NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/sci/econ/6811

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-13 | 3.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!pacbell!oracle!pyramid!pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com!pcollac
From: [e-mail] (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Aug 92 22:35:53 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.
Lines: 58

>
>From article <[e-mail]>, by
[e-mail] (Mike E. Romano):
>>
>> There has never been any society in history which has even come close
>> to a "libertarian" system.
>> Libertarians fantasize that as soon as one becomes a business owner,
>> one is by definition holy, saintlike, etc.
>> The Business Owner will never take advantage of his employees.
>> The Business Owner would never ever think of polluting the environment.
>> The Business Owner is never greedy and would never participate in
>> consumer fraud, embezzlement, insider trading, or any of those nasties.
>> Therefore government is not necessary.
>
>I think it's a little more complicated than that, and I think some
>Libertarians will mail or post to tell you so.  It isn't that all
>business owners are saintly.  It's that there are enough alert
>consumers so that no business owner could get away with cheating them,
>and the only reason any business owners seem to cheat now is that
>government regulations confuse the issues.
>
>
I hope Libertarianism has a little more to it than that.  I knew a guy who
cheated "locally" and kept moving in such a way that the information really
couldn't catch up with him.  A few years later I came across him again.
Sure enough, he was up to his cheating ways, only he had moved from coast
to coast, and had found a new set of suckers.

Remember, there are new ones born every minute.  Ignorance is real, it
afflicts each of us, hopefully not permanently.  Therefore information has to
cross generations.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.  As a child of
the mid-sixties and the Vietnam War I just assumed that the old poster
about 'them' holding a war and having no-one show up would speak to
everyone as it spoke to me.  Wasn't I surprise to see a whole new
generation of young people eager to go to Iraq.  Whatever truth that I
believed was contained in the words of that poster certainly didn't make it
to the "next" generation.  (Maybe it is just me, but you get the point.)

If you want to argue that in a real, but non-deterministic sense the
consequences of man's actions will eventually catch up with him, then you're
talking a more generalized kind of doctrine which is usually known as the
law of "Karma", and yes, I agree that the law of Karma is always binding,
but this is really a very different matter.

Also, your point is ,in part, self-contradictory since it postulates
an alert set of consumers who seem especially prone to losing their
perceptiveness when faced with government confusion.  Would you please
tell me why government confusion is any more confusing than regular
confusion, and why alert consumers suddenly become un-alert when faced
with it?

If you wish to make the case the government intervention can be
self-defeating, I agree.  If you are trying to make the case that
government intervention must of necessity be self-defeating, I say,
"Why?"

Paul Collacchi