From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune@mars.superlink.net>
On Monday, November 05, 2001 4:26 PM Smigrodzki, Rafal
SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU wrote:
>>> Is there in your opinion any conceivable situation where
>>> the economic interaction of free people, without fraud,
>>> "third party" intervention, direct coercion, but acting within
>>> a legal system respecting property rights, could have
>>> undesirable consequences, necessitating a coercive
>>> intervention on behalf of some of the persons involved?
>>
>> It could have undesirable consequences because the future
>> is uncertain.
>
> Exactly. Even what we think is right and good can turn out to
> be wrong in a longer time-frame. So all assumptions and
> social ideas have to be frequently reexamined and chnaged
> if new data requires it.
I don't disagree here, but there are two problems. One is that both the
public and the government's attention will turn elsewhere. In other
words, a program, such as Social Security, will be put in place to solve
a seeming problem, then basically forgotten about.
<snip>
### Yes, you are right, governement action tends to generate special
interests which parasitize the society. This has been extensively analyzed
by Jonathan Rauch in his "Demosclerosis". Yet, it is not an argument against
the government as such, merely an argument against the government in its
present form.
So, no incontrovertible moral argument against coercive action yet.
------
>> Whether such conditions would necessitate "coercive intervention" is
>> another matter. Wouldn't one want to err on the side of freedom and
>> reason?
>
> Always. Freedom and reason are right at the top of my "good" list.
Then why coercion? In my mind, force and reason are pretty much
opposites. (The Objectivist influence on me.:) Ergo, any initiation of
force means foregoing the use of reason. Would you, e.g., give up the
scientific method or the laws of logic because you couldn't get the
results you desired in a specific experiment or argument?
### "Initiation of force" is such a fluid concept. I do believe that
initially non-coercive systems spontaneously generate coercive situations,
and then brute force is needed to prevent it from getting worse.
-----
> Again, yes, to some of it, except there would be no civilization
> without governments.
I see the causality going the other way: there could be no government or
no government over and above simple chiefs temporarily ruling small
bands without civilization. Civilization, as it progresses, creates
huge amounts of wealth and capital that governments can live off.
Governments basically consume. You should read Hoppe and others on
this.
### Emphatically no. Read your Ayn Rand. Governments (starting at the
village chief level) are an unavoidable element in the development of
civilization, emerging spontaneously, like eusociality, or herd behaviors,
allowing coordinated activities and expanding the abilities of the society
as a whole. I sincerely doubt you could give me an example of an ungoverned
society achieving anything significant, especially survival among governed
ones.
As much as I loved reading "The peace war", I do not believe it could come
true, definitely not without technical advances absent from human history so
far.
-----
> Does it mean that your answer to my first question is a principled
> "No" and any discussion is only an intellectual pastime?
I'm not unwilling to change my morality, but it would take evidence and
argument -- not some vacuous claim about being openminded, but real,
hard data.
### Very good - this is exactly what I think and I am glad you do not take a
dogmatic position on the main question that I posed. And of course, real,
hard data is needed before making life-and-death choices, open-mindedness
alone can cause your mind to fall out (as, I believe, Mike Lorrey once
wrote).
-----
Also, morality for me is not separate from empirical issues or reality.
In fact, I'm basically in the Objectivist and neo-Aristotelean
traditions here. (I might add, I also agree with much of what Lawrence
C. Becker has to say in his _A New Stoicism_. I mention him because
he's modernized stoicism and the result is quite good, IMHO.) Since I
also think of politics as reality based, the same applies for it. Note,
my arguments in this area are generally backed by historical examples.
### Again a resounding yes. We have the same basics of reasoning, the
ethical metalogic. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
Rafal
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