Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!yale!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis Message-ID: <28200170@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 16-Oct-85 00:39:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.28200170 Posted: Wed Oct 16 00:39:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 05:35:05 EDT References: <876@water.UUCP> Lines: 399 Nf-ID: #R:water:-87600:inmet:28200170:000:18655 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Oct 16 00:39:00 1985 >/* Written 5:49 pm Oct 10, 1985 by lkk@teddy in inmet:net.politics.t */ >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. > Larry! No squirming! The point in question was that government's existence might be justified if it was shown to be the agency necessary to take advantage of positive externalities (or avoid negative ones). I don't need to prove that "private enterprise is a net positive force", because (though you may find it difficult to believe) I am not so much pro free enterprise as interested in freedom. If it turns out that this results in lots of free enterprise, fine. If a great many communes with free exit result, also fine. Please bear in mind that the forces of freedom from government don't propose to break down anyones door, send your young men off to war unwillingly, or tell you what to do with your life, but the forces FOR government have, at one time or another claimed that these things were necessary to pay "the price of civilization". What I'm curious about, and what I hope to get other people interested in, is just how good a deal we can get on civilization -- whether we need to do all, some, or none of these things. When I speak of freedom, remember: it is not the libertarians who wish to turn your livelihood over to a band of politicos, but the statists. I'm trying to engender skepticism. If government-types feel there is a need for their sort of organization, fine -- LET THEM MAKE THEIR CASE. If the IRS, the Draft Board, and the Public School system really need to exist, then let's have some proof, but in the ABSENCE of proof, (and in the presence of false proofs) people should have to pay for none of these things. >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. > Actually, I hold (among others) two dogmatic beliefs: 1) There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL) and 2) There's no reason to think that governments are smarter or nicer than the people who compose them. So to put it bluntly, Larry, I think that public expenditure is wonderful, fine, useful, and delightful, BUT a "public expenditure" always entails "public revenues" (that is, forcible taxation), and there's no reason to think that the tax money will be spent more wisely by politicos than by their constituents. >>>>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. I get it: "Er Admiral, a bunch of us folks were wondering what you people in the Navy do, seeing as how you don't have any marine technology". "Egad sir! THAT's what we'll do! We'll invent canoes, and barks, and so on and then...." I do not, of course, argue that navies didn't develop such technology. I hope it's clear from what I actually wrote, above, that private enterprise contributed to the development of such technology, and in some cultures (the old Icelandic, I believe) there was no central government to fund ship development, and rather rough-and-ready criminals did it. >>>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%. > Given that those need only amount to 0.8% of revenues, I wouldn't be at all surprised. But you didn't SAY "more than 50% of revenues were from the government. What you SAID was: >>>I don't know about the others, but MIT total budget is around $600 >>>million, of which almost all comes from government funding. In short, Larry, you published as unqualified fact something quite untrue. Sorry to rub your nose in it, but this sort of misinformation in support of governments is part of what makes me demand a rigorous demonstration ("rigorous proof" is certainly too much to demand) from those who would tax, enslave, war, and control. From those who simply propose to leave me alone, *I* am content to demand a less strenuous proof, because they are not asking me to put myself at their service. >>> >>>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. > I was just pointing out that because the government does SOME good things with the money it has, er, "appropriated", it doesn't follow that it has done as much good as would have been done by leaving the money in place, and that simply pointing out some good things doesn't imply that the total of those good things is greater than the good things done by people on their own. >> >> >> >> >>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). Hmmm.... A valid point. I certainly don't propose to defend the distribution of land in England at that point. You are squirming, though -- if you deny the legitimacy of governments to issue titles and recognize and defend land rights, you've certainly opted for a very libertarian society in some ways. Nope, you can't have it both ways. Either well-established governments (like that of England at the time of the Enclosure Laws may control resources such as land or they may not. If they may control such things, then what's your kick? They are doing what governments have always done, and if they do it by handing the power to nobles to do it, so what? It's still a government-sponsored operation. If, on the other hand, they HAD acted libertarian and divvied the land on the basis of claim and use, we STILL would have seen "younger sons" going to the city to take advantage of the greater opportunities there. >>>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. Is your life a "creature" of mine because I choose not to strangle you? >>>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. > Tsk! Typically static statist thinking. In a free economy, a fortune grows only by continuing to please others. If you simply took a lot of money (silver ounces, say) out of circulation and sat on it, you'd drive up interest rates for those lenders who were not so foolish. They would prosper. Their clients would (on average) prosper. You would have the world's most uncomfortable expensive seat. A *much* more common pattern is to use a fortune to get in good with government, and then use the government to aid your fortune. It may be that the greatest personal fortune in all of history (that of Hugo Stinnes) was amassed in this way. Libertarians (me included) are proposing to make this sort of conduct impossible; to force the rich to earn their keep by pleasing us and each other by denying them the easier, symbiosis-with-government trick. If this involves leaving some illegitimately-rich people rich a little longer, well, tough. I don't know of ANYTHING that doesn't do that (short of Pushing the Button). >>>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 occurrences are >always widely publicized to maintain the myth of hard work and determination >being "all that it takes" Tsk! Open your 1985 Information Please Almanac to page 48, and look at the chart called "per capita personal income"(PCPI). You will find that the figure for the year 1967 (the reference date for CPI) is $3,167. If you then look at the CPI index on the previous page, you'll find: 1940 1967 1983 PCPI 593 3167 11675 ---- --- ---- ----- CPI 42.0 100 297.1 which comes to: 14.11 31.67 39.30 Certainly the "average fellow" is getting wealthier, but this doesn't prove much about the poor getting richer, does it (after all, this increase in wealth might be all going to the top). Well, Larry, pull out the ol' dog-eared copy of "Losing Ground" by Charles Murray, and look at page 65. You will notice a there a graph of "Percentage of persons living under the poverty line" vs year. The graph of "official poverty" from 1950-~1970 is pretty much steadily downward, showing about 30% below the poverty level in 1950 to about 13% in 1969 or so. What happens after that is for Murray to say, but the point is that poverty has also been on a pretty steady decline (or at least it was until fairly recently -- read the book). The point of all this is that it is NOT surprising when the poor get richer. It *IS* surprising when the poor become rich, but not when they simply become better off. In fact, it is surprising when they do not. So it is again untrue that it is "a surprise when it happens, even noteworthy". >>> 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. Perhaps. I invite you to establish such a claim -- it would be very difficult to show. At any rate I doubt very much we would see "government" and "money" as the same things that were their very early precursors, so the point may be moot. >>>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. So? Does this mean there was no trade before Egypt? Difficult to believe. >>>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. > By this logic, large-scale trade between nations is impossible. So why is it that we have this deficit with Japan? >>>>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. A good point. I admit my error. >>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. >