Re: Even more equilibrium, stasis and death

[Devine <JNDF%LMUACAD.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 28 Jan 1994 23:11:28 -0700 Brad Cox @ GMU/PSOL said:
>Whoa! Wasn't Hayek's bogeyman socialism and communism? Don't recall him
>saying anything bad about democracy. Always figured him for a libertarian,
>myself.

IMHO, libertarians want to limit state actions to a minimum, i.e.,
protection of so-called private property, enforcement of contracts,
and military defense.  This is fundamentally undemocratic, since
the voters often want more than than (and sometimes even less than
that: they may want to end the abuses of the public interest by
the owners of property, etc.) Rather than siding with Rousseau,
who saw the citizens as the sovereign (in his SOCIAL CONTRACT,
not his more flaky stuff), libertarians side with Locke, who
saw the property-owners as the sovereign class.

BTW, I haven't heard the libertarians in L.A. telling us that
the Invisible Hand should clean up the earthquake rather than
the government. But I'm sure some are thinking  in those terms.

sincerely,

Jim Devine   BITNET: jndf@lmuacad.   INTERNET: jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA
310/338-2948 (off); 310/202-6546 (hm); FAX: 310/338-1950