Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site teddy.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!teddy!lkk From: lkk@teddy.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis Message-ID: <1416@teddy.UUCP> Date: Thu, 10-Oct-85 17:49:04 EDT Article-I.D.: teddy.1416 Posted: Thu Oct 10 17:49:04 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 14-Oct-85 06:14:25 EDT References: <876@water.UUCP> <28200160@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry K. Kolodney) Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass. Lines: 265 In article <28200160@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: > > >If I understand you correctly, you're saying that "Your spending my >money in some arbitrary fashion does not count as dealing with >positive externalities, hence is not acceptable (unlike government >spending, which is acceptable because it IS dealing with >externalities)". Well, an interesting point. Unfortunately for you, >the government has no good way of limiting itself to doing good things. >I invite you, for example, to show me how the Viet-Nam war was a positive >externality opportunity, or how McCarthyism benefited us all in ways we >could not have been made to pay for. In short, I invite you to show that >government is a NET good (a tough task). To argue that it, unlike the >market, can take advantage of positive externality situations, or deal >properly with negative externality ones, is not enough. The fact is >that government does NOT limit itself to this, and does many bad things >as well. I can't PROVE that the govt. is a net positive force. But you can't prove that private enterprise is a net positive force either. I believe in a mixture of public and private enterprise, while you take the dogmatic position that *NO* public expenditure ever is a good thing. > >>>By the way, private space programs exist (although NASA dislikes them) >>>private nuclear research would be something I suspect you'd make illegal, >>>Harvard, MIT, and UCB accept money from the State, but could hardly be >>>termed (last I heard) wealth creators. My understanding was that >>>colleges depended (2/3'rds on average) on the Alum contributions. >> >>Totally irrelevant information. Private space programs exist by parasitical >>use of technology developed by NASA. > >Not relevant. There's no reason to think that private space programs NEEDED >NASA to develop the technology on their own. Left to their own devices, >private industry would surely have developed technology for dealing with >the space environment, just as private industry developed techniques for >dealing with the ocean environment. To argue that ONLY government could >do it because government did it FIRST is rather silly. > Oh be serious. Ship technology was developed by NAVIES. The amount of investment required for space and ocean ventures were *SO* great and risky that no one was going to put up the funds for a commercial venture. >>Forget about ACCEPTING money from the state Harvard, MIT and UCB were created >>by the state. MIT is land grant, Harvard was created by the Mass. Bay Colony >>govt., UCB is owned and run by the state. >> >>I don't know about the others, but MIT total budget is around $600 million, of >>which almost all comes from government funding. Perhaps they rely on alumni >>contributions for 2/3 of their educational costs, but those are relatively >>small compared to research. > >I called MIT to verify this interesting statistic. Here's a rough breakdown >of the MIT FY 85 projections. > >$717.1 million for FYI 1985 cost (how much it costs to run things) >$710.3 million rev (money coming in) > >Of that last figure: >$102.1 million tuition >$97.9 investment income, gifts, funds, etc. >$25.9 million, dining, dorms, etc. >485.4 million (sponsored reasearch, not all gov't) > Of that 485.4 million: > $225 million on campus research. > 80% of which is government sponsored > (DOE 55 million > DO Heath & human services, 40 million > DOD 38 million > NSF 34 million > industry 33.5 million) > > 260 million Lincoln Labs (off campus) > 100% government spending > >The source was Mr. Charley Ball, Asst' director of the MIT news office, > >Lincoln labs is run by MIT under contract from the government, but is not >a "part" of MIT. It's not on campus, as Mr. Ball puts it. > >Including Lincoln Labs, we have: (0.8 * 225 + 260)/717.1 = 62% paid >for by the Feds. > >Excluding Lincoln Labs (after all, that money is not going to >support MIT proper but Lincoln Labs, a research establishment of the >government) we have: > > 225/(717.1 - 260) = 49.2% > >This will certainly make me view with great interest future claims >by Larry that this or that is "almost all" supported by government. If you include GSL and Pell Grants and ROTC, the number is certainly greater than 50%. > >> >>Not to mention GSL, and Pell grants, and ROTC scholarships. >> > >Agreed, the government does these things -- but in the "I take your >money and do what I want" scenario, I can also give some of your money >to freezing little match girls, or use it to send friends of mine to >schools. Just because I do SOME good things with your money doesn't >excuse the fact that I stole it. This is just falling back on your bogus circular definition of theft. > > > > >Excuse me, but I'd like a little more evidence, please, that the folks >at the manor had to be forced to go to the city. The way *I* heard it >was that they went to the city because of superior opportunities there. >Of course, one may argue that certain aspects