From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Sun Mar 29 1998 - 10:17:59 MST
mfulwiler@earthlink.net ("Mark D. Fulwiler") writes:
>It's exhilerating to read them. They didn't make utilitarian arguments
>against slavery, but they did have some effect on public opinion. Would
>they have done better with an economic analysis of slavery which would
>have shown that it made the country as a whole and the slaves, but not
>the individual slaveholders, economically worse off?
Not with a primarily economic argument. But an emphasis on how the
problems with catching runaway slaves motivated the slaveholders to
erode the right to a fair trial which everyone else valued would
probably have done less to create a bloody war than the absolutist
rhetoric they actually used.
>Unfortunately, however, individuals can and do maximize their happiness
>by coercion. That's the problem. I could have a grand old time stealing
>$50 million from Bill Gates (if I didn't get caught and had no
>conscience) and he'd probably barely miss the money. (He's not even
>trying to spend all his money when he's alive anyway.)
That clearly argues for a rule that discourages theft, but does it
argue for a religious type rule, or does it argue for a belief more
like "theft penalizes everyone by forcing them to spend more defending
against theft"? Probably depends on how smart the people you're trying
to sell the rule to are.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | pcm@rahul.net | Has anyone used http://crit.org http://www.rahul.net/pcm | to comment on your web pages?
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