From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 21:51:54 +0800
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)
Message-ID: <199811171328.HAA15035@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Forwarded message:

> Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 17:36:49 -0500
> From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
> Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)

> At 10:38 AM 11/10/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
> >Your right, let me spell it out. Free-markets as depicted by
> >anarcho-whatever theories legitimize theft, physical violence, extortion, etc.
> 
> Nonsense.  Governments are the ones who claim legitimacy for
> their theft, violence, and extortion.

Nonsense, in this country the people chose to give the federal government
specific duties in regards violence and when it could be used and how. It's
nowhere near as one-sided as you would have anyone believe.

>  Free markets consider those things
> to be bad, though in some free markets they're for sale anyway.

I find NOTHING in free-market theory that says violence is bad let alone
that it won't be prevelant. I hear a lot of folks claim this is the natural
result but then again, that's what Trotsky and his ilk did back at the
beginning of this century.

Simply claiming something about a potential system is not the same as
demonstrating that it actualy works that way.

> Nonsense again.  Social institutions aren't a market issue,

They are if they impact what people do with their income. Simply saying that
we're going to ignore the political and economic impact of a sector of human
indeavour simply because it doesn't if within a nice little chart is a
disservice.

> though some services provided by them can also be provided by markets,
> i.e. hiring people to do things.  They're a social issue, and 
> people will form social institutions to do things if they want.

Which takes money and time which has to come and go somewhere.

> Absence of coercion doesn't mean absence of cooperation.

Please demonstrate what about anarchy will coerce (there is no other term)
individuals to do what is best for their neighbor. In the process you will
need to demonstrate as well why other systems prevent or prohibit such
expression currently.

> Anarchists are perfectly good at having schools, churches,
> volunteer fire companies, theater groups, and soup kitchens,
> and they still raise their kids, live inside if they want,

If taken as individual instances, trying to argue from the specific to the
general in this case raises a whole can of worms that none of you are
answering, though I must admit some very nifty side-steps.

> Just because you don't have a social institution that announces
> that it has the job of killing anybody who competes with it or
> fails to obey its proclamations of the will of the majority
> doesn't mean you don't have social institutions.

Nobody claimed that Bill, straw-man.

> You've sure got the cart before the horse here.
> Most anarchists I know, whether leftists or libertarians,
> care more about justice and equity than any government
> I've encountered (maybe not more than the citizens
> ruled by the government, but more than the government itself.)
> We just don't think a State is a good or likely way to get them,
> given too much experience to the contrary, even if some occasional
> groups of people have some limited success running a limited government
> for short periods of time.

Explain how it works, it's that simple (and repeated for about the umpteenth
time).

I find another aspect of anarchism pretty interesting, that is the level of
cooperation and homogeneity it would require for people to work together.
They have to give up various expressions of their religions and personal
beliefs in order to participate, othewise they let the assholes house burn
or whatever.

Sounds suspicously like socialism where each person is expected to
participate and produce according to the good of the many.


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