of life were better >on the manor, but it flies in the face of the fact that the people from >the farms evaluated things differently (else they'd have stayed on >the manors). Of course if the legitimate OWNERS of the manors kicked them >off, then where's your kick? If I decide that "by almost any comparison", >it's more pleasant to enslave you and live off your wages, you can >legitimately argue that it is not the NUMBER of possible comparisons >that matters, but their relative validity. Well, what do you mean the "legitimate owners" These "legitimate" owners were the royalty and nobility of England, whose ancestors aquired the land via war and conquest (i.e. "stealing" it). > >>POINT: No economic system has ever existed in a vacuum. It is always the >>result of certain power relations within a society. > >POINT: I'm not contesting that. An economic system must involve people, >and people must have power relations. Your statement is (so far) nugatory. > >>There has never in history been anything like your mythical free market. > >Now, Larry, didn't you just get through implying that Great Briton >WAS like this (although you had hold of the wrong end of things)? There has been no "natural" free market. They've always been creations of govts. > >>To create one, using the power of the state, would be just as arbitrary and >>coercive and creating any other system. > >Tsk! Not so. To have a state which merely refrains from coercion except to >prevent coercion is hardly as coercive as having a state that coerces >regularly and arbitrarily. The US constitution places limits on the >government's power to coerce (not very strong limits, but...) and hence is >a less coercive document (when instituted) than, say, the Code Napoleon. Since property rights at the moment were at some point determined by coercion, a laissez-faire government merely maintains, by way of force, the result of previous injustice. > >>The relations of power in society >>today have an historical basis in govt. interference. To withdraw the role of >>the govt. now would simply institutionalize certain arbitrary inequalities that >>exist today. > >Excuse me, but I doubt if that's true. It amounts to an acceptance of >the notion that only the rich get richer, and that they >don't sometimes get poorer. Simply not true. Sometimes they do, but it usually a surprise when it happens, even noteworthy. Horatio Alger's do exist, and the stories of their very rare occurances are always widely publicized to maintain the myth of hard work and determination being "all that it takes" > >> In particular, the use of >>>non-government-created money (such as gold) predates official money, >>>with (so far as I know) the first government inflation being that of >>>ancient Rome. >> >>Official money does not a govt. controlled economy make. (You seem to have >>this fetish with money). > >It does if it's enforced by the state. In France, at one point, there was >a death penalty for asking if you were to be paid in Silver or in paper money. >If the state may issue unlimited paper money, and execute people for not >taking it (for even ASKING about it) then you have a government controlled >economy in the same way that if I can kill you for publishing something I >don't like, we would then have a "Nat Howard" controlled press. This misses my point, which was that govt. controlled economies existed BEFORE money. I agree with the above paragraph, govt. printing of money certainly is a form of control. > >>How about govt. controlled agriculture in Egypt in >>5000BC. > >How 'bout those Red Sox? (What you hear me saying is that you're wandering). > Not at all. Egypt had the one of the first civilizations, and it was hardly a free market. >>In fact what differentiated "civilizations", in the early history of >>man, from mere roaming nomads, was the use of some "authority" to control >>agriculture (and thus commerce). > >True, but doesn't for a moment implied that government created commerce. It >would be like saying that "Government invented hatred", or "Government >created the you-cut-and-I'll-choose trick", or "Government created taking >turns". Government may abet these things, but it's rather silly to think >that government CREATED them. Of course there was small scale barter before govts. But because large scale investment requires a *stable* environment, *IT* was impossible without constraints on society. > >>>Government "controlled"? Why yes, that's quite true, but it doesn't >>>explain why the Chinese starvation dropped when their government >>>began allowing folks to sell crops privately. In short, you've confused >>>"controlled", with "aided". >> >> >>Non Sequitor (but what else is new). > >It's hardly a non sequitur. Your point was that government aids commerce, >that government is RESPONSIBLE for commerce. It would follow that greater >government involvement would mean better commerce, hence (and I'm assuming >we agree that better commerce means more prosperity) more prosperity. Huh? Of course govt. interference doesn't *always* help commerce. It, like any other planned endeavor, has to be done properly. Don't point out only the failures. >In China, it didn't happen this way, despite a very large degree of >government control over commerce. In fact, the degree of prosperity went >up when the Chinese government RELAXED its control, so I hand you >a counterexample, not a non sequitur. -- Sport Death, Larry Kolodney (USENET) ...decvax!genrad!teddy!lkk (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. - Helen Keller