Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!rutgers!clyde!cuae2!ihnp4!UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU!fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Reply to Rich Cowan
Message-ID: <12254913060.42.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 14-Nov-86 13:48:01 EST
Article-I.D.: RED.12254913060.42.MCGREW
Posted: Fri Nov 14 13:48:01 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Nov-86 00:48:42 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 70
Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu


I usually like to limit the number of postings on a particular
issue to three, (posting, rebuttal, and reply), so that the net 
doesn't get bogged down in long debates that people quickly
lose interest in.  However, since Rich took the time to carefully
respond to my posting, I guess I'll do the same.

Rich writes that large institutions are the principal source
of injustice in America, and believes that libertarian ideas
fail to address this.

>> Me
> Rich Cowan (COWAN@xx.lcs.mit.edu)
Me

> ...  I want to recommend three books:

> 2)  Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders" (This one, I haven't 
>     read, but I think it's on advertising.)

It is, and I have read it.  It deals with "subliminal seduction";
advertising techniques that attempt to manipulate the subconscious.
If the topic arises, we can discuss this too.

> ... people's actions are constrained by the
> institutions with which (and within which) they interact.

Absolutely,  although I'd phrase it as "people's actions are
constrained by and themselves constrain the actions of other
people".  

> if you grow up in America today, you will likely be pushed into 
> providing lots of unnecessary goods and services for the 
> consumerist society, or weapons to protect the consumerist society,
> or research to justify the weapons industry.  But what's wrong with
> that?

C'mon, Rich.  Just what are 'unnecessary goods'?  Unnecessary as in 
'unnecessary for survival'?  As in 'shouldn't be produced?'  In whose
opinion?  Yours?  Mine?  The State Office of Industrial Production?
Your view of soceity seems reasonably consistent, but I don't think
you've thought about it enough.  Why is it so difficult for you to
conceive of people having notions of value different from yours?
Isn't it true that if every (or even most) consumers in America
believed as you do, then all these 'unnecessary' goods would just dry
up an blow away?  Their very persistence suggests that your notion of
'necessary' is hardly universal.

You seem to be saying that here in America we're being manipulated by
these large "institutions" into unproductive economic activity.  You
would probably cite as evidence our consumption of toothpaste in a
pump, cheese flavored dog food, VCR's, and microwave ovens.  Such
gross manipulation is, of course, possible, but I don't think it is
correct.  What is instead happening is exactly what you'd expect when
free human beings are allowed to interact economically: you get a wide
range of goods and services.  Furthermore, *every* person will find at
least some of them useless and unnecessary.  That's part of what
living in a free society is all about.

I understand your point of view quite well; I'm very familiar with
Galbraith's views on the "consumerist society".  I don't think you
understand mine, describing what the results of a large, diverse group
of persons interacting economically might be.  I'd ask that you think
carefully about the problem of determining what goods are 'necessary'.
There's only one mechanism for doing this compatible with a very
basic, natural definition of human liberty, and that's the free
market.

--Barry
-------