Re: The Education Function

Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Wed, 09 Dec 1998 11:30:35 -0500

Samael wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net>
> To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
> Date: 08 December 1998 19:39
> Subject: Re: The Education Function
>
> >If a society cannot trust the individual, how can it trust a group of
> >individuals? I can always trust myself to look out for me, and you can
> trust
> >yourself to look out for you. I cannot always trust you to look out for me,
> >especially when our interests are in conflict. Applying this principle to
> one
> >thing and not another is hypcritical. Applying it to technology, or to
> >social/cultural issues, but not to economic relationships reflects a lack
> of
> >integrity which I find disturbing, and untrustworthy.
>
> Because, like most ideals, the system breaks down under certain
> circumstances.
>
> Take, as an example, garbage collection. Everyone has garbage. None of us
> want it cluttering up our kitchens. We coul set things up so that each of
> us pays a small fee to have out rubbish picked up. but some people will
> decline to pay. Now their rubbish is affecting me. Should I pay for their
> rubbish to be removed? Or should we force them to pay gfor their rubbish to
> be removed? Or just have their steaming piles of decomposing filth collect
> in the middle of the street?

Well, in an anarchical situation, they have the choice of getting their trash taken away or having me bazooka their front yard. In a libertarian situation, they have the choice of taking it away or paying the impact their slovenliness has on my property value, as well as my increased costs for vermin control and possible health impacts once I've complained to my PPA, which contacts their PPA, which imposes a higher premium on them for the increased risk they are assuming, which would likely equal or exceed the weekly fee for trash removal.... funny how that can work out.

>
>
> Another example: Neonatology - medicine as applied to babies.
> A baby is born with a defect. the baby is a person. It has no income and
> no resources. Should it's parents be forced to pay for it, even if they
> can't, even if they don't want to? Should it be asked for a credit card
> number when it's born?

The parents would of course have coverage under their private health insurance. Parents who cannot afford to bear or keep a child should not keep the child. A poor person's PPA could easily set a high premium for the person if they are fertile, and low if they agree to a contraceptive implant for a long term. Its all about making people take responsibility for their actions, and paying for them. If they cannot afford them then they learn quickly enough about personal responsibility.

>
>
> Just two problems that pure libertarian capitalism has problems with.

Hardly, since pure libertarian capitalism has not and does not exist to date, you don't know do you?

> I agree that Libertarian Capitalism works in 90% of all cases and that it
> should eb left to do so as much as is physically possible. But no system
> works 100% of the time.
>

Sure it can. The solar system has been working fine for billions of years. The fun thing about libertarianism is that it allows the market to create solutions for ANY problem. It prices those solutions at their TRUE value, so nobody has to pay for something they don't want to, and well meaning busy bodies cant ram anything down anybody's throat.