Freedom", by David Friedman, which contains a well-thought-out description of libertarian police and courts. Interestingly, Friedman's discussion assumes no central government for police functions. > >> Libertarianism is against gov't involvement in other than >>defense and police activties only. Next time you post something >>about libertarianism, try to learn just a little bit about it >>first. > >But your teaching is soooo instructive. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.) You will find that your local libertarian party (sometimes hard to find in the case of small ones) has pamphlets available. >The first statement in this paragraph is tantamount to a tautology. The >only way I can make it read otherwise is to take it to mean that they want >all the regulatory functions of the government removed. Magically, they >believe that the free market will pick up these functions. Do YOU believe in magic, Charley? You seem to: a few lines hence, you argue that the problem with independent drug testing is that there's no way for a consumer to know that the drug company hasn't bribed the tester. And yet, you seem to assume that this is some improvement over the situation where the consumer doesn't know that the drug company hasn't bribed the government! Is the government "magically" protected against bribery? If not, how is the "independent testing" function different if done by government than by independent labs? It's worth noting that in a libertarian society, a mendacious laboratory would (besides losing business) be liable for fraud. Of course, in OUR society, the federal government is not liable to suit unless it DECIDES to be. >Well, I must >ask, who IN PARTICULAR is going to do it? A company which (for instance) is >testing the purity of drugs will not be paid for by the manufacturers, >because it represents a cut in profits. Insurance premiums represent a cut in profits. Do you think the drug companies will have no insurance? Lack of public confidence in the purity of your product represents a lack of sales, and thus a loss in profits -- do you think they'll take no measures to convince the public? If XYZ aspirin company is unable to convince distributor's associations, consumer reports, and others that their product is on the level, they'll have trouble selling it. If, at the same time, ABC aspirin comes out with endorsements from the AMA, the European equivalents of the FDA, Consumer's Union (although they do not allow re-publication of their materials), and a few widely-respected forensic labs, they'll sell more than XYZ, which (so far as anyone knows) is selling snake-oil. >It will not be paid for by the >ultimate consumers, be cause they cannot afford it individually; moreover, >they are not in a position to check that (for instance) the testing company >is not being brided by the manufacturer. Go to the back of the class. Consumer's Union regularly tests the operational characteristics of everything from toothpaste to automobiles. Your argument holds as true for those items as for drugs, and yet here we have a private association doing it EVEN THOUGH the government exists and enforces (for example) a certain sort of accuracy in mileage testing. If you KNEW that no government stood between you and rapacious abusers, wouldn't YOU make a point of checking your purchases, or shopping at stores (or chains) that you trusted? One of the reasons that Sears is a popular place to shop is that you can be sure that THEIR quality-assurance people looked over the tools they sell. Before people got the curious idea that the government should concern itself with such things, it was a major function of such chains to assure quality.