Re: [A-List] The Peso is a "Derivative" of the Dollar

["Annewilliamson" <Annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

Libertarianism does not deny that individuals are constructed
socially.  Marxists and libertarians split on the issue of free
association.

    Marxists wish to perfect and order populations so that social justice
reigns and that all receive a certain minimum; this requires that we be
sorted and tagged, and then mixed up again in order to achieve
various "social" aims, i.e. through manipulation of the tax code,
loss of local zoning rights, school bussing, just about every damn
govt initiative for the past 100 years. It's madness, utterly unworkable.
The a cruel and de-humanizing system bureaucatic regimes require
can only be enforced.  Tyranny is required.  In a world of  property
rights, communities develop consensually so long as there is freedom
of association.

A key aspect of the property right is the right to exclude.  This isn't a
"correct" thought today.  But it should be; if 'no' is not permitted,
'yes' can never be the result of free choice.  Exclusionary rights
are an effective tool in building consensual communities, and
are critical to minority communities.  The New Square Hassids
are not handing out residency passes to the passing goyim.  Many
blacks in Harlem were furious about Clinton muscling in; a high-
profile white presence threatened to raise the general price level,
which is far more reasonable than what visitors to NY experience
in mid-town, Soho, the Village, Wall Street, the East Side, etc.

There are many analyses and books which address the two
questions you claim libertarianism never address:  the origin
of the State, and of Property Rights.  www.mises.org.

Anne

I do think you are correct that this argument can never be solved;
the premises of Marxism and Libertarianism are just too far apart.

Many on this list probably do not know that in the 1960s, Murray
Rothbard attempted to unite the far right and the far left.    He failed.
Rothbard had hoped the two side's shared anti-war, anti-empire tenets
would be the bridge. Instead the result was the formal founding of the
Libertarian Party.

The LP proved itself a disappointment to Rothbard, and he
produced biting commentary on the LP's shennanigans.  Fun stuff to
read if you're on my side of the argument.  Today the Mises crowd
at www.lewrockwell.com  is having a good time roughing up the Cato
Institute for it's cock-eyed "privatization" plan for social security -
their advocacy bought and paid for by Wall Street - which would
produce a system far worse than the current fraud.

Again, you are right in that radically different premises kept that bridge
from ever being built.

What concerns me here, and why I'm on this list - though I know
darn well I am never going to convert a one of you to my way of
seeing things - is because I am really worried about our ability to
to have these sort of debates and conversations in the future.  I feel
acutely the loss of liberty, of dignity, and of accountability
in the U.S.  I do fear that the "jackboot in the face of humanity" is
fast approaching.

BTW, navigating through Heathrow from New York for a
connecting flight on Monday was a dreadful
experience (though not quite as stupid as in the States - yet).
The degradation of contemporary Britain distresses me almost as
much as that of the United States.





----- Original Message -----
From: "bon moun" <sherrynstan@igc.org>
To: <a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: [A-List] The Peso is a "Derivative" of the Dollar


> This debate can never be reconciled.  Marxists have a very definite notion
> of what the state is, and it is antithetical to the libertarian notion.
> These differences are fundamental philospohical differences, based on
> radically different premises.  Libertarians and marxists agree that the
> individual human being is the indivisible unit of society.  But marxists
> understand that indivisibility does not translate into independence.
> Social relations are changeable, and even sometimes divisible, but they
are
> absolutely inescapable, and the notion of an abstraction called
"individual
> choice" being the basis of some abstraction called "liberty" is, and
always
> has been, reified reductionist nonsense (no personal offense intended,
> Ann).  All individuals are constructed socially.  If they weren't, we
> couldn't have this conversation.
>
> Libertarianism fails most completely in its ahistoricism.  When
> libertarians begin to seriously ask the question how did the state appear
> in the first place, and how does it persevere in so many changing forms,
> then they will break out of that mechanistic box they are in, and begin to
> question the notion of property itself.
>
> How does property become property?
>
>
>