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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarians and economic democracy
Message-ID: <1386@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 17:32:10 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1386
Posted: Wed Feb 13 17:32:10 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 18:35:19 EST
References: <630@wucs.UUCP> <610@unmvax.UUCP> <458@whuxl.UUCP> <330@enmasse.UUCP> <563@mhuxt.UUCP> <93@ucbcad.URe: Re: Libertarians and ecoS13 Feb 85 22:32:10 GMT
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 62
Summary: 


I'm sorry to quote this at such length, but I don't see how to cut
it and still have it make sense:

>A philosophy professor I have grew up in a town in Newfoundland that
>worked this way. There was one industry, (a large plant) and everybody
>worked there. The company provided your house, your car (in some cases),
>and would pay for medical treatment. It would also pay for education for
>your children, even to sending them  (or some of them) to university.
>
>Every youth was guaranteed a summer job at the plant, as well, if they
>wanted one. He worked there every summer, saved up his money, and left.
>
>Eventually (I think after Newfoundland joined Confederation) the government
>stepped in and said that it was *wrong* for any company to have such control
>over the life of its workers. The whole setup was shut down. At the time,
>when my professor was a happy university student with a strong interest
>in Marxist political philosophy, he hallowed this as a great improvment.
>
>Now, however, when he looks back, he can see that things were much better
>before. Now this particular town has high unemployment (like the rest
>of Newfoundland) and  the ties which kept the town working together have
>been broken -- despite a population *decrease*. Quality control and
>production are down in the plant, as well.  These days he thinks that the
>whole thing (including having Newfoundland join Confederation) was a
>mistake. There is the ``old man in his late 50s looks back on his past''
>problem, he admits, but it seems to be shared with the other people who
>grew up there. How much of the decline can be attributed to a general
>decline in values (something which he believes in, even if I am not
>so sure about it) is also hard to measure.
>
>We can't think of a way to research this scientifically. But it makes
>you wonder...
>
>Laura Creighton

There have been hundreds of such company towns.  Essentially, the company
forms the government, and while the company is making good money, everything
is fine.  The problems arise when it doesn't, and decides that the plant
in that town should be closed (or that it can't afford such benefits).
Then you are in the same situation as with any other reliance on welfare
provided from a single source that decides it isn't going to continue.

One of the good things about the libertarian arguments is the emphasis
given to choice and variety.  In the one-industry company town, neither
is present.  Government intervention may provide the opportunity for
choice, and could possibly have good effects.  When the economy generally
is depressed, it is unlikely to do so.  In Japan, it seems that morality
demands that companies care for their employees through good times and
bad.  Here, morality is different.

My guess is that the company town provides better good times and worse
bad times than the alternative.  Just like other centrally planned
economies, or dictatorships, that system is very good when it is good
and very bad when it is bad.  But people don't have much freedom there
to change the system, which I guess most of us would think to be
inherently bad -- an ideological position, not a pragmatic one.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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