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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Doing only that which brings the most profit.
Message-ID: <4239@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Aug-84 01:06:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4239
Posted: Sun Aug 19 01:06:13 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 01:06:13 EDT
References: <740@ubc-ean.CDN> <1050@dciem.UUCP>, <999@hcrvax.UUCP>, <8680@watmath.UUCP>, <4226@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 36

> .............................................. I am pleased to pay a
> little more for my own full-feature comforts (e.g. telephone) if it allows
> others to enjoy the same (e.g. telephone).

I wish you'd stop assuming that the rest of us are equally pleased to do
this.  We're not.

> ........................................  Perhaps this is one function of
> government support of industry: equal cost for equal service, regardless
> of geographic location, disability, native language, or gender.

The trouble with this approach is, where does it stop?  There is *no*
*limit* to the number of special-interest groups who can make some kind
of case for the idea that they are getting shafted, and that the
government really ought to subsidize them as compensation.

Take me -- I'm a programmer who keeps odd hours.  Clearly the stores
ought to be required to stay open until 0200 so that I can shop at my
convenience rather than theirs.  I mean, equal service and all that...

If you object that is a frivolous example -- by the way, it's not at all
frivolous to me; the shortage of late-night stores is a bloody pain --
tell me how it's *FUNDAMENTALLY* different from the sort of thing you're
advocating.  Please don't tell me that telephone service is a truly vital
necessity.  I lived without it, quite happily, for several years.  (Yes, I
was a sys admin for part of that time.  "If it's important enough to get
me out of bed, it's important enough for you to walk over to do so.")

Once the government gets into the business of righting economic wrongs,
it grows and grows without end.  Well, eventually it comes to an end,
when the taxpayers rise in revolt, but that's the only limit.
-- 
"The trouble with a just economy is, who runs the Bureau of Economic Justice?"

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry