bmg@mck-csc.UUCP (Bernard M. Gunther) (10/10/85)
> > 2 people, A and B, own property directly next to each other. Person A > > likes to play his stereo late at night to the repeated annoyance of person B. > > What would be the correct responce for person B? > > By my variety of libertarianism: > > One owns rights, not things. > > It is very convenient to own these rights in packages associated with objects. > > Assuming that problems like this really are significant, one can imagine a > structure resembling a municipal government, complete with zoning laws, > emerging. The difference from present governments would be that "laws" are > the result of voluntary contracts, not political power. Note that I'm not > saying this structure would really arise - maybe social pressure is sufficient > to stop loud music without a bureaucracy, or maybe there's a better way which > the market would discover. But the market could solve the problem this way > it there is nothing better. > > Radford Neal hum... This sounds like it would have to ability to degenerate *very* quickly (in terms of genereations) into something very close to what we presently have. Assuming that at one time, the owner of all the rights in a given area are determined and this person then sells of parts wtih mechanisms for dealing with rights not currently immagined or foreseen, then wouldn't this be very similar to our present government, with the single exception that the origianl owner not was the government? You can view the US government as a corporation or entity and all the laws passed since its formation as extensions allowed for in the original contract. How would you prevent the society you propose from becoming like the one we presently have? It sounds like a nice idea in the begining (much like the west during the settlement of the part of the country), but it would appear to me to break down very rapidly. Bernie Gunther
bmg@mck-csc.UUCP (Bernard M. Gunther) (10/10/85)
> In article <139@mck-csc.UUCP> bmg@mck-csc.UUCP (Bernard M. Gunther) writes: > > > >2 people, A and B, own property directly next to each other. Person A > >likes to play his stereo late at night to the repeated annoyance of person B. > >What would be the correct responce for person B? > > > This is true *whatever* system you are using. However, I am going to > continue assuming a very decentallised libertaria where the basic until of > geographical government is a neighbourhood. Every neighbourhood has its > own collection of laws (though ideally no neighbourhood has very many > laws). There are some laws (like those allowing emmigration from a > neighbourhood, and those against murder and assault) which are common to all > neighbourhoods. > > B now has learned a valuable lesson about what sort of property B should > buy in the future -- B wants to buy places that either are far away from > other places or which are organised into a neighbourhood which has > an agreement which prohibits loud stereo-playing at night. > > B may have to move to meet these criteria, however. > > Laura Creighton (note new address!) I hate to sound like the devils advocate, but this sounds very much like the situation we have presently, except for the fact that the 'neighborhoods' are somewhat larger than you imagine (ie countries). Is this then then only difference between the two societies? It seems you are advocating city states. Am I totally offbase in interpreting what you said or what? Bernie Gunther
laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (10/22/85)
In article <147@mck-csc.UUCP> bmg@mck-csc.UUCP (Bernard M. Gunther) writes: > >I hate to sound like the devils advocate, but this sounds very much like >the situation we have presently, except for the fact that the 'neighborhoods' >are somewhat larger than you imagine (ie countries). Is this then then only >difference between the two societies? It seems you are advocating city >states. Am I totally offbase in interpreting what you said or what? > The reason that this sounds a lot like what we have now, is that there are only so many ways to build a hammer. The problem of ``my neighbour plays his stereo too loud'' can only be solved a few ways. I am not advocating what most people mean when they say ``city-state''. What I am proposing is that most of the necessary ``government'' is local agreements that can be worked out by contract. The resulting contracts may indeed divide one into city units but I think that it is the patterns of thinking that need to be changed the most. I do not think of a government official the way that I think about an insurance adjustor, or the landlord or my apartment. This is strange. My insurance adjustor has a claim on me that I will not house flammables near a source of heat, my landlord has a claim on me that I will not make structural modifications on my apartment without consulting him. Why do I resent the government's claims on me and not my landlord's? It is quite simple. If my landlord, or my insurance comapny, or anybody else who has a contract with me wants to stick it to me, they have to go through me. If my landlord decided that it was not going to allow pets tomorrow,he could not force me to kill my kitten. (This is in contrast to the government of Scarborough (or Etobicoke - I forget) Ontario which passed a local by-law which said that no resident could have a snake as a pet 2 years ago.) If my insurance company decides that it does not want to insure people who smoke, it cannot retroactively deny coverage to any smokers that it is now covering. On the other hand, Jesse Helms and a bunch of Senators can try to define Satanism and start a witchhunt which will seriously impact all my Wiccan friends. I