NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/politics/libertar/3831

Text File | 1993-01-22 | 3.0 KB | 64 lines

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Path: sparky!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!emory!genie!starr
From: [e-mail] (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: child labor and minimum wage.
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 11:14:31 GMT
Lines: 53

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mike Huben) writes:
}In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
}>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mike Huben) writes:
}>|> Children and women in that era didn't necessarily have either a choice in
}>|> where or whether to work, what their wages were, nor were they entitled to
}>|> keep their earnings.  In most states, they were effectively owned by
}>|> husbands/fathers.
}>|>
}>|> These abuses (based on common law) were largely curtailed by government action.
}>
}>Yes, women and blacks have gained more of their natural rights in the
}>last 200 years.  Libertarians applaud that.  What's your point?
}
}Slavery and patriarchal families were common law "rights" driven by
}capitalism since antediluvian times, even in many cultures without states.
}They have NEVER been abolished except by state fiat creation of "rights"
}opposing them.  (There have been cultures where they were not profitable,
}and thus did not significantly arise.)
}The US government NEVER enslaved.  At worst, it started with common law.
}It never brought slaves here: that was entirely a free-market phenominon.

To claim that the US government has never enslaved is at best to be ignorant
of the fact that slavery consists in the denial of the right to the fruits
of an individual's labor.  At worst, it's lying.

See Spooner's Unconstitutionality of Slavery on the question of whether
slavery is in accordance with the common law.

To claim that the importation of slaves was a free-market occurrence is to
misrepresent the "free" part of the term "free market."

Huben, I've called you on this claim before, and you've never bothered to
address your error, making you guilty of intellectual negligence at best.

}The *people* forced OTHER PEOPLE to cease enslaving.  Slavery and patriarchial
}exploitation of family are things done by PEOPLE, not governments.

Not done by governments?  Bullshit.

There was
}nothing stopping those people from freeing their slaves and little stopping
}them from respecting the individual rights of their spouses and children.

In the case of Thomas Jefferson, there was: a restrictive covenant on his
inheritance.  He tried to get a statute banning slavery passed while he was
in the Virginia colony legislature, but failed.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
[e-mail]

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire