Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!cca!inmet!janw From: janw@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Laws of Libertaria Message-ID: <28200594@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jan-86 03:05:00 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.28200594 Posted: Mon Jan 13 03:05:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 22:33:52 EST References: <28200585@inmet.UUCP> Lines: 57 Nf-ID: #R:inmet:28200585:inmet:28200594:000:2985 Nf-From: inmet!janw Jan 13 03:05:00 1986 [Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh] >> Other relevant points are: >> - Moral power is a kind of power too, and often proves decisive. >> - No large group of people is powerless. >> In particular, pollution victims, if numerous, have both numbers and >> moral high ground. They have *many* ways to compel attention. >Fine. I'm Joe Miner And Smelter Owner, the major polluter of your valley. >My products are sold primarily outside the range I pollute. Go ahead, >how are you gonna compell me? I laugh at your "moral high ground", and >if you try to coerce me, I'll righteously set my rent-a-cops on you. Sorry, Joe. Mike is giving you some terrible advice. Never laugh at moral high ground. (Mike is smart, but I suspect he simply doesn't like tycoons like you). When reporters ask you about a deformed baby born last month in Toxic Valley, *don't* snicker. Mumble something about statistical deviation and that you have funded a commission of inquiry, etc. Play for time, Joe, but don't expect too much - it won't blow away, the Valley people won't let it. Use the time for negotiation. Other tycoons spend billions on their image, Joe. Don't blow yours with a smirk. Moral power got Britain out of India and Jim Crow out of America. It is to be taken very seriously. The reason is this: it is a *catalyst of coalition*. Power is a coalition game. Coalitions can be built slowly with diplomacy and bargaining. These are fragile things and need to be constantly maintained. But much stronger coalitions arise much faster over a moral issue, sometimes one little case (Watergate, Dreyfus affair). People in Toxic Valley may not be among Joe Smelter's customers or suppliers or neighbors or anyone he deals with directly. But pollution is a world-wide problem, and there *is* a powerful coalition around it. Combination of interests is the reason the Valley dwellers get any justice *now*. What else is there ? Their vote ? Nation wide, not very important, and Joe's senator is not theirs. And how did they get the vote in the first place ? Why did territories become states; why votes for women, the poor, the blacks, the immigrants? Because people have power *be- fore* they have vote; better have them inside the system than outside. Also because some people inside the system want them in. Both factors don't arise from political institutions: they *pre- cede* and *shape* these institutions. Joe Smelter is better off right now - he can point to a regulato- ry body and refuse to deal with anyone else. Until his enemies *prove* he controls his regulators (a hard thing to do), all the forces of government are on his side. He does not *need* rent-a- cop, he's rented the whole police force. The only way he can mine and smelter undisturbed in Libertaria is under protection of a law respected by others. In practice that means agreeing to some arbitration procedure. Jan Wasilewsky