Re: A question to Brian

[briand@xxxxxxxxxxx (Brian Carnell)]

On Thu, 2 May 1996 10:46:17 +0300, Zeynep Tufekcioglu
<zeynept@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Brian, I have been following your posts and I am a bit curious.

Thank you for your interest.

>Are you saying that, basically we are wrong to object to the state of the
>world, and it is basically fine, albeit a problem here and there - and
>capitalism is the best path because the alternative is worse. (extremely
>original, never heard that argument before).

No, that is not what I am claiming.  The libertarian position is
essentially that the best way to solve problems is through market
mechanisms.  Many of the most pernicious problems we experience, such
as corporate dominance, are in fact caused by government intervention
into the market place (monopoly, for example, is unsustainable for
long without active government promotion, protection and subsidy).

As a counterargument to Marxism/socialism, the argument would be that
these schemes a) violate fundamental human liberties (and one need
only look at the Communist states established this century to realize
the dangers there), and b) will inevitably fail because of the
problems involved in trying to plan economic production in the ways
that socialism requires to be successful.  On this last point, I would
be in agreement with economists such as FA Hayek or Ludwig Von Mises.

>Or, do you just criticise everything and don't have any suggestions. I mean,
>you seem very interested in Marxism and you take the time to argue in the
>list. Maybe you stated your suggestions in previous digests, but I am new to
>the list. Assuming all these debates you engage in is not just intellectual
>masturbation for you, you must tell us what you suggest.

Well, where are you coming from?  My point is I believe people will be
free only when they get corporations *and* government out of our
lives, whereas Marxism, especially as advocated by those currently on
this list (as all the democratic socialists seem to have abandoned
this list for the alternate Marxist list), merely replaces the tyranny
of corporate domination with that of government domination.

Instead what we usually get on this list is the sort of
rationalization that says, when the half a million people died from
starvation under Tsarist Russia during the famine of 1891-92, that was
an appalling result of imperialism (which, of course it was).  But
when approximately 5 million people died in the famine of of the early
1920s under the Bolshevik regime, which can be directly attributed to
Bolshevik policies, this is okay because it was done in the name of
the people, or most of those who died were enemies of the people
anyway, or maybe even the whole thing can be attributed to
'counterrevolutionary' factors.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Carnell                   http://www.net-link.net/~briand/
briand@xxxxxxxxxxx


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