rpk@mit-vax.UUCP (Robert Krajewski) (07/15/84)
[I have moved this discussion into net.politics]
From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP
It always seemed to me that
objectivist/libertarian/what-have-you
philosophies claim the "I am the best judge of
what's best for me" notion as the foundation of
their beliefs. Unfortunately, where what's best
for them may interfere with what's best for (or
what's chosen by) other people, their "what's
best for me" ideals still win out, rather than
invoking reason and compromise to best work out
things with other people around them.
Certainly people are entitled to their own judgement. What makes one system
of government (or lack thereof) different from another are the constraints in
the interactions of people when they try to do what they think is best for
themselves. Libertarianism as construed in its modern American sense has
constraints, though probably not as many state socialism or a progresive
mixed economy. Fascism, in a sense, has almost no constraints in the sense
that individual action has no meaning; only the state is a moral entity. Law
and order in a fascist state is a mechanical problem and not a legal one.
Anarchy seems to have no constraints, but there are many self-regulating
entities that have many constraints. Libertarians search for or espouse a
set of constraints that will allow people to try to get what they want
without violating each others rights.
Immediately, one can raise two objections. If you say there is no such thing
as a right, you will have to explain why you'd want a government at all,
unless you think, cynically, it's the best way to keep the masses or misfits
or eggheads or chronically competent under control, and comfortably
constrained and exploited (though perhaps not harshly). And a lot of people
have taken exactly that route. The other approach is to try to get people
what they want, violating those acknowledged rights now so that everybody
will be deleriously happy later on, when the Ten Year Plans and breeder
reactors are all finished.
It also seems to me that such people are quick to
point out their rights without acknowledging the
fact that they have to share the world with other
people. ("I can drive 80 on this road if I want
to. So what if it's just a two-lane dirt road!
*I* know what *I'm* doing! If someone else in
front of me is going too slow, I'll cut around
them!! Who cares if their money paid for these
roads, too?")
No matter who owns the road, I don't have the right to run you off it, or to
endanger your life in any way. I'd like for you to produce a tenet that says
you can. Proprietors of roads, both public and private, set rules for using
them because they are more useful that way, and thus will attract more
customers (at least in the private turnpike case). Actually, a state could
let everybody run wild on the roads and theoretically not make them safe.
In your example, is anybody liable for what happens ? What exactly stops
somebody from commiting crimes ?
Actually, statist approaches have historically been antagonistic to the kind
of ``reason and compromise'' that you so admire. For example, the highway
system in the United States is falling apart. For now, let's assume it's not
in the best interests of the users of those roads, who are also taxpayers, to
let this happen. Then why has it ? Because the government has crowded out
the private sector, or even ``incentives'' or fees related to the usage of
the resource, to provide feedback on a resource. Trucks are the most
punishing vehicles to the road system nowadays, and yet they don't pay their
share of the maintenance costs. Now, one may argue that this situation is
merely an administrative problem irrespective of the econmic structure of
transportation, but it is the statist approach itself that encourages the
free rider problem. There is no mechanism attaching costs to users; there is
merely the hope that people will selflessly not abuse a resource. Thus, to a
libertarian, it is puzzling why a ``Tragedy of the Commons'' example is an
indictment of the price system of allocating a resource. It would seem to be
a lesson that one cannot run a system for long if those who use it the most
(thus taking up more of it) are allowed to do not bear a fair share of the
costs.
I am more of a capitalist libertarian that a communitarian (that's communist
libertarian, actually, but I feel the word has been abused), but reading
communitarian tracts has forced to rethink problems about community and
economic externalities. In particular, I don't think that certain basic
resources are going to be any easier to manage in a market system. State
approaches tend to pit various social groups against each other, and
encourage them to make the state more powerful, so they can control it for
their interests. There is something to be said for an unforced sense of
community.
