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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: More Economic Heresy
Message-ID: <20907@styx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Oct-86 00:30:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.20907
Posted: Tue Oct 14 00:30:07 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 08:02:44 EDT
References: <1204@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> <3660@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 29

In article <3660@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
> [...]  There is a very deep problem with this sort of [libertarian] 
> attitude; it is that it is simultaneously a free and a
> totalitarian doctrine, and therefore virtually guarantees revolution.  It's
> freedom is well-espoused.  It's totalitarian aspect, however, derives from
> the fact that demands certain ways of thinking, at the expense of any
> dissent.  It therefore is an ideological solution and not a political
> solution.  Marxism is essentially the economic argument against this sort of
> government; a libertarian government would be therefore uniquely vulnerable
> to Marxism, especially since the government would have to refuse to project
> the workers against the wealthy.

I think not, and believe that a libertarian society would be much
less prone to revolution and more tolerant of social and economic
experimentation. I think Mr. Wingate fails to apprehend what FREEDOM
really means: under a libertarian system, people would be perfectly
free to set up socialist subeconomies by mutual consent and if done 
without coercion. Workers unsatisfied with their employers could freely
organize, strike, organize boycotts, or raise capital and buy out their 
employer and run the business as a cooperative, collective, or under 
whatever bizarre profit-sharing method they may devise by way of contract.

A libertarian economy is best viewed as a pluralistic system; in the
macro sense it is inherently free-market capitalism, but in a micro
sense it can be whatever its members decide to cook up and agree to.

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb