From: Ian Goddard (igoddard@erols.com)
Date: Thu Oct 17 1996 - 18:31:38 MDT
At 10:15 AM 10/15/96 -0400, Suresh Naidu wrote:
>> Who is to determine the proper level of " need " ?
>> ^^^
>
> Yep. Valid question. This is why decentralization is the key to any
> equitable society. In small scale communities, people can keep tabs
> on each other, done with a feeling of "hey, this hurts people, why
> don't you stop it" .
IAN: Some people prefer other than small scale communities, where they
can be free from tab keeping neighbors and family members. These people
form big impersonal cities by joining them.
In the big market place, people "keep tabs on each other" through
nonpersonal and not privacy invacive mechanisms such as price signals,
which measure the supply of a given resource against the social demand
for that resource. The free market economy and its price signals are
the voice of the people, and the people's market-voice is expressed
without anybody having to keep tabs on any other person but
themselves. It's perfect -- i.e., it works spontaneously.
> if you have any form of centralization, a huge power imbalance occurs,
> because the ones in charge can dictate to those not in charge.
IAN: As long as people have private property rights, they are free to
exit potential associations, such as going or not going to McDonald's.
This means that in the free-market-private-property society, the
people -- manifested as the collective consumer speaking through
price signals -- control the economy.
When we all live on one collective with no property demarcations, we
live in a defacto monopoly. When property is uniform, there is monopoly.
It does not even need to have one person or one central body of people
at the helm. When we equalize outcomes, the social mind-set "norms-out"
toward the lowest common denominator. I'll do as little work as I can
get away with, and try to get others to carry as much of my weight
as possible, for if I work harder to get more rewards, the'll be
taken away for others who worked less. It's so simple to see.
People do this in the market also, but the discipline of private property
keeps me from being able to sponge of others, it keeps my hands out of your
bank account, which compels me to try harder to serve the needs of others
through market exchange, that I might be rewarded by consumers for my
efforts.
The logic of private property is expressed in the fact that life has
evolved so as to brake "itself" into many small units, where each
will attempt to fend for itself. Millions of years of evolution
* prove * that this works, and life being one global collective
blob does not, ipso facto.
>> Private property claims can be enforced
>> locally, requiring only LOCAL knowledge.
>>
>> ERGO: Private property does NOT
>> require a central State.
>
> No, but is does require force to back it up, which is just as bad.
IAN: Indeed. The "property line" is simply the spatially defined state-
ment: "I'll use force if you cross this line." It's the force parameter.
But is does not follow, as you've stated, that this is patently bad.
Not all force is bad. A woman who fends-off a rapist uses force to back
up her property claim. Without question, we agree that this force is
proper, but it violates the rule you just layed out; and Therefore
we cannot claim that "the use of force to defend property is bad."
While we can agree on our bodies property line, the fuzzy area
begins in our unified external area. In order to live I must
be able to control external properties, and as "to control"
is "to own," I must be able to own extenal property -- that is,
to be able to exclude others from a give unit of matter outside
my body. So it is a given that the use of force to defend property
is a necessary basis for life and for any system of rights that
are to promote life.
>> ERGO: Collectivized property
>> require a central State by design.
>
> No, because I have enough faith in people that they can coordinate
> themselves, share knowledge through electronic means, and then discuss
> the issues this raises.
IAN: Are people in Equador going to send a message to people in Uganda,
"Hay we grew more food than you did this year, come and get it."
That is in a nut-shell the dynamic that needs to happen in the world
your talking about. This idea falls apart in so many ways it seems futile
to list them, it's just an idealist phantasm.
The market says: "Hay we grew X amount of food and we would be willing
to trade X quantity for Y in exchange. The same thing, only this time
* both * sides make a collective input, not one side getting a freebee.
>> Furthermore, the collectivist's theory ....
>> weaves a logical and factual LEGAL web of
>> social debt that binds all people to one
>> another and in turn binds them to the
>> central cabal of planners that oversee
>> the allocation of social debt...
>
> It's not a legal web, it's an economic one. However, if anyone
> wants to leave they can, and do whatever they want. But people
> will not stand for theives or dictators.
IAN: But here's the fatal flaw in your ideology: the egalitarian ethic
defines a "thief" as someone who has more stuff than another person.
So the next village that had a better harvest, steals the quantity
of food it has in excess of the other community. Such a standard
of theft dictated by egalitarianism is clearly absurd -- surely
you can see that?
There is no way to get around it. Village A gets to keep its better
harvest -- and that's private property -- or village A must surrender
a portion of its harvest -- that's collective property. The result
will be, like clockwork, that the incentive structure becomes geared
towards doing less, investing less in this year's harvest, let the
other guys carry the load this year.
The long-range picture is less production, less innovation, and more
poverty and human privations. Lo and behold, that's exactly what we
see in every collectivist experiment -- its clockwork. Either you are
(a) for human progress measured as growing wealth and technology
access for all, or (b) you are for the safety and surety of no growth,
and middle age like serfdom.
> Noting stops a person from going off and living off
> the land, and they might even keep ties with society.
IAN: If we operate under the assumption of equality of outcomes,
then each person is in debt to society. The man in debt can never
be allowed to just "walk away." It's called debt slavery, and
collectivism is universal debt slavery by design.
> No it is not, because the fundamental relationship is one of slavery:
> worker-employer. There is a huge power imbalance there.
IAN: But your picture is missing a big portion of the whole picture.
Your picture has excluded any measure of * how * an employer can to
be in the position he/she is. In the free market, and employer is
not more than an employee of the consumers. Society voted for them,
they saved as many votes as they could and were eventually able to
purchase means of production to activate toward the service of
consumers. They then lobby with others to active these means
of production, offering them what these workers are willing
to take in exchange for a given job.
There is no slavery here. The "boss" is but an employee of the
consumer, assigned by the consumers based upon past performance
to deliver a given service to the consumer, and the consumer
is the whole of society. That is the ethical society.
************************************************************************
IAN GODDARD <igoddard@erols.com> Q U E S T I O N A U T H O R I T Y
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