From: steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks)
Subject: Re: Limiting Govt (was Re: Employment (was Re: Why not concentrate...)
Summary: Limited governments versus failed governments
Organization: Just a Boomer, Inc.
Lines: 49
Nntp-Posting-Host: thor.isc-br.com

In article <16APR199317110543@rigel.tamu.edu> gmw0622@rigel.tamu.edu (Mr. Grinch) writes:
>In article <1993Apr15.170731.8797@isc-br.isc-br.com>, steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks) writes...
>
>> 
>:This is a strawman argument and fails on several grounds.  In this case,
>:"limited" and "big" government are not defined.  I would point out that
>:Lebanon, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia are by some definitions nations
>:with "limited" government, while the US, Canada, and nations in Western 
>:Europe (where "people would rather live") are often pointed out as 
>:nations with "big government" from a libertarian point of view.  
>
>Well, let me help by explaining the difference between a linited government
>and a failed government.  A limited government has its powers clearly
>circumscribed,  but is fully capable of enforcing its decisions within
>those circumscribed areas.  A failed government is incapable of
>enforcing its decisions except sporadicly.  Two completely different beasts.

Of course, one again faces the question of how one circumscribes government
power (and keeps it circumscribed) in a complex society when it is in the 
interest of neither capitalists nor consumers to refrain from using 
government power for their own ends.  But apart from that little 
conundrum...

It would seem that a society with a "failed" government would be an ideal
setting for libertarian ideals to be implemented.  Now why do you suppose
that never seems to occur?...
>
>> 
>:The argument is not between those who want "limited" government and those
>:who want "unlimited" government.  It is between those who believe
>:government regulation in a capitalist economy serves worthwhile ends and
>:those who believe such regulation is neither desirable on empirical 
>:grounds nor justifiable on ideological grounds.
>
>
>..."regulation" is such a vauge word...  

I wouldn't call it "vague."  I'd call it elastic.  All "regulation" is 
not necessarily the same.  By opposing all government regulation, some 
libertarians treat every system from a command economy to those that
regulate relatively free markets as identical.  That's one reason
many of the rest of us find their analysis to be simplistic. 

jsh
>Mr. Grinch
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