From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 07:55:15 MDT
>From: "Russell Blackford" <rblackford@hotmail.com>
>As the newest Aussie here, AFAIK, I have to agree that there's a
>stronger tendency for us to accept collectivist solutions than is
>the case with the US. Nor am I convinced that this is entirely a
>bad thing.
I think social experimentation is a good thing, time will give us
and U.S the results of your experiment.
>The point isn't to insist on economic freedom for business
>corporations, or to avoid collectivist answers to every problem of
>social coordination, at all costs. Like most on this list, I have
>libertarian tendencies, but the really important point is to
>challenge the legitimacy of governmental actions that suppress
>individual choices *for the sake of suppressing those choices*, ie
>which attempt to use law to impose a particular conception of
>the "good life" on everyone. If this kind of reasoning could be
>declared illegitimate once and for all, that would expand the
>protection of our freedoms enormously; it would give us all the
>freedom we need to pursue a transhumanist agenda. Governments
>might still make a lot of bad decisions, but a huge class of such
>decisions would be ruled out in advance as morally
>illegitimate.
The problem seem's to be that once you create a group and start
letting them make some of the decisions, they want to make all the
decisions. Keeping this in check is difficult.
>FWIW, a lot of collectivist actions at which I might look at
>askance if I saw them in isolation strike me as more reasonable in
>the context of a mercantilist economic system dominated by
>state-sanctioned trading and financial entities with special legal
>privileges. This way of conducting trade, commerce and finance
>doubtless has pragmatic economic advantages, but it could not be
>justified within a pure libertarian system such as Nozick's
>in _Anarchy, State and Utopia_. If we're going to continue with a
>mercantilist economic system, I have no in-principle concerns
>about softening it with labor relations and trade practices laws
>aimed at giving a "fair go". As long as we rule out laws for the
>suppression of beliefs, thoughts, expression, inquiry, life style
>choices, etc, enacted for the sake of such suppression, a policy
>mix with some collectivist elements may be acceptable, or even
>desirable, seen against a backdrop where no one has any serious
>prospect of introducing a pure libertarian system with no
>corporate privileges.
I'm very interested with this idea of a "fair go" and would welcome
you elaborating on it, feel free to add anything about the
Australian concept of "Mateism" while you're at it.
I'm a member of a labor Union, which is pretty darn collectivist,
but one of the things that makes it acceptable is that it only
concerns work, no attempt is made to define anything else, and of
course I can quit at any time, something no government permits.
Labor Unions here were formed to deal with the collectivists known
as corporations.
>I suppose someone will now decide I'm a "pinko commie", or
>something, but so be it. :)
I don't see it that way.
Brian
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