<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><br><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> ExI chat list <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wed, May 11, 2011 2:39:49 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [ExI] Usages of the term libertarianism<br></font><br>
2011/5/10 Mr Jones <<a ymailto="mailto:mrjones2020@gmail.com" href="mailto:mrjones2020@gmail.com">mrjones2020@gmail.com</a>>:<br>> Particularly interesting to me were these few sentences...<br>>><br>>> Yes, I believe that coercion<br>>> is a prima facie bad. But I also believe that it is prima facie bad<br>>> for people to fail to get what they deserve, or for their basic needs<br>>> to be unmet. These moral beliefs, to my mind, have just as firm a<br>>> standing as my opposition to coercion. I see no reason to believe<br>>> that in a conflict between them, the opposition to coercion should<br>>> always trump.<br>><br>> I agree the govt doesn't get to dig into your pocket for any lil' ole thing<br>> they want/need/desire. But until people have their basic needs met, society<br>> deserves the burden, as a whole.<br><br>I agree with this, except for the "as a
whole" part. I think there are<br>enough generous people, at least in a country like America, to care<br>for the truly indigent. The problem with government is you end up with<br>a program like Food Stamps that now serves 35 million people (12% of<br>the population). These are not all indigent. I know, I was on Food<br>Stamps myself for a while and I was by no means indigent at the time.<br>I just qualified for the program. I'm pretty sure I would qualify now.<br>I am not indigent, but I could steal money from all of you (at least<br>the Americans who pay taxes) by going down and applying.<br><br>> Amass as much capital as your greedy heart<br>> desires, once children aren't starving to death because some company like<br>> Glencore has found a way to game the system.<br>> "Stability is to be prized," said Oxfam's David Green. And that is the last<br>> thing Glencore wants, as it's instability which is most profitable -
for<br>> those who have the inside knowledge to exploit it.<br><br>I'm not familiar with Glencore, but I probably would not like what<br>they are doing. If you have an article to read or something, I'd be<br>glad to comment further.<br><br>> Govt provides a kind of balancing against the power of capital (at least<br>> it's supposed to, when working properly). What we've witnessed the past<br>> few'ish decades, is what happens when capital rules the roost<br>> semi-unchecked. De-regulation hands the keys to the inmates. On the other<br>> hand, micro-managed regulation mucks things up too; as always there's a<br>> balance to be found.<br><br>Of course, there is balance. But to say that there are only two<br>players, government and corporations, in the game is disingenuous.<br>There are a lot more players than that, including lobbyists, churches,<br>NGOs, non-profits, charities, professional organizations, unions,
etc.<br>All of these play a part, and I argue that some of them should play a<br>much bigger part than they do today. And government should play a<br>smaller part, for sure.<br><br>-Kelly<br><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt">I'm curious how you view the future. I'd say we're only 15-20 years away from losing all of our truck drivers to driverless trucks that can drive 24x7. As more work is done by machines eventually there will come a time when there is little that can't be done by machines better and cheaper than a human can do it. We're going to need fewer and fewer people to manage things. How does this work in a libertarian world? </div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Also, please try to convince me that gas prices at the moment and the near destruction of the global economy
aren't a direct result of capitalism in it's purest form run rampant without enough regulation. </div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Finally, have you considered the benefit that the wealthy receive over the long term from the redistribution of wealth? If they just kept it all, eventually all the money would pool up on their end and the economy would come to a crawl (just like now). Moving that money out to the lower end where it is spent, moves the economy and at the same time, it always works its way back up to the top in the form of profits - assuming they have something worth buying. It forces corporations to profit by innovating rather than profiting by doing nothing. Innovation is scary, risky, and costs money. When possible, corporations will profit by reducing costs rather than innovating.</div><div style="font-family:arial,
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