Subject: Re: [drugwar] (~OT) Why focus on the State Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:31:59 -0400 To: From: Bob Armstrong Once again waited 'til I could reply with morning thoughtfulness . On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 18:28:49 -0700 (PDT), Libby wrote: > >=A0>=A0On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 11:43:24 -0400, Preston Peet >=A0>=A0wrote: >=A0>=A0>=A0>=A0=A0=A0Big Business owns the US government, > >=A0>=A0--- Bob Armstrong =A0wrote: > >=A0>=A0Here's where you lose me . > >=A0And here's where the Libertarians lose me. There's a lot >=A0I like about the model, but I'm confounded by this >=A0blind and at times almost belligerent defense of the >=A0so called free market system as forced on the economy >=A0by the multinational corporations at the expense of >=A0the lower economic classes. The defense is of the principle of non initiation of aggression . Which implies no preemptive interference by a third party with rights of individuals to "make business" , to use Yasir Arafat's phrase , with counterparties of their choice . We fail to see a distinction between a snack shop owner offering a meal to a homeless person for wearing a sandwich board for forty minutes and the heads of the enormous coordinated teams it take to create much of flows of products necessary for modern existence . The only force that a "corporation" of any size can use is to supply some good or service that many individuals choose as a better value proposition than any of their alternatives . For instance , you have to operate a damned unique hardware store offering some distinct advantage to some niche of customers if you don't want to become a department head in hardware in the local Home Depot . People will vote with their dollars ( or rather with the dollars they save ) for the operation with the greater efficiencies and correspondingly lower costs . Multinationals did not force themselves on the USSR or China . Attempts to eliminate free choices by individuals simply , abjectly , failed . Consequently , you defined the lower economic classes by who died in famines . >=A0It's so easy to say that opportunities exist but what >=A0bothers me,is the vehement supporters of that line >=A0within the LP are people who enjoyed the advantages of >=A0at least a comfortable middle class upbringing. The same is true of most revolutionaries . Marx had the leisure to hang out in the British Library while creating his awesomely arrogant theory . >=A0Let me ask, and I mean this in the kindest way >=A0possible, did you grow up in the ghetto Bob? Did you >=A0fight your way off the streets to get your education? >=A0Was there one day in your childhood when you were >=A0hungry and your mom had nothing to feed you? Did you >=A0have to wonder who your dad was? I had remarkable parents ( and grand parents ) and they provided an upper middle class childhood for me and my sister and our brain-damaged brother . Here is a picture of the home I grew up in : http://cosy.com/hphm.htm . On the other hand , in that house ,we lived with a single bare 200W bulb over the sink next to the stove whose bottom was held up by a few bricks until I was well into my teens . Money that could have been used to fix up the kitchen was spent ( on my brother ) and sending me to a great school , http://culver.org . I have no kids because I WILL be a father and a provider to any I do have . ( Just clicked your blog to see if you answered this question . "Staunch Libertarian" . Thanks . ) My question : are you describing your childhood in your question above ? > These are the people >=A0who are working on the production lines of US >=A0multicorporates, only here they unionized for better >=A0conditions. So now they are outsourcing the labor. If you look at my http://cosy.com/BobA/vita.htm , you will see I worked on the production line at Sara Lee for about a year when a directionless youth . While some had the disfunctional families most did not . I must admit to having a totally global view on human welfare . It is the major reason why I am addicted to Manhattan despite the nanny-tyrants running the place now . I can and have and do meet people from everywhere . I have always had this perspective and found it annoying at the least particularly in college that so many of my peers were complacently lazy in feeling that they were not in competition with the world - that the US was all that counted . If individuals in India or Guatemala can improve their lives by doing some task competitively , I do not hold an American's welfare above theirs . All are equal . >=A0An ugly scenario that plays out at ten times the >=A0intensity on the level of the exploitation of the >=A0third world poor by the multinationals who bring their >=A0production facilities into these countries to avoid >=A0the profit eating environmental, safety and labor >=A0regulations in the US. I also trust people locally to make there own decisions about their own environment . It is the Marxist sort of "I'm speaking for the proletariat" arrogance to assert that these people don't value cleanliness and safety and a nice environment as much as we 10000 miles away do for them . The developing countries are not going down in standard of living ; why should they make deals which hurt themselves ? Actually , globally multinationals pool their best practices and apply them around the world . The name of the game is Leap Frog . Regulations cost . The costs come out of revenues - the whole pie that is split between all the stake holders in the company . If the regulations are ridiculous and produce no benefit worth their cost then they will hurt the whole enterprise . If you look at the insane Income Tax Code as an example of a mature body of regulations , of course rational companies with try to get away . Generally it is lawyers and government bureaucracies that profit from excessive regulations , sometime at the expense of entire communities . >=A0And don't tell me about competitors. The oil industry >=A0bands together into assocications that pay the rents >=A0inside the beltway on K street and pay the tabs for >=A0the August legislative jaunts. And so do the pharmas >=A0and the insurance industry and the industrial prison >=A0complex. ..... Of course they form associations . But that doesn't mean they don't compete . Look at their stock prices . But isn't the ultimate of not competition the State ? It's a monopoly , maintained by force , over a region . >=A0Bush didn't blow a 6.8 surplus into a 4.whatever >=A0deficit on government programs. The people did not get >=A0that money. Basically no one did . The dominant factor was the decline in tax revenues due to his recession . > Halliburton, WorldCom, ClearChannel, and >=A0Bush cronies ad infinitum are spending our tax dollars >=A0right now Huh ? I don't even know the connections with Worldcom much less ClearChannel . Can you give me some numbers to show they are not a piddling portion of the $2,200,000,000,000 dispensed by the government ? > and the truly evil aspect is they are using >=A0that money to advance an inhumane agenda that views >=A0human beings of a certain socio-economic class as >=A0expendable because there are so many of them. Where does that come from ? Sounds like sheer emotional cant and name calling . > There is >=A0nothing in your free market model that would enable >=A0this class to compete against that kind of CORPORATE >=A0power. To my Libertarian mind there are basically 2 classes : the Political Class which lives nice lives on TAKEN money and the Market Class which compete provide something that someone else , who can simply walk on down the block to the next person , considers a good deal . All the poor are in the Market Class . All the Political Class are comfortable and at the top have greater resources at their disposal than anyone in the Market Class . And when things get rough , which it does when the Political Class restricts the freedom of people to make their own decisions too tightly , the Political Class will still take what it needs to be comfortable . States have faced pressure during this recession , but the Federal government has continued to grow . No one losing their jobs there . >=A0Wake up and smell the herbicide. It's clearing the way >=A0for the petrol pipeline in a Latin American country >=A0near you. Petrol pipelines are bad ? Do you have a car ? Do you heat your home ? > And it's not likely to benefit your local >=A0indigineous peasant but you can be certain that >=A0someone will be driving a new Jag on the profits. How can it not benefit the locals ? Who's going to build the pipeline and all the jobs surrounding it ? Do you feel they should remain some primitive zoo animals in their third world Rousseauian purity ? Should they be able to get a job and buy a satellite dish . And , if they are a foreman or an engineer , perhaps buy a Jag . Is it a better world if no one can buy Jags ? >=A0peace, > >=A0Libby Libby , thanks for posing the questions . Tho I need to be spending my time try to make a living , if I start a thread , I better be able to defend it . Peace thru Freedom , --=A0 =A0Bob Armstrong -- http://CoSy.com -- 212-285-1864 Return our Right to Relax : =A0http://ny.lp.org/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?Against_the_Smoking_Ban Computing Environment : =A0http://CoSy/CoSy/ A WTC vision : http://CoSy.com/CoSy/ConicAllConnect/ Liberty : http://CoSy.com/Liberty.htm =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A02003/09/24 11:15:39 AM