From: steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks)
Subject: Re: Limiting Govt (Was Re: Employment (was Re: Why not concentrate...)
Summary: Questions about "non-initiated force"
Organization: Free the Barbers, Inc.
Lines: 69
Nntp-Posting-Host: thor.isc-br.com

In article <C5JH23.Eu8@encore.com> rcollins@encore.com writes:
>In article <1993Apr15.164605.8439@isc-br.isc-br.com>, steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks) writes:
>|> ...you don't specify the means through which the government
>|> is to be prevented from becoming the tool of business interests.  As a 
>|> left-wing, big government, conventional liberal, I'm just as willing as
>|> you are to vote against anti-competitive regulations that favor auto
>|> dealers.  
>|> 
>|> But what I hear from libertarians is a desire to limit incumbents' terms,
>|> to weaken government by eliminating its power to enforce antitrust laws,
>|> and a desire to eliminate legislator's pay.  Each strikes me as a 
>|> particularly ineffective way to insure that auto dealers and other special
>|> interests cannot influence public policy.  In fact, they seem clearly
>|> designed to accomplish the opposite.
>
>...If government is not allowed to
>use "non-initiated force" to achieve its goals, than no special interest
>can influence the government to use non-initiated force on their behalf.

Fine.  Libertarians and anarchists are not alone in being uncomfortable
with the use of state sponsored coercion.  The notion that coercion can
be virtually eliminated in a society (or more properly that once it is
eliminated on the part of the state it is no longer worth serious 
consideration) is a view that is peculiar to libertarians and anarchists.  

For example, does "non-initiated force" (coercion) include tax collection?
Does it include the minimal level of regulation of commerce envisioned
by Adam Smith?  Since coercion can be exercised by actors other than the
state, how is the state to deal with it?  Exclusively through after the
fact arbitration/legal compulsion?  

>
>The means to reaching such a restricted government is another topic
>which I'll address briefly.  It certainly won't happen until
>libertarianism is the dominate philosophy.  What means do we have to
>make libertarianism the dominate philosophy?  Statists run the education
>monopoly, so we have to be creative.  The Advocates for Self-Government
>reports 85% of their Seminar 1 participants "embrace" libertarianism.
>That's the best means I've seen yet.  We should lobby for compulsory
>Seminar 1 attendance. :) [in jest!]

Well, I must admit that the picture of libertarians as Amway participants
is somewhat more reassuring than the idea of them trying to govern a 
complex, conflictual, industrial society.  I'd venture to point out, 
however, that if libertarians couldn't convince at least 85% of a group 
of "seminar participants" to "embrace" their philosophy, their 
propaganda skills need to be honed.  

Frankly, however, it is no great trick to create a government for a 
society in which (almost) everyone is assumed to agree about what is a proper
government policy.  Once that is assumed, all sorts of annoying formalities
can be dispensed with, elections, police, etc.  And as Mr. Marx said,
the state will just wither away.  

On the way there, however, would you like to explain how eliminating 
virtually all policies that restrain private coercion in the 
current society will help us to live happier lives? Or is it like
socialism; just some short-term pain that we'll have to bear until 
everyone has had the benefit of "re-education" through regular 
"seminar" training?

jsh

>
>Roger Collins
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