Look, we all have our opinions, but none of us are being scientific about all this. Just for the sake of giggles and laughs, let us set up an imaginary town, where the government is minimal. Call it Chaosville, or Telmoland, or Brentburg. Let the law stand aside as the passage of drugs through this location is not criminalized. Where merchants can charge the going price, where using heroin, or crack cocaine, or ketamine, or even tobacco is legal. I am sure we will have a body count, but I'd be a bit surprised if its over money and territory (money again) and likely, be from drug overdoses. There will be social costs to pay, and psychological, and sorrow-just like there is today, just about everywhere. My guess is the costs of drugs would drop fantastically, thus the profit motive is greatly, reduced. This experiment would be measurable, rather then just my opinion. Perhaps the Netherlands is up for this?
-----Original Message----- From: Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com> Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 7:29 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:55 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: > > If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act > altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A > dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. > Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a > semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce > an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, > and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will > shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes > the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even > after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or > win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will > take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which > would you choose? > > > There can be no marketplace without government. Yes. This is why when the government makes a certain type of trade illegal it disappears. Otherwise, drug dealers could create complex global organisations with major trade routes feeding local resellers and so on. It would be possible to buy drugs produced in distant lands even without the government's help. > Government's define > ownership, property rights, contracts - all stuff essential for markets. Again, this is another reason why illegal drugs are not bought or sold. It doesn't make any sense. How could you possibly buy or sell drugs without the government defining your right of ownership, contracts and so on? Telmo. > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
