Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/23/84; site ucbcad.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad!faustus From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Libertarians and economic democracy Message-ID: <93@ucbcad.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Feb-85 01:19:53 EST Article-I.D.: ucbcad.93 Posted: Thu Feb 7 01:19:53 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 07:33:10 EST References: <630@wucs.UUCP> <610@unmvax.UUCP> <458@whuxl.UUCP> <330@enmasse.UUCP> <563@mhuxt.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA Lines: 41 > > If we're going to do away with big government I'd rather > > not have IBM fill the vacuum, though we could do worse. > > This isn't the first person I've noticed who seems to think that if > we can get big government off of our backs, IBM (or ANY huge corporation) > will just be able to 'step in' and fill the power vacuum. Sort of > like Baron Greenback: "... and in the resulting chaos, *I* will step in > and take over the world!" I've often wondered just how he was going > to go about that. No problem! Nature abhors a vacuum, right? Wrong, > obviously, since 99.9999...% of the volume of the universe is full of > vacuum. Bad argument... > So I ask: Which of the functions of government which would be > discarded by libertarians would a huge multinational corporation be > able to take over? (With profit, and without losing dozens of class > action lawsuits?) Or is this 'IBM filling the vacuum' stuff just > empty rhetoric? Probably very large companies with a lot of unskilled labor (IBM isn't a good example here) would want to set up corporate cities for their workers, where they had a lot more power than the government does now over citizens. There are a lot of reasons why this would be a good idea -- they could keep track of what their employees were up to, they could pay them much less as they are also paying for their room and board, and so forth. The libertarian will of course say, "But nobody compels them to work for that company". But when you are talking about a number of very large corporations like IBM, which would probably grow larger if government regulation were eliminated, in many places either you work for them or you don't work at all. I'm not saying that this is the same as "lack of freedom", but just a very strong incentive. If IBM were the only menace, that wouldn't be so bad. What worries me is that what tends to fill the vacuum are groups like the Mafia (not to mention foreign governments). Of course, this is more of an argument against anarchies as opposed to Libertarias. Wayne