From: garrett@Ingres.COM 
Subject: Re: Limiting Govt (was Re: Employment (was Re: Why not concentrate...)
Summary: My $.02
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In article <1993Apr16.010908.22897@eecs.nwu.edu>, ian@nasser.eecs.nwu.edu (Ian Sutherland)         writes...
>In article <1993Apr15.170731.8797@isc-br.isc-br.com> steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks) writes:
>>In article <1993Apr15.013651.11353@tijc02.uucp> pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt) writes:
>>>steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks) writes:
>[...]
>>It is a failure of libertarianism if the ideology does not provide any
>>reasonable way to restrain such actions other than utopian dreams.
> 
>You seem to be saying that a LIMITED government will provide MORE
>opportunities for private interests to use it to pursue their own
>agendas, and asking libertarians to prove that this will NOT happen.
>While I can't offer such a proof, it seems pretty damn plausible that
>if the government does not regulate a particular area, it cannot become
>a tool of private interests to pursue their own agendas in that area.
>I rather suspect that it's the sort of government we have NOW that is
>more likely to become such a tool, and that it IS such a tool in many
>instances.
> 
Pardon me for interrupting, but why doesn't anyone ever bring up other
possibilities besides more government, less government, or no government
and stop there? It seems to me that the problems with society go MUCH
deeper than government. Democracies seem to reflective of the majority
of society, both the good and the bad. If you take away the government,
you still have the structural flaws in society, except this time, with
no restraints. Yes? No?
	Why doesn't anybody ever discuss communal society, like a
kibbutz? I never studied it on depth, but from what I've heard, the kibbutz
in Isreal was very successful. It is also very close to what Aristotle
and Socrates believed was the best.
	Sorry to detract from the discussion.

>>Just
>>as Marxism "fails" to specify how pure communism is to be achieved and
>>the state is to "wither away," libertarians frequently fail to show how
>>weakening the power of the state will result in improvement in the human
>>condition.
> 
>I suspect that this is because "improvement in the human condition" as
>you define it is not the primary goal of libertarianism, and would not
>be the primary goal of a libertarian government.  My impression of
>libertarianism is that its primary goal is the elimination of
>government coercion except in a very limited cases.

But what good is change if there is no tracable improvement in the human
condition? Who would ever support the change if you tell them it won't 
improve their lives? I know that there are, and will be, libertarians 
who will jump in now and say that it WILL improve our lives. I can deal
with that. All I'm saying is that improving the human condition must
be the PRIMARY goal of any organization.

>Ian Sutherland
>ian@eecs.nwu.edu

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