[extropy-chat] So-called "implied contracts" and their implied worth

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> At 11:42 AM 10/29/2004 -0700, Mike L. wrote:
> 
> >ANY government program that takes your
> >money as 'taxes' to redistribute it to someone else is theft at the
> >barrel of a gun.
> >
> >...Sounds like something one would
> >expect from a 'house slave'.
> 
> Many of us have been raised to think of it, and accept it, as an
> implicit social contract where we pay forward the debt we share with
> everyone else, our portion of the debt assessed according to how
> much spare resources we already own. Rather in the way most
> children learn to share food at the table rather than wolfing down
> the lot after shoving everyone else aside. 
> For a small test case where this kind of commity has failed, look at
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/opinion/29birkett.html?th
> 
> People often default on this shared enterprise; some are locked up as
> scoundrels, others run corporations like Enron. Some justify their
> default by reference to philosophies such as libertarianism, which
> finds the basis of the implicit contract, and its implementation in
> a given society, to be unfair, absurd or simply onerous. It's an
> arguable position, but its case is not won by fiat or redefinition
> of `theft' or accusations of servility against those who accept a
> pay-forward and proportional solution to the inevitable
> interstitial and even structural damage done by markets, crime,
> race hatreds, etc.

Libertarianism doesn't deny the fact of implicit contracts outright, it
merely denies all the socialist baggage that collectivist statist are
always trying to hang on that contract. But the accusation is common
for statists to make, as one commonly sees today the liberal "if you
don't do it for the children/women/minorities/etc you are mean and
greedy," presented as some sort of rational argument.

Your claim is a bait and switch tactic. That is the problem with
implicit contracts: the fine print is invisible, so the majoritarian
mob can always be conned into believing that there is fine print in
there that benefits them (at least until they are no longer in the
majority). 

Implied contracts are not worth the implied paper they are implied to
be not written on. 

I always find it amusing to see societies which tend to deny the
validity of verbal contracts between individuals always seem to have a
religious reverence for the idea of an implied social(ist) contract.

I understand the concept of paying forward, as do many libertarians. We
prefer to pay forward on an individual basis. Virtuous acts of men
committed under the coersion of force are neither virtuous, nor
committed by men. They are the fruits of extortion carried out by
automatons.

> > >Winners, losers. It is not an endless, infinite bucket of
> > > money/resources. I ask "how much is enough?" Should there be
> > > requirements to return such wealth beyond a certain point?
> >
> >Return wealth to who? Upon what basis is a claim made?
> 
> Upon this basis:
> 
> "The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe-like
> independence. It did not occur to him his chattel was the end product
> of the cumulative effort and intelligent co-operation of hundreds
> of thousands of men, living  and dead." 
>                   --Robert A. Heinlein, `Coventry'
> 
> Heinlein's utopian judge condemns MacKinnon, a reckless rugged 
> individualist: `From a social standpoint, your delusion makes you as
> mad as a March Hare.'

Heinlein wrote Coventry when he was coming down off of his
Georgist/Socialist kick of the 1930's when he flirted with Upton
Sinclair's party. By the time he wrote Methuselah's Children, he had
realized the errors of his ways, which is why he never permitted his
30's novel "For Us, The Living" to be published (it is recently
published, now that his wife is dead, which speaks volumes about honor
among publishers).

=====
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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