[ExI] don't let your guard down, not for a minute...

[Damien Sullivan]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 06:49:21PM -0700, samantha wrote:

>    What is and is not legitimate in the way of "governance"?   Why is
>    inequality a problem?  

Well, if there's enough inequality, the rich can form a new government,
with private armies and such.  Nothing stopping them, after all.

There's also that whole problem with externalities.  Legitimacy is
irrelevant if it means you pollute yourself to death or get conquered by
a neighboring government.

>>    I don't think any system which requires people to do something they
>>    don't wish or relies on exploiting another being as a permanent
>>    solution.
> 
>    Laissez faire capitalism requires neither.

As long as one ignores questions about the initial distribution of
property and the justice thereof.  Absolute monarchy is consistent with
laissez faire, as long as the king 'owns' all the land.

>    Actually, it is a system where people freely interact to trade the
>    values they produce for the values produced by others.  It is the only
>    system utterly based on freedom and especially on economic freedom of
>    association.   In point of fact far less people starved in societies
>    that were closer to laissez faire capitalism than others.  For
>    instance many millions starved in the USSR.  If you produce no values

Even fewer people go hungry in market welfare states than in states
closer to laissez faire.  If you want to find hungry people in the West,
you go to the United States.

-xx- Damien X-)