Re: Capitalists and coercion

From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Fri Oct 20 2000 - 06:50:47 MDT


[Still catching up -- only two weeks behind now . . .]

In a message dated 10/4/00 10:03:07 AM Central Daylight Time,
jhughes@changesurfer.com writes:

> Nazis: Europe/world united under the leadership of a German,
> racial-nationalist one-party state, with corporatist, but nonetheless
> privately owned, economy.
>
> Communists: World united under a set of one-party communist states with
> state-owned industry
>
> Social democracy: Independent multi-party, democratic countries with mixed
> economies
>
> Anyone who tries to tell you these three social systems were basically same
> thing because they weren't anarcho-capitalism isn't contributing
> meaningfully to the conversation.

I agree with you on this, Mr. Hughes. Extremist rhetoric bothers me, even
(perhaps especially) libertarian extremist rhetoric. I agree that really
equating Germany in the 1930s or Russia in the 1950s with, say, Sweden in the
1970s or 80s doesn't move the dialogue along. On the other hand, I don't
know how anyone could maintain that, say, Sweden in the 1970s or 80s had
achieved some insurmountable zenith of perfection in the arrangement of human
affairs. (I'm picking Sweden for my own rhetorical purposes :-).

       Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
      Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
      http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
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        "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
        enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
       question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
                                          -- Desmond Morris



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