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From: tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu (Tom Tedrick)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Liberalism, Part I
Message-ID: <12309@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 18:29:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12309
Posted: Mon Mar 10 18:29:10 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Mar-86 01:06:59 EST
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Reply-To: tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Tom Tedrick)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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> [ ... ] Modern liberalism
>is in no sense an antithesis of classical liberalism, but rather a
>development of the same basic principles.  The basic idea, more or
>less, is that JUSTICE REQUIRES THAT A GOVERNMENT MUST TREAT ITS
>CITIZENS AS EQUALS, with equal concern and respect. [ ... ] 

This relates to my interest in corruption in political systems.
Since a large population is likely to exhibit a wide range of
abilities, intelligence, morals, etc., an attempt to treat
everyone as equal gives the more criminally inclined elements
of the population something to exploit (ie if certain rights
are guaranteed to all, the criminals can seek to exploit these
rights for personal gain, at the expense of those who will
voluntarily forgo personal gain for social welfare.)

Or it may force society to treat everyone "equally" badly in order
to guard itself against the criminal types.

So attempting to guarantee certain rights to all may in fact
be a kind of subsidy for the criminal types.

   -Tom
    tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu