Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 6/7/83; site hao.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!ward From: ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: What is a libertarian? Message-ID: <1111@hao.UUCP> Date: Tue, 14-Aug-84 14:10:02 EDT Article-I.D.: hao.1111 Posted: Tue Aug 14 14:10:02 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 16-Aug-84 01:49:06 EDT References: <52@azure.UUCP> Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO Lines: 34 [] I'm glad that Bill Pfeifer knows enough about me to call me a socialist. I will assume that this intellectual deficiency is his own, and is not shared by most Libertarians. As to the issue he raised: As long as 'property' is limited to products created by people, then I tend to agree that folks should do with them as they like. The loss of manufactured items usually affect only those who lose them. When 'property' includes those basic resources that all of us, as well as our children, depend on to survive, then the concept of 'ownership', at least in the Libertarian sense, becomes absurd. The idea that an 'agricultural industrialist' can poison the land that we all depend on for food so that he can make a quick fortune is insane. The land was not produced by him or by anyone else. There was no "rightful owner' of that land who could have passed 'ownership' to him. Also, history has made it clear that concentration of land into the hands of a few, which is the normal result of uninhibited property rights, leads to the deprivation of liberty for those who have no land. ie, most people. So to Libertarians I ask this: assume, for the sake of argument, without judgment on its real-world validity, the following statement. "The adaption of Libertarianism will inevitably lead to the loss of liberty for the majority of people." Would this make Libertarianism invalid? -- Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!sa!ward ARPA: hplabs!hao!sa!ward@Berkeley BELL: 303-497-1252 USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307