Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory,net.legal
Subject: JoSH's "Statism"
Message-ID: <321@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 16:09:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.321
Posted: Thu Sep  5 16:09:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Sep-85 11:39:43 EDT
References: <535@brl-tgr.ARPA> <987@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 61
Xref: linus net.politics.theory:1053 net.legal:1923

In article <3476@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>Sometimes something is so simple that it can be hard to see it:
>What I want in the absence of a political system is, simply,
>the absence of any political system.

That last sentence CERTAINLY should go into net.politics.slogans .  JoSH,
the absence of something does not always imply the presence of something
else.  At least not to me.  Does a state of human nature such that no
political system is present exist?  Define your terms, please.

>It is really a good idea 
>at this point to go back and separate two questions which statists
>try hard to confuse:
>
>(a) what good do people derive from political systems?
>
>(b) why do political systems exist?
>
>Now it is easy to point to lots of specific benefits to specific people
>from any given political system, but it is much more difficult (indeed,
>I believe impossible) to show that people in general derive more
>benefit from political systems than detriment.

Term problem again:  what is "people in general"?  I don't understand
that it isn't just another slogan.

>On the other hand, it is easy to see why political systems exist:
>They form a stable state whereby one group holds power over society,
>and uses it to obtain benefits from the rest of society; because they
>benefit, they use the power to maintain the status quo, or rather 
>to increase the amount of control they exert.  A political system
>in a society is, simply put, a positive feedback phenomenon, and 
>will increase until the society begins to break down under its
>depredations.

Slippery slope madness, this.  To use power to maintain the status
quo does not mean to maintain the status quo, or to increase the
amount of control.

>To understand what a society without a government would actually
>be like, it helps to notice that the guys sitting in the legislature
>do not actually do anything but talk.  All the actual services,
>police, firemen, social workers, adjudicators, garbagemen in many
>places, and so forth, are merely hired help.  The legislature is
>only a decision-making mechanism which decides how many of who will
>be hired to do what.  The market forms an equally effective, and
>considerably more fair, decision-making mechanism for society.

"only", "equally effective", "considerably more fair":  all these
opinions are supposed to be obvious to the rest of us?  I recall
an Israeli sociologist who once asked a question at a talk, "Do
you know if 'effectiveness' exists in any language but English?"
I think he knew around 5 or 6 European languages.

What a load of slogans, this.

>
>--JoSH

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw