Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 14:40:53 -0600
From: jlnich1-AT-service1.uky.edu (jln)
Subject: Re: Savings and Profit



>Nicholas writes:
>
>        I mean legally.  Many people on the left end of the modern political
>spectrum use language which suggests that violence--however configured--
>necessarily preceeds gain.  I contest this and say that violence *can* lead to
>gain, but most such cases are illegal and hence illegitimate.  The role of the
>(liberal) state is to institutionalize coherently the process of gain.
>

So you mean contractually, or based upon societal agreements, because that
is what legally means in terms of law, which is what you mean.  My poijnt
is that any accumaltion of material goods which we do not need is a vilent
taking.  It is a raping of the land, if nothing else.

Nicholas continues:
>        I do not object, as I said, to attempts to apply egalitarian logic to
>the realm of resources.  However, I do think that the way to go such a project
>is to start with idealized capitalism, as embodied in neo-classical economics,
>and work your way *toward* socialism.
>
>        I am unconvinced that humans are strictly rational, untility maximizing
>beings.  It is problemmatic, I believe, to attempt to explain cultural
>phenomenon
>solely in terms of market mechanisms.  This alone suggests that economics
>itself
>cannot explain and hence describe the phenomenon of society.  Clearly,
>then, some
>theoretical mix of capitalism and socialism is required for us even to
>attempt to
>understand social phenomenon.

Capitalism requires that people be stricly rational.  It does not sound
like you are being consistent.
You would probably like Ronald Dworkin's defense of the market in an
egalitarian society (see, Equality of Resources: part 1 NS PART 2, in
ETHICS, 1982)  He holds that the market is the only way we candistribute
goods and respect everyone's equal self-worth.  But he bases his defense on
the assumption that people make radical choices without any influence from
society.  This, to get back somewhat to Foucault, is obviously wrong.  Our
choices are limted by a number of factors in various micro-power
configurations. Anyeway, what is idealized capitalism?  It cannot be
applied to the real world to being with.  Its assumptions deny factors in
the real world about choices, amount of resources, etc.

Nicholas continues:
>
>        The other issue is, of course, how the results of this attempt to
>understand
>works out in public policy.  This is where is gets messy.  Locke's
>explanation of
>private property, if I am not mistaken, is that it represents the right
>that results
>from the mixing of human labor with nature.  Private property as we know
>it today is
>an institutionalization of this right.

This is exactly the mis-interpretation of Locke which In suggested you read
Gauthier and Nozick on.  They mis-understand what Lock means here.  He says
whatever we mix with our labor, as long as enough and as good is left for
everyone else and as long as we do not waste it.  We have to use what we
take from the earth and mix with our lanbor.  All of this is in chapters
20-25 of -AT-nd Treatise on Gov't.

>
>        This response is incomplete, but it is late and I am moving tomorrow
>(this!) morning.  I will follow up as soon as I can.
>
>        Nicholas

Nicholas conitnues (elsewhere:

        The emphasis in neo-classical economics is on freedom, not slavery,
and I think the metaphor of slavery is only accurate insofar as "employment"
represents a *temporary* loss of freedom.


Me:
What is atemporary loss of freedom?  DOes that even make sense when I have
to go to work 40+ hours per week in order to maintainn basic living
conditions?

Nicholas:

        "Property is the spirit of the laws."  The idea that justice would
be served well by a permanent policy to take *forcefully* from the have's
and give to the have-not's is suspicious insofar as it is doubtful (given
the example of the U.S.S.R.: ) whether we would have any have's at all in
such a system (and, if we did have any have's, it is doubtful that they
would be anything less than party posses and smugglers).  It is much more
appropriate to consider the North-South problem as a problem of economic
development.

Me:
Nicholas is very strong in the beleif that economic development is the sole
cause of poverty or at least of empoverished nations.  But who maintains
the low level of development in third-world countries: first world
organixzations which attempt to keep profit for themselves (consider SOuth
AMerica).
Anyway, my main point is that the "have's" have already taken "foprcefully
>from the have nots because they take what they do not need, making the
"cost" on the rest of the goods rise.  This is done for example with the
huge grain silos.  The very point is to not have any "have's" ion a just
society. Or at least not to have have "have's" and "have-not's".  Everyone
should have.
And please don't throw USSR in my face.  We all know it was a failed
attempt almost from the start and really isn't what a socialist wants.

Jeff

P.S.  Have fun moving.  I get to do that in another month!!!

JLN
jlnich1-AT-pop.uky.edu
Department of Philosophy
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY. 40509