From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 08:23:25 MDT
Paul Hughes wrote:
> I can do is ask them to be more specific from which they sigh and
> say, "I have yet to hear a clear and concise way how free-markets
> beyond any economic prosperity they are likely to bring can
> rigorously be applied to the political and legal arena such that
> basic civil rights protections and liberties can be guaranteed for
> everyone rather than those with the most money to afford it". Or
> arguments to that effect.
I seem to recall, a while ago, (how many years?) I generated an
argument that impressed you. I may be mistaken. Anyway, I'm going to
try to churn out a convincing one.
The civil rights of anyone, say nothing of the poor, cannot be
guaranteed. Liberties in general can be infringed; regularly ARE
infringed, all over the world. We regard this to be an injustice; we
wish we could do something about it.
In fact, the only thing that prevents the powerful at any time from
crushing the weak is moral restraint. Our military and police force
maintain the vast majority of the dangerous weapoonry currently in use
today; their members are skilled in their use. No legal system, no
social contract, no system of organization of any kind can prevent
them from turning the world (or at least any given country) into a
dictatorship.
But, you know, they don't.
Yet clearly you can see that it doesn't really matter whether they're
formally forbidden to do so or not. Nothing we do can guarantee them
civil rights.
But we CAN tip the scales; we CAN make the weak more likely to have
civil rights than not. The easiest way to do that is by increasing
the welfare of the poor in real terms (rather than relative terms).
Protection is better on a larger scale; the more you pay for it, the
more expensive it is to penetrate. And, of course, while there will
still be people with gobs of money who WILL be able to penetrate any
protective measures the weak try to establish, it becomes less and
less worthwhile to do so the richer the poor get in real terms.
Finally, look at the graphs. The welfare of the poor in real terms is
closely linked to the state of the economy of the whole; when GDP goes
up, the poor find themselves better off in real terms, though usually
not in relative terms.
Like Marx, I think politics is economic. But I disagree with his
interpretation. I see our politics getting freer and freer as time
goes on as our society gets richer and richer. THAT'S the trend I
see.
Libertarianism would remove some of the forced charity laws which
are in place in most areas of the world. This would make the poor
worse off, at least initially. But it would also put us on the fast
track for economic growth (which nobody really doubts, except for
those who think that anarcho-capitalism would turn into government).
In real terms, many years would pass before the poor found themselves
as well off as they were under forced charity. But after that point,
they would zoom far ahead of the state they would have been in had
forced charity been in place the entire time; their "guarantees" for
civil rights would grow faster, even if they did start out lower.
OK, that's it. The poor get their civil rights by getting richer. If
you didn't buy it, you're not going to buy anarcho-capitalism,
libertarianism, or whatever.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:30:48 MST