esk@wucs.UUCP (11/25/84)
[reply to frog!tdh as quoted by inmet!nrh] >***** inmet:net.politics / frog!tdh / [quote taken from article by nrh] >>>I have, of course, exaggerated here to make a point: it is difficult, >>>probably impossible, to measure the "net gain" or "net loss" of freedom. > [nrh] >>Then it is also impossible to say that such govt. activity would lower >>freedom. ... [pvt] > >It is typical of the mathematical but pseudo-scientific approach taken by >many economists and their followers Blow it out your tailpipe. > that measurement is confounded with >evaluation. I can say that this light is brighter than that light without >being able to measure either the brightness of either or the difference >between the brightnesses of both. But in case one is willing to argue that >a crude form of measurement is being used in making that judgement, there >are numerous examples where a comparison is made without measurement being >involved. David Hudson Fine. SO?? I don't know who you think you're arguing against, nrh@inmet or myself, but either way I don't see a whole lot of relevance to the point. nrh@inmet says that one can't say that a government interference increases net freedom. I pointed out that in that case, one can't say it *lowers* net freedom either. If your comparison-of-brightness example were analogous in that one could compare amounts of freedom in a like manner, then nrh's statement above would be wrong. Is that your point? Are you trying to say that while we can't *measure* net changes in freedom we can still *compare* amounts of freedom? Your original article did not arrive here; all I saw was what nrh@inmet quoted. Maybe I missed something? --Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's. Thanks.