--
``Bob'' (Robert P. Krajewski)
ARPA: RpK@MC
MIT Local: RpK@OZ
UUCP: genradbo!miteddie!rpk
or genradbo!miteddie!mitvax!rpkmwm@ea.UUCP (07/24/84)
#R:mit-vax:-250100:ea:10100067:000:1384
ea!mwm Jul 23 18:59:00 1984
I didn't pick on this the first time around, but now...
From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP
It also seems to me that such people are quick to
point out their rights without acknowledging the
fact that they have to share the world with other
people. ("I can drive 80 on this road if I want
to. So what if it's just a two-lane dirt road!
*I* know what *I'm* doing! If someone else in
front of me is going too slow, I'll cut around
them!! Who cares if their money paid for these
roads, too?")
Look at this from the other side: It's 5 AM, and I'm on a divided highway
in southwestern deserts. Is there any good reason for me not to drive
80 (or more), other than it being illegal? That would be a libertarian
viewpoint. The one you picked on isn't a libertarian viewpoint, it's
*crazy*.
You *can* have a libertarian-style system on the roads. The Europeans
(I know the Germans & a few others are, I'm not sure if everybody in europe
is doing this) have a speed limit that says "safe and reasonable". Have
you ever seen somebody drift two lanes on a shallow curve (~30 degrees)
in town? Or been passed by a BMW like you were standing still, even though
you were doing 85? These are (or were when I was there) regular events
in Germany. They still managed to have a lower per-capita & per-auto
accident rate than the US.
Doesn't that tell you that we are doing something wrong?
<mikewetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (07/26/84)
How many times does it have to be repeated that West Germany has a HIGHER ratio of accidents than the US. The ratio is higher by 4 times the US rate. The myth of safer driving in West Germany is just that, a myth. These statistics that everyone likes to throw around about West Germany are nothing more than holdovers from the 1950s when there was very few autos that could get up to 80 mph. The drivers over there may well take a libertarian view of their driving, but it doesn't last long as they are being scrapped off a bridge abuttment. If that's the attitude the libertarians take, then I say they are wrong. To say you have the 'right' to kill yourself is infringing on my liberty in that I have to pay my hard earned cash to send out the rescue squad, repair crews, and police to pull your body out of the mangled wreckage which just happened to take out 60 feet of guardrail and a lampost before bending the hell out of two signs. I don't want to hear any specious arguments about how good a driver a libertarian is, they are no different than anyone else and can lose control of an automobile just as easily as the rest of us. Libertarian arguments about driving fast are when they want to are stupid. They seem to imply that libertarians are better drivers than everyone else. It just ain't so. T. C. Wheeler
mac40@ihuxw.UUCP (mac40) (07/26/84)
In reply to (Doesn't seem like were doing something wrong?)! Not necessarily! You indicate that the GERMANS have a less per-captia or per-auto accident rate than the US. Does this reflect the difference in the amount of miles driven by the average driver in each country? I believe not! I believe the average miles a car is used in the US is around 20,000 mile per year. Is this higher or lower in Europe? I believe it is lower! I know many Europeans take advantage of public transporation (i.e. Trains) regularly! It would be interesting if a stat could be provided to reflect the accident rate per miles driven. Wouldn't that be a better stat? John Mac Namara, AT&T Bell Labs, IX
keller@uicsl.UUCP (07/29/84)
#R:mit-vax:-250100:uicsl:21700001:000:2520 uicsl!keller Jul 29 14:54:00 1984 What libertarian drivers do... ...obey the contract! Two keystones of libertarian thought are property rights and contractual obligations. For the driving example you are obliged to maintain your part of the bargain, as a driver, with the owner of the road. Thus the speed limit is set by the owner and as we all live it that limit is 55. (Ha ha, who goes 55? Try driving 55 on some roads and you'll be run over.) Now for an anecdote. My wife and I were driving to Pittburgh on I-70 when we hit a huge pot-hole somewhere in WVA. The impact dented the alloy wheel and caused a quick deflation of the tire. It was after sunset and raining and the hole was just after the top of a hill. It was impossible to see before you hit it. We