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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (58003)	10/8/1999 1:06:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

In eastern America circa 1900 you had the "company town" phenomenon. That was as far from libertarian as you could get. Not hard to see how the wage slaves would view Marxism as a big step up.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (58003)	10/8/1999 1:36:00 PM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

There are two problems --- the government abuses that offend libertarians are long-standing and need changing. 200 years ago there were no public schools, and when they were set up they were for the well-off and established (just like now). Libertarians would not have tried to shut down public schools - at least until every one had equal opportunity. Libertarians (e.g. J.S. Mill) called for minimum coercion and government activity -- not none. And they opposed most forms of government enforced discrimination. The other problem of private abuses of liberty requires libertarians to say either (1) the abuses will solve themselves (that's Friedman's diagnosis); (2) the abuses (such as monopoly) must be subject to private lawsuits, rather than controlled by government. That is mostly the way things are done in the U.S. now. Private anti-trust lawsuits outnumber government suits 10 to 1. Of course in 1900, there were very few lawsuits of any kind and they were mostly directed against trade unions -- i.e. to prevent people from free assembly and association.