[extropy-chat] Heinlein and thinking for yourself

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Stephen Van_Sickle <sjvans at ameritech.net> wrote:

> 
> --- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  
> > Yes, it is the common Proudhonian supposition that
> > we have a debt to
> > the past generations which built the civilization we
> > currently live in.
> 
> I don't get that at all.  I had interpreted it as
> meaning that MacKinnon didn't realize that he was
> deliberately removing himself from the economic
> systems that made it possible for him to buy and pay
> for such things as the turtle.  

The problem with the story is, however, that the 'economic system' that
made it possible to buy and pay for such things is in any way to be
credited to the state. Markets happen despite government, not because
of it. The presence of black markets is proof enough of that.

The faulty socialist idea that Heinlein was suffering from (likely
contributed to significantly by such early SF as the socialist
Bellamy's "Looking Backward" as well as his education at the hands of
the US Navy) was that we have government to thank for everything, that
government is in some way synonymous with 'the public good', 'the
commons' etc. and that therefore our taxes are legitimate
confiscations.

The problem, of course, is that the redistributionist tendencies of
government work at cross purposes to this claim. It is the productive
members of society who are responsible for the civilization we now
enjoy, yet it is those same productive members who pay the most for
their 'debt to the past', while their payments are redistributed as
entitlements to the unproductive classes who are not responsible for
the height of our civilization, but who instead are responsible for it
being held back from greater heights.

So, instead, the productive members pay the most to those who hold back
the advancement of civilization, ergo taxes are inherently luddite in nature.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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