pulled over to the side behind another car that had hit the hole a little while before. They were replacing the front left wheel just as we were going to do. We were there for about 45 minutes mostly because we helped another person who hit the hole after we did. While we were there no fewer than 5 cars hit that hole and had to change a tire. Later we wrote a letter to the federal highway administration and got a response saying that they had forwarded our letter to the WVA highway department. We wrote a letter to our insurance company about the road condition and didn't get a reply. This incident ended up costing us $200 and the insurance company another $100. (Alloy wheels are expensive.) You may have noticed that most toll roads are in good condition and that some interstates are in very poor condition. I believe that there is a strong conection between the condition of the road and the way in which you pay to use it. Tolls, being a direct use fee, seem to go directly to maintenance. But gas tax money goes somewhere in Washington and is seldom heard from again unless it is to be used at the whim of someone like fat old Tip. If any of you have heard of the estimated cost of rebuilding America's roads and bridges you will know that there is no way in hell that the government has enough money. No doubt the cost is inflated greatly by the governments usual waste. Now suppose that roads were privately held and that the ICC and FTC and ??C didn't exist (or were so small that you never heard of them) and that there was no tax on fuel and that the railroads and highways and airports and airlines all worked at free-market efficiencies, why then you might have passenger trains running everywhere, and nice highways, and cheap gas. It'll never happen. -Shaun
mwm@ea.UUCP (07/31/84)
#R:mit-vax:-250100:ea:10100071:000:778 ea!mwm Jul 31 15:40:00 1984 /***** ea:net.politics / ihuxw!mac40 / 5:57 pm Jul 26, 1984 */ I know many Europeans take advantage of public transporation (i.e. Trains) regularly! It would be interesting if a stat could be provided to reflect the accident rate per miles driven. Wouldn't that be a better stat? John Mac Namara, AT&T Bell Labs, IX /* ---------- */ Yes, it would. But the Germans using more public transportation than us would seem to be them doing something right that we aren't. TC Wheeler indicates that my stats on driving are out of date. He may be correct, but my experience indicates otherwise. I'll try and find more up-to-date figures, and maybe more applicable figures: per passenger mile, *including* public transportation seems to be the most apropriate to me. <mike
bprice@bmcg.UUCP (08/03/84)
> The myth of safer driving in West >Germany is just that, a myth. > The drivers over there may well take a libertarian view >of their driving, but it doesn't last long as they are being >scrapped off a bridge abuttment. If that's the attitude the >libertarians take, then I say they are wrong. To say you have the >'right' to kill yourself is infringing on my liberty in that >I have to pay my hard earned cash to send out the rescue squad, >repair crews, and police to pull your body out of the mangled >wreckage which just happened to take out 60 feet of guardrail >and a lampost before bending the hell out of two signs. > Libertarian arguments about driving fast are >when they want to are stupid. >T. C. Wheeler Those of us who are libertarian would have just cause to take anger at Wheeler's blatant misrepresentation of libertarianism. TCW does blunt that anger a little by "If that's the attitude the libertarians take...". If that were the attitude that libertarians take, most of us who are now libertarians wouldn't be--the libertarian attitude also says that TCW's postulated infringement is very wrong. The essence (meaning 'ultimate nature' rather 'smell') of libertarianism is simply personal responsibility. This includes the responsibility not to try to make you pay for the rescue squad, etcetera. Instead, the libertarian view requires that I may some arrangement to scrape my own body off the abutment, if I'm going to put it there. Failing to do so would give the cleaneruppers a cause of action against my estate--it would still be my posthumous responsibility. To the libertarian, the evil in TCW's hypothetical lies in his assumption that it is somehow right that I be deprived of my responsibility--any responsibility. To steal my responsibility is to steal much of the essence of my life--and that, my friend, is unarguably evil. There is another discussion going on about biased reporting. Is TCW's lack of understanding a result of the misrepresentations that we have all seen, misleading many about the nature of libertarianism in particular and politics in general? -- --Bill Price uucp: {decvax!ucbvax philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice arpa:? sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc
