From: J. Maxwell Legg (income@ihug.co.nz)
Date: Thu Oct 29 1998 - 19:47:36 MST
Ian Goddard wrote:
>
> At 10:39 AM 10/30/98 +1300, J. Maxwell Legg wrote:
>
> >Michael Lorrey wrote:
> >
> >> No No No. You missed the most important difference. In the first
> >> definition, it applied to the individual, while the second refered to
> >> the 'producers' as a common group. This is the essential incompatibility
> >> of libertarianism and socialism. Libertarianism declares that the prime
> >> political unit is the individual, while socialism declares that the
> >> primary political unity is the community or society, thus letting in the
> >> buggaboo of coersion of the individual by the tyranny of the masses.
> >>
> >
> >Can you give net refs as to how this Libertarianism doublethink came
> >about where the word *political* (i.e. I think of it as describing an
> >aspect of people's connections) came to focus on a node within the
> >connections rather than the collective. If I were to use an analogy, the
> >concepts of a jukebox, genre, playlist or database springs to mind as
> >words on one end of the scale where the adjective *political* would
> >reside and words like individual, song or field appear at the other end.
> >Thus to me a song isn't a set and an individual isn't his connections.
> >My PC isn't a primary internet unit because before I used the internet
> >my PC did other things. I know there are differences between adjectives
> >and nouns and that confusion between the two can lead to delusional
> >thinking, but even though I also know the Nazis were deluded in their
> >thinking about race, etc., this plural/singular (i.e.,
> >political/individual) definition mix up that you point to has me
> >perplexed.
>
> IAN: A libertarian society is a society in which
> a set of collective rules (political power) exist
> that define the rights of individuals. Robinson
> Crusoe has no political rights, and the example
> of your computer free from the net is Crusoe.
>
> So there's no contradiction between the concepts of
> political rights, the individual, and libertarianism.
> The individual in society has political rights, more
> or less, but Robinson Crusoe has no polical rights.
>
Crusoe is still an individual and your earlier statement that the basic
political unit in your definition of Libertarianism is the individual. I
contradict this. Sure the basic political unit may reside in the
individual but isn't the individual. The individual may be a type of
political unit but hardly *the* basic one. I would be happy to accept
that another basic political unit maybe an abstract conflict of some
sort. I don't say all conflicts because right now I'm installing a
network and have irq conflicts; - unless you accept that my relationship
with the net is political.
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