am getting screwed by the government again. The problem is that when I phone up my landlord and say you are trying to screw me, he listens -- when I try to phone my federal government representatives, they don't have to. My vote is not as important to my rep as my rent is to my landlord. What this means is that thge government is too far removed from the people. You now have to lobby to get anywhere with your government, which means that people who are getting screwed in a hurry (like the Wiccans) and people who are too busy to lobby will simply get screwed. There is no way to fix this without decentrallising government. So, if you consider this a large problem, what you have to do is identify those things which should not be done locally (say national defence, national justice) and then have everything else done as ``locally'' as one can get. I think that 10,000 people neighbourhoods make a nice unit of government. The 10,000 people who live closest to me may have legitimate claims on me. The 10,000 people closest to where I work and hang out may have legitimate claims on me. But I find it hard to believe that I owe Jesse Helms anything... But he is too far away from me in terms of personal power and ability to express it for me to keep him from hurting me. He can get to me and I can't get to him. He is *important* and I am not. Bingo. We have non-representative government again. It matters not that the structure of government is theoretically representative -- the current implementation is *broken*, and it is broken in a very fundamental way. The attemtpt to govern something as large as the USA or Canada is doomed to failure, because it cannot be responsible to the people. I have my doubts that it is possible to govern something as large as California, or even something as large as San Francisco well. So I want radically decentrallised government. City-states are more decentrallised than empires, but I think that it is only to that extent that I want city-states. Life in the City-state of Florence during the renaissance does not strike me as an improvement over what I have now. -- Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (10/25/85)
[Not food] In article <207@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >There is no way to fix this without decentrallising government. So, if you >consider this a large problem, what you have to do is identify those things >which should not be done locally (say national defence, national justice) >and then have everything else done as ``locally'' as one can get. I think >that 10,000 people neighbourhoods make a nice unit of government. The >10,000 people >who live closest to me may have legitimate claims on me. The 10,000 people >closest to where I work and hang out may have legitimate claims on me. But I >find it hard to believe that I owe Jesse Helms anything... Let's leave Jesse Helms out of this for a moment. The 10,000 people next to you are far too small a unit to deal with. The food you eat, the electricity you use, almost everything you buy comes from outside that circle. You are free to travel anywhere in the country, without elaborate preparation (passports, etc.) Power companies hundreds of miles away can poison your air and water. So you have many important relationships with people far away from you. THE FACT THAT THOSE RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT PERSONAL DOES NOT MAKE THEM UNIMPORTANT. Or to look at it a bit differently, suppose we do divide the country into groups of about 10,000 people. This enables those people near the center of the area to deal with those relatively few truly local things with their neighbors in a group of reasonable size. But most of the population will live near the edge of one of these groups, and will have decreased leverage with their neighbors on the other side of the border. Now as for Jesse Helms and the anti-"satanist" amendment. First, I doubt that this act will ever get out of Congress. If it does, the courts will strike it down. We have a system of checks and balances precisely because NO individual or group is always reasonable. Do not assume the system has broken until it actually has. That does not mean that those likely to be adversely affected should just sit and wait. "The price of liberty is eternal viligance." That is just as true for small governments as for large ones. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (10/31/85)
In article <733@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes: > >Let's leave Jesse Helms out of this for a moment. The 10,000 people next to >you are far too small a unit to deal with. The food you eat, the electricity >you use, almost everything you buy comes from outside that circle. You are >free to travel anywhere in the country, without elaborate preparation >(passports, etc.) Power companies hundreds of miles away can poison your >air and water. I am not saying htat power companies should be able to poison you because they are hundreds of miles away. Remember that I said you had to determine which laws had to apply throughout a nation (or I'd rather go international, of course). Laws against assault and murder (poisoning people) and laws permitting free travel are in my set of national laws, because they represent basic rights and freedoms. > >So you have many important relationships with people far away from you. THE >FACT THAT THOSE RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT PERSONAL DOES NOT MAKE THEM >UNIMPORTANT. No. BUT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE IMPORTANT does not mean that we need a large centrallised government. >Or to look at it a bit differently, suppose we do divide the country into >groups of about 10,000 people. This enables those people near the center >of the area to deal with those relatively few truly local things with their >neighbors in a group of reasonable size. But most of the population will >live near the edge of one of these groups, and will have decreased leverage >with their neighbors on the other side of the border. Why do you assume that every person will live within only one group? For a lot of things, a plurality of groups makes sense. For the rest - you have nothing worse than what we have now. the people on the edges may be disgruntled (but maybe they can move to the centres) but right now the only difference is that everyone is disgruntled in some way. > >That does not mean that those likely to be adversely affected should just >sit and wait. "The price of liberty is eternal viligance." That is just >as true for small governments as for large ones. Yes, but it is a lot easier to watch the small ones than the large ones. -- Help beautify the world. I am writing a book called *How To Write Portable C Programs*. Send me anything that you would like to find in such a book when it appears in your bookstores. Get your name mentioned in the credits. Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (11/02/85)
In article <237@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >In article <733@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes: >>Let's leave Jesse Helms out of this for a moment. The 10,000 people next to >>you are far too small a unit to deal with. The food you eat, the electricity >>you use, almost everything you buy comes from outside that circle. You are >>free to travel anywhere in the country, without elaborate preparation >>(passports, etc.) Power companies hundreds of miles away can poison your >>air and water. > >I am not saying htat power companies should be able to poison you because >they are hundreds of miles away. Remember that I said you had to determine >which laws had to apply throughout a nation (or I'd rather go international, >of course). Laws against assault and murder (poisoning people) and laws >permitting free travel are in my set of national laws, because they represent >basic rights and freedoms. You miss my point. The scope of those laws which should be done on as large a scale as possible is much larger than those which can appropriately be done on a small scale. What, in the U.S. today, is done nationally, that should be done by local government? (And don't turn back to the anti-witchcraft bill. That is an illegitimate attempt to excersize power by the federal government. Since you admit the need for a federal government, you must have some ways to prevent it from illegitimate excersizes of power. I claim our current system does this fairly well.) >>So you have many important relationships with people far away from you. THE >>FACT THAT THOSE RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT PERSONAL DOES NOT MAKE THEM >>UNIMPORTANT. > >No. BUT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE IMPORTANT does not mean that we need a large >centrallised government. Our large centrallized government deals with those issues which must be dealt with centrally. It is unfortunate that there are so many of these, and that collectively they are so important, but they are. >>Or to look at it a bit differently, suppose we do divide the country into >>groups of about 10,000 people. This enables those people near the center >>of the area to deal with those relatively few truly local things with their >>neighbors in a group of reasonable size. But most of the population will >>live near the edge of one of these groups, and will have decreased leverage >>with their neighbors on the other side of the border. > >Why do you assume that every person will live within only one group? For a >lot of things, a plurality of groups makes sense. For the rest - you have >nothing worse than what we have now. the people on the edges may be >disgruntled (but maybe they can move to the centres) but right now the >only difference is that everyone is disgruntled in some way. If you have multiple groups regulating the same thing, the effect is to multiply the coercion any individual is subject to. If you mean for different groups to regulate different things, my argument is unaffected. Also, in any group with more than a few dozen members (I am tempted to say, more than three), any set of rules acceptable to the majority will leave everyone disgruntled about some aspect of them. Let me make another point here. Very little of my social interactions are with the 10,000 people closest to me geographically. This includes the people I work with, the people I deal with in leisure activities, and my family. I don't think I am unique in this; I suspect that most of the U.S. population has most of its social interactions with people outside that group. About all that's relevant at that level is questions like "how loud can I play my stereo" and "can I build a garage that blocks your view of the beach". (No, I don't live near a beach.) >>That does not mean that those likely to be adversely affected should just >>sit and wait. "The price of liberty is eternal viligance." That is just >>as true for small governments as for large ones. > >Yes, but it is a lot easier to watch the small ones than the large ones. Is it really? Certainly, it takes more effort to influence a small government than a large one; but more effort is available. I am more worried about my town government passing some disciminatory or absurd act, than about the U.S. Congress. It only takes a few people to screw things up in a group that small. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108