From: frissell@panix.com (Duncan Frissell)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 94 09:11:21 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Shrinking government
Message-ID: <199412061707.AA10549@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 03:45 AM 12/6/94 PST, John E. Kreznar wrote:
>Tax revolts do no good.  Taxes are the _result_, not the cause.
>
>The cause of big government is popular gratuitous acceptance of
>government favor.
>
>If you want to shrink government, you've got to begin by changing the
>minds of a hundred million of your neighbors who think it's civilized to
>take a government job or contract, accept social security, apply for an
>SBA loan or FEMA assistance, and on down the list.

I prefer to let "reality" change people's minds.  The USSR didn't fall
because millions were convinced that Milton Friedman was right and Karl Marx
was wrong.  What happened was that the changing circumstances of their lives
made it obvious that the old ways could not be continued.

Technology and "Market Earth"(tm) will convince people that "others
government" is inferior to self government and the modern welfare-warfare
state will fall.  In retrospect, it will even look like it was inevitable
(just like the fall of the commies).

Wait 'till the Web + Digital Cash = a market growing so fast that even if
the governments *had* to tools to control it, they couldn't be applied
because it will have grown beyond the control points before the governments
can move.

The Market is The Blob (without Steve McQueen).  "X The Unknown."

DCF

"You are a libertarian.  You make choices and do what you think best for
your life.  Stop trying to prevent other people from behaving in the exact
and natural way you behave."