kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/23/86)
From: <ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
... we did agree that money IS in fact, power,.
No, we agreed that power has many different meanings. To an
electrical engineer it means I squared R. To a politician it means
the ability to coerce others.
KFL ,however, does not agree that this implies power over people;
he maintains that the very organization which HE 'vilifies', viz.
guvmint,
I object not to government but to government coercion, in the form
of taxation and laws against victimless crime. I object equally to
coercion done by individuals and by corporations.
has made the abuses of wealth illegal, therfore they wont occur,
or they are susceptible of remedy through the legal system etc
etc...
Well, what is power? A person who can throw a stone or wield an axe
has the abililty to rob and to kill. This is power. Power over other
people. That is obviously what YOU mean by power, since otherwise
power is not objectionable.
What ADDITIONAL power does a person have who has plenty of wealth?
Anything? I can't think of anything, except that he can HIRE someone
to do evil deeds. But that IS illegal. The WEALTH is not. No USE of
wealth, except to hire people to do evil deeds, is illegal, nor should
it be. And it is equally illegal for a poor person to hire a killer,
whether or not it is likely he can do so, just as it is equally
illegal for a weak person to throw stones at people, whether or not it
is likely he can do so.
Very very few wealthy people DO hire killers. A more common crime
wealthy people commit is to bribe legislators to enact favorable
legislation. Under the political system I advocate, this wouldn't
even NEED to be illegal because no legislator COULD enact special
interest legislation!
I am not an anarchist. Government does have a purpose. That
purpose is to stop the axe wielders and the stone throwers. To
protect everyone's individual rights against all agressors, whether
they be individual criminals, corporations, or rival governments.
that line of reasoning is just more byzantium to me!
Please read Ayn Rand's books. She is able to explain much better
than I can.
...to maintain that the power of the state should be limited,
but that the power of wealth should not, is to invite plutocracy,
not freedom.
I still don't understand what you mean by power of wealth. I have
explained that all coercive power must be restrained equally. Whether
the perpetrator is a plutocrat or a bureaucrat or a plain old street
thug.
All I can figure is that you imagine that capitalism is a form of
coercion or fraud, that wealth is a fixed quantity, and the only way
some people can get more of it than others is by somehow cheating
others out of their fair share. This is absolutely false. Wealth is
created by individuals and corporations. The owners of the wealth are
those who created it, and those who benefited directly or indirectly
from others having created wealth. And, unfortunately, those who have
coerced wealth from others or who have convinced government to coerce
it for them. It is only this last group whose power I oppose.
.....AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT....
......did he ever return? no he never returned and his fate is
still unlearned, he may ride for ever 'neath the streets of
boston, he's the man who never returned!...
Despite my MIT net address, I am not in the Boston area. I am more
likely to be lost in the Washington DC 'Metro' than in the Boston 'T'.
Nevertheless, I do attend Boskone, and can be seen in person there
this coming February (if I do not become trapped in the Boston subway
on the way there :-) ).
If 'ucsbcsl!uncle', whatever his real name is, is no longer on the
net, would someone who knows him please give him a copy of this
message? Thanks.
...Keith
-------kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu (08/27/86)
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu
... Money is power over people, and people only. Money and power
are two sides of the same coin, and they are convertible to each
other the way matter and energy are equivalent and convertible.
Sigh.
Suppose you want to make me a slave. You want me to pick cotton.
You can get a gun and point it at me and threaten to kill me if I
don't pick cotton. Probably I would then do so, as slowly as I could
get away with - any you had better never turn your back on me or that
gun is going to end up where the sun don't shine.
Another approach is to offer to PAY me to pick the cotton. Offer me
something worth more to me than my time and inconvenience and risk,
and I will cheerfully pick cotton for you. And I will end up feeling
that I have GAINED by the transaction. Of course this isn't slavery
any more. This is employment.
Note that it doesn't matter whether you are an individual or a
government in either case. Individuals and governments are both
capable of either way of treating people.
If you still insist that money is coercive power, please give an
example of its coercive use. Don't bother to list:
1) Hiring a killer. This is as illegal in a libertarian system as in
any other.
2) Bribing legislators. This wouldn't even NEED to be illegal in a
libertarian system, since legislators wouldn't have the power to
enact special interest legislation.
...Keith
-------campbell@maynard.UUCP (09/12/86)
In article kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu writes: > If you still insist that money is coercive power, please give an >example of its coercive use. Simple. I am a wealthy and unscrupulous person. I want you to do some action X which you don't want to do. I say "Keith, do it or I will make your life very unpleasant." I then start using my money to: 1) Buy all the land abutting your house and installing garbage dumps (remember, no zoning laws in Libertaria). 2) Buy your company and get you fired. 3) Buy your bank and make them foreclose on your mortgage (easy enough to do, just wait until you're ONE DAY late and it's legal). 4) Buy all the local stores and instruct the help to refuse to serve you (remember, no anti-discrimination laws in Libertaria). 5) Pay your eighteen year old daughter big bucks and free cocaine to become a prostitute (no drug or prostitution laws in Libertaria). 6) Do the same thing to your friends and relatives... etc. etc. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846 -------