From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 10:51 PM To: Anton Sherwood Subject: RE: [ba-liberty] Drugs: not a topic to make Libertarianism grow. > > > Unlike some, I am willing to use "libertarian" and "statist" > > > as relative terms. Repealing legislation is generally libertarian; > > > enacting more is generally statist. > > > > And repealing all legislation is generally anarchist. > > Straw man. The planks in question call for repeal of > specific harmful legislation, not all legislation. I didn't say the planks in question were anarchist, I said they were near-anarchist. What's more, you tried to justify them with a principle whose logical end is anarchism. Pointing out the implications of your position is hardly a straw man. > Would you say there are too few laws on the books now? No. > > > Well, you did say "Federal constitutional jurisprudence" > > > > Because you referred to the federal constitution. > > I said "(and Constitutional)". You used the word "Federal" before I > did. (If I misremember, please provide a specific quotation.) You used "Constitutional" before I used "Federal". I wrote on Jun 16: > > . . . The party should replace these near-anarchist > > (i.e. Constitutional) I'd love to hear an argument that Federal constitutional jurisprudence mandates the five LP planks I criticized. Got one? > I'm surprised at the claim that economists agree that collusion > can be stable. Certainly stable enough to cause market failure (i.e. inefficiency). > The burden is on new legislation: what's non-benign combinations > have you in mind? Obvious ones are pricing in airlines, petroleum, etc. In the mid-1990s I had an inside view of how hard we at Sun, HP, IBM, and AT&T's Unix System Labs (later sold to Novell) had to work to avoid collusion on our efforts to unify Unix. > Did "current federal antitrust policy" result from the repeal of laws > which empowered a simple majority of steel producers to compel their > competitors to join a cartel? No. So? > If a state can exist without legislation, then an anti-legislationist > need not be an anarchist. I believe it can In my book I define 'state' as "an organization of persons that has control and sovereignty over a particular region and the persons in it." American Heritage defines it as "the supreme public power within a sovereign political entity". 'Sovereignty' means "supreme power", and doesn't count as such if persons are allowed to opt out of the sovereignty's rules -- or if the sovereignty has no rules. > though I have no exact > example; I have in mind English common law . But wasn't English common law still in the context of a sovereign state? You shouldn't confuse the process by which laws arise with the coercive (i.e. legislative) nature of those laws. > (and `tribal' Germanic law before it), which was > largely (essentially?) custom formalized Yes, one of the biggest problems with anarcho-capitalism is that its existence proofs are so wanting. > > > > why not advocate > > > > that the party change its name from Libertarian to Anarchist? > > > > > > See above remarks on relativity. > > > > Since you've now said you're not a Libertarian, the question > > is moot. > > I wasn't the only anarchist in the Party. Seriously, do you think that 'libertarian' is a label that is better understood to mean anarcho-capitalist absolute anti-legislationism rather than market-oriented aggression-policing minarchism? I think your notion of "libertarian" as a relative term is just a rationalization for an obfuscating effort to hijack that label for anarcho-capitalism. If anarcho-capitalism is so wonderful, why call yourself "libertarian" and associate with us statist coercive scum? > > > > > Let others put up kinder-gentler-statist proposals, > > > > > there's no shortage. > > > > > > > > You can't deny there's a distinct shortage of serious minarchism > > > > in America. > > > > > > Indeed not. I deny a serious shortage of minarchist *proposals*, > > > let alone compassionate-statist proposals. > > > > The relevant metric is the amount of serious minarchism > > Non sequitur. But I'll drop it at that. Go ahead; doing so won't change the fact that the amount of serious minarchism in America is more relevant to a discussion of how to focus political effort than is some unspecified numerical census of "kindler-gentler-statist proposals". > > It's ludicrous to claim that all market-oriented policy > > proposals are equally subject to charges that the policy's > > supporter is merely self-interested. > > Is not! My earlier demonstration of unequal susceptibility to such charges is good evidence that you're wrong. > > > Currency: The world already partially enjoys a sort of anarchy: > > > in countries whose governments issue unreliable currency, people > > > use sounder currency instead. > > > > You can't use the existence of the dollar to argue against > > the existence of the dollar. > > Other examples (sorry I didn't think of them sooner) are gold and > cigarettes. In unsound-currency countries, you can bet that any use of gold or cigarettes (instead of dollars) is a wonderful source of inefficiency. > The use of the dollar overseas illustrates that a sound > currency need not be forced on people Not on all people; just on the people of the world's oldest democratic republic and only remaining superpower and largest ($10 trillion) economy. > > I'd insist on a working example from *21st* century Scotland > > or Massachusetts before removing one of the foundations of > > the ten trillion dollar American economy. > > You insist on seeing something that was finally legislated out of > existence so that inflation could finance the reconquest of Dixie. So? You either have good relevant empirical experience for private currencies, or you don't. > Sorry, I haven't got one handy. So I've noticed. > the forcible suppression of free banking proves that it > satisfied a market demand. What's stopping gold or cigarettes or airline miles or Yahoo Points or any other private currency from spiraling into popularity right now? Are the feds having to stamp these out left and right, and I'm just somehow not hearing about it? > > no counterargument to the ideas that anarchotopian > > protection rackets would be significantly different from > > real-life protection rackets, > > Look at real-life stateless societies. (One such is > discussed in some detail in Bruce Benson's of Law>.) Which one? Hunter-gatherer societies are often quite violent, with nasty cycles of revenge and reprisal. > One might argue that protection rackets can flourish only > where (a) the monopoly police are incompetent or corrupt > and (b) the victims are prevented from hiring or organizing > an alternate defense agency. Huh? My point is that "defense agencies" would behave like -- or be displaced by -- mafia-style protection rackets. If there were more money to be made by being a nice friendly anarcho-capitalist "defense agency" than in being a mafia family, then you can bet that e.g. one of the Five Families would have gone into the "defense agency" business and run the other protection rackets out of business. So again: what is your explanation for why the mafia has never behaved like nice friendly anarcho-capitalist defense agencies? > > or that Bill Gates would ever be > > accountable to anyone he runs over with his car. > > Tim Freeman (who lives in Sunnyvale) once said in a > similar context: "Omnipotent psychotic businessmen are > the downfall of every Libertarian > scheme, as well as every other scheme." Bzzzt. Gates (or better yet, Gotti) is not omnipotent, and both Gates and Gotti are far more deterred from casual murder under statism than they would be under anarcho-capitalism. Cute quotes like the above simply don't change this fact. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net