From: The Low Golden Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Feb 16 1997 - 19:01:14 MST
On Feb 16, 4:16pm, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
} Both of these fallacies have been sufficiently debunked: the "negative
} externalities" myth by Coase's work, and the "standards" idea by the
} simple evidence of reality that most standards are private. It makes
I haven't read Coase's original work, just Friedman's essay on his web
page. The latter didn't seem to show that all gov't solutions were
unnecessary, just that exercising them would take more analysis and
consideration. LA auto pollution? Widespread atmospheric pollution?
Ocean overfishing? Coase seemed to push the problem to one of
transaction costs; what if for a few problems coercive solutions are the
best practical solution?
} The use
} of force to rule others is evil, period. The strong burden of proof is
An argument which appeals only to those who already believe it.
} on those who would rule us to prove that /any/ involuntary government is
} necessary before it makes sense to argue its form. I have never seen any
} such argument; most feeble attempts simply assume some premise that
I hope you realize that I'm not an inherent fan of government, but the
evolutionary evidence for the viability of completely free societies is
close to nil. Saga-era Iceland has been offered as an example; whatever
the extent of that freedom, Iceland lost a lot of it after a century or
two. It will take strong arguments to convince people to change
systems, and in the meantime I do not think it ill to attempt to
ameliorate the effects and modes of governance.
One item is that peaceful voluntary disgovernance involves something like
forcing Congress to disband. It might be easier to force a replacement
of Congress with a random government, and then to convince those
legislators to disband, as they would have less personal stake in their
power.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
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