Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!scgvaxd!pertec!kontron!cramer
From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Hunger and the Free Market: re to Cramer
Message-ID: <375@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 17:22:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.375
Posted: Wed Jul 17 17:22:53 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jul-85 05:09:10 EDT
References: <446@qantel.UUCP> <454@qantel.UUCP> <293@kontron.UUCP> <377@spar.UUCP> <322@kontron.UUCP> <677@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 68

> > From Clayton Cramer: 
> > Study libertarianism as well.  The assumption is that people will work for
> > a living.  The example of history demonstrates that while free markets
> > don't guarantee that everyone will be well off, few people have starved
> > to death in free markets.
> 
> You have got to be *kidding* Mr. Cramer!  Go to Third World countries
> throughout the world and see how many poor people are *starving* while
> a landed aristocracy controls the vast majority of the land.

Mr. Sevener: Do you know what a free market is?  A free market is unheard
of in the Third World.  Most Third World governments distribute franchises,
licenses, and business permits to those with friends in high places.  (Try
Somoza's Nicaragua for a good example.)

A good example is El Salvador's land distribution.  In the 1880s, the 
El Salvadoran government decided that the "national interest" was to
promote large scale coffee farming, and since the land was broken into
parcels "too small" to profitably farm, the government required that
small parcels had to be sold to larger landholders.  Hardly a free
market action, and hardly the result of free markets.

> Right now in Brazil there is a big controversy because the newly elected
> democratic government has decided to institute a land reform program
> because there are *thousands* of *starving* (yes, starving Mr. Cramer)
> peasants who want desperately to work but have no land to till and no
> other job to do.  The *starving* peasants have no land because 45% of
> it (according to a Brazilian govt spokesperson) is owned by 1% of the
> population.  And they will not allow peasants to till this land although
> the owners do not use it whatsoever.  The Brazilian government has
> decided to redistribute such unused land to the peasants in return for
> compensation to its present owners.
>  
Land grants dating from the Portguese have a lot to do with; a land grant
from a king can hardly qualify as a free market action.

> I had meant to present this case previously for those Libertarians who
> support the "ownership by use" approach.  It would seem to me that
> this is an excellent example of unjust *and* unproductive ownership of
> wealth.
>   Who would support such a land reform program?
> 
When land ownership is the result of absurdities like the Spanish 
Conquest, I can completely agree that land reform makes sense.

> The basic point of this example is simply to point out that *there is
> no guarantee* that people will *not* starve in a free market.  In order
> for a "free market" to prevent starvation then there must some reasonable
> distribution of wealth in that free market.  Otherwise many people have
> no access to any means with which to participate in the market (namely
> the means of production)
>  
Free markets have reasonable distribution; the Third World is a good
example of the foolish of large scale government intervention in the
economy.

> In our own country such a situation was alleviated by the farsighted
> "Homestead Act" which provided 160 acres *if* it were farmed for 5 years.
> But even with our own large middle-class there were thousands of people
> in soup lines in our own country during the Great Depression.
> How many *starved* is difficult to tell.  But you can be sure many did.
>  
>      tim sevener whuxl!orb

My parents lived through the Great Depression.  While times were *extremely*
tough for them, they were unaware of people starving to death --- at least
partly because a lot of people who were still working helped out those
who were less fortunate.