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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
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