howes@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (08/03/84)
>>Now suppose that roads were privately held and that the ICC >>and FTC and ??C didn't exist (or were so small that you never heard of them) >>and that there was no tax on fuel and that the railroads and highways and >>airports and airlines all worked at free-market efficiencies, why then you >>might have passenger trains running everywhere, and nice highways, and cheap >>gas. >> >>-Shaun That seems like a non-sequiter to me. As I remember, the railroads *used* to be privately owned and the government stepped in because they were attempting to dump off their passenger traffic as they couldn't make a profit on it. I believe that the railways which provide the best service are historically state-run. Deregulation of the airlines, while bringing down prices on the most competitive routes, has jacked up prices for the less popular routes (like from Raleigh-Durham to everywhere.) How in the world do you have a non-monopolitic road system? Do various private owners set up competing roads along the same routes? Seems to me we'd be living on the world's largest concrete slab if that were the case! -- Byron Howes UNC - Chapel Hill ({decvax,akgua}!mcnc!unc!howes)
rf@wu1.UUCP (08/06/84)
An anarchistically maintained and build road system is likely to
be quite a bit like Usenet. Picaresque, but unreliable.
Randolph Fritz
UUCPnet: {ihnp4,decvax}!philabs!wu1!rf
"Sirronde stared at the Goddess. 'Are You saying, then, that You were
wrong to make heroes?'
"'Indeed not,' She said. 'But I should have warned them--if you save
the world too often, it starts to expect it.'"
(Diane Duane, *The Door into Shadow*)nrh@inmet.UUCP (08/07/84)
>***** inmet:net.politics / unc!howes / 11:43 am Aug 4, 1984 > >That seems like a non-sequiter to me. As I remember, the railroads *used* >to be privately owned and the government stepped in because they were >attempting to dump off their passenger traffic as they couldn't make a >profit on it. Your memory is correct, but hardly supports the idea that private railroads were unable to provide good passenger service: As the campaign against the railroads mounted, some farsighted railroad men recognized that they could turn it to their advantage, that they could use the federal government to enforce their price-fixing and market-sharing agreements, and to protect themselves from state and local governments. They joined the reformers in supporting government regulation. The outcome was the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887.... The real threat to the railroads arose in the 1920s, when trucks emerged as long-distance haulers. The artificially high freight rates maintained by the ICC for railroads enabled the trucking industry to grow by leaps and bounds. It was unregulated and highly competitive..... .... The increasingly rigid rules prevented railroads from adjusting effectively to the emergence of automobiles, buses, and planes as an alternative to railroads for long-distance passenger traffic. They once again turned to the government, this time by the nationalization of passenger traffic in the form of Amtrak. [Milton Friedman, Free to Choose, Chapt 7] >I believe that the railways which provide the best service >are historically state-run. Well, that's a nice thing to believe, I suppose. I'd love to see what you regard as "proof" for such an assertion. >Deregulation of the airlines, while bringing >down prices on the most competitive routes, has jacked up prices for the >less popular routes (like from Raleigh-Durham to everywhere.) Isn't that just TOO BAD! It's reall nice of you to offer to have the state run the airlines, and RAISE fares for the rest of us to support your air travel. I think doing it at gunpoint (you go to jail if you charge free-market prices in a regulated market, remember) is a little tacky, don't you? >How in the >world do you have a non-monopolitic road system? How in the world DID we have a non-monopolistic railroad setup? But we did. >Do various private >owners set up competing roads along the same routes? Sometimes. Quite often, the railroads used to use each others tracks (at a fee, of course).