Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Laws of Libertaria Message-ID: <905@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-Jan-86 17:44:17 EST Article-I.D.: cybvax0.905 Posted: Thu Jan 23 17:44:17 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jan-86 09:46:28 EST References: <28200585@inmet.UUCP> <28200594@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 78 Summary: In article <28200594@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > > [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. Jan, you've just cut your own argument out from under yourself. Of course Joe Owner is going to lie through his teeth and defuse the "moral high ground" while laughing behind everybody's back. There's no lack of actual examples of that sort of behavior: and it works. So much for moral high ground. > 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. In an earlier note you made the distinction between power and mechanisms for transmission of power. "Moral power" is actually an exceedingly inefficient mechanism for transmitting numerical power. It worked in India because of the absurd ratio of British to Indians. It wasn't responsable for the abolition of Jim Crow: that was due to a VERY FEW politicians making the very efficient mechanism of the federal government enforce the majority opinion upon a quite large minority. > 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. If there is a regulatory body, Joe Smelter has to worry about who really controls it. In our current system, one community can make an awful stink about a regulatory agency not performing its job correctly. In Libertaria, Joe would belong to the Industrialist's Government, while the people in the valley might belong to the Environmentalist Government (among others.) Why should the Industrialists negotiate with the Environmentalists when they are sitting pretty? The industrialists would have more money because only people actually worried about suffering from pollution would pay the environmentalists. It would make sense for the industrialists to break the credibility of the environmentalists so that they never have to negotiate. Make them look helpless by not negotiating, and smash them if they try anything physical. If the startup costs for a powerful organization are large, a stitch in time will save nine. This is the same principle by which unions were often denied entry into industries until the federal government intervened. > 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. No, he simply needs to be more powerful than they. Then he writes his own law. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh