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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: (micromotives & macrobehavior)
Message-ID: <1209@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Sep-85 19:44:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1209
Posted: Mon Sep  9 19:44:34 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Sep-85 04:56:51 EDT
References: <535@brl-tgr.ARPA> <987@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 35

> >[Mike Huybensz]
> >  But you have yet to produce
> >any evidence that the free market will provide a distribution of wealth that
> >will prevent starvation and disease among the poor.
------
> [JoSH]
> In a market the destitute (poor is a misnomer, it means someone who
> can eat but can't afford much more than that) must rely on the sympathy
> of others.  But anyone can help them.  In a socialism the destitute
> must rely on sympathy as well, but the only ones who can help them
> are the ruling clique, since the others have no say over the products
> of their labors.  But the ruling clique are not picked for their 
> sympathy; they are picked for their political opportunism and 
> cutthroat ambition.  Go peddle your ideology to dead Kulaks.
------
For the 987234567981616th time, or thereabouts, you [Josh] pretend (or maybe
believe, but even you can't be that stupid) that the only alternative
to Libertaria is Stalinism, which he calls socialism.  Whenever a criticism
of Libertarian utopia is voiced, you come up with totalitarian Communism
as the alternative, and procede to saddle the opponent of Libertaria
with the crimes of Stalin.  How utterly disgusting and dishonest!
Stop it.  Boy Josh, you make the leftist and socialist idealogues on
the net seem positively reasonable by comparison.  There are democracies
among the developed countries of the world, i.e, the U. S., Canada,
Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps a few I have
missed.  It is these countries that most of us hold forth as models
of the best you can do in an imperfect world.  Depending on our
politics, we may prefer ones with more government involvement (e.g.  Sweden)
or less government involvement (e. g. Switzerland) than in the U. S.
We realize that none of these places is perfect, but we like any of them
more than we do the Libertarian Utopia.  Stop bringing up the straw man
of socialism.  Mike Huybenz is no more sympathetic to Stalin then you are.
		A non-socialist, non-libertarian pragmatist:
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan