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From: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Libertarians in Space
Message-ID: <454@qantel.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 01:25:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: qantel.454
Posted: Fri Jun  7 01:25:24 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 21:33:07 EDT
References: <446@qantel.UUCP>
Reply-To: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Organization: MDS Qantel, Hayward, CA
Lines: 21


JoSH (josh@topaz) on differences between market vs. political transactions:

> Each is amenable to the same analysis, but people refuse to analyze
> the political process in the same light they do the market.  I suggest
> that you merely start with the same assumption:  that individuals
> operating in a political system will all try to maximize their
> self-interest.  Try it--I expect you'll be a libertarian by tomorrow.

Perhaps. But as I'm getting ready to turn in for the night, fully expecting 
to wake up a libertarian, I am still bothered by the shallowness of an analysis 
built on such assumptions. There are plenty of human impulses besides self-
interest; I am sure you can detect some of them in yourself and those around
you. This wild reductionist maneuver (declaring all other impulses irrelevant
to political analysis) is reminescent of the worst vulgar Marxists who, of
course, would substitute 'class interest' for self-interest. Otherwise, they
proceed toward the same intellectual paradise where everything can be
explained from first principles. 

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Gabor Fencsik         {dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca,proper}!qantel!gabor