From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 09:32:59 MST
On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> War, being a rather extreme series of events between groups, and being
> a group activity (i.e. not to be found in a strictly libertarian world)
> exclusively, illustrates this. A strict libertarian would not engage in
> combat against any party which had not directly attacked that
> particular libertarian. This is the heart, and the weakness, of the
> non-initiation of force principle. The problem is that applying such a
> principle to the real world is Pollyannish, as much as any pacifist
> principle is.
More troubling to me is how libertarianism understands "force" never to
include economic force. Especially in the contemporary world, the
difference between economic force and civil-law defined (I
guess) "violent" force is blurred at best. Property laws can exert
mechanical memetic force and economic and political structures can exert
institutional, systemic force (partly memetic, but also accessing
everything from human muscles to sentient weapon systems and population
control grids).
gej
resourcesoftheworld.org
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
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