Linux-Advocacy Digest #309, Volume #27 Sat, 24 Jun 00 14:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft Ruling
Too Harsh (MK)
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft Ruling
Too Harsh (MK)
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft
Ruling Too Harsh (MK)
Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft
Ruling Too Harsh (MK)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics,alt.society.liberalism
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft
Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 18:10:09 GMT
On 24 Jun 2000 02:06:13 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk) wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>On 22 Jun 2000 20:51:39 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk) wrote:
>
>>>>Equality requires slavery.
>>>
>>>Right-wing Libertarian bullshit. It's slavery to rob
>>>employees of a large portion of the value they produce, and
>>>thus pay them low salaries, while the wealthy owners and
>>>executives are paid 1,000 or 500,000 times as much, for
>>>the same number of hours work per day. Yet the alleged
>>>"right" of business owners to do this is the central policy
>>>of Libertarianism.
>Also the policy of opposing public education, housing, and
>healthcare;
That's not "public education, housing, etc.", that is theft
practiced by hypocrites. Read my sig.
>people are just supposed to do without these
>things,
No, people are just supposed not to be stolen from
under pretending that govt helps. Read
the article on education I posted elsewhere, as
well as:
---
Why things cost as much as they do
Recently, the Washington Post did a break down of dry cleaning one
shirt for $ 1.10, analyzing each component of the total price. Their
analysis looked like this:
Cost
Labor 43 cents
Payroll taxes 4 cents
Rent 12 cents
Supplies 9 cents
Depreciation 9 cents
Utilities 7 cents
Insurance 4 cents
Office & administration 4 cents
Repair & maintenance 3 cents
Advertising 3 cents
Interest/bank charges 3 cents
Claims & miscellaneous 3 cents
Profit 6 cents
TOTAL $1.10
In response, economists Gary and Aldonna Robbins of the
Texas-based Institute for Public Policy examined the same case, with a
particular eye toward uncovering the hidden costs of taxes in a given
item's price. Here's what they found:
Total Cost Fed. taxes
Labor 43 cents 13 cents
Payroll taxes 4 cents 4 cents
Rent 12 cents 4 cents
Supplies 9 cents 3 cents
Depreciation 9 cents 3 cents
Utilities 7 cents 2 cents
Insurance 4 cents 1 cents
Office & administration 4 cents 1 cents
Repair & maintenance 3 cents 1 cents
Advertising 3 cents 1 cents
Interest/bank charges 3 cents 1 cents
Claims & miscellaneous 3 cents 1 cents
Profit 6 cents 2 cents
TOTAL $1.10 37 cents
Tax Rate 33.6 %
In short, federal taxes today increase an item's price by almost 34
percent of its cost. State and local government taxes further raise that
share to 48 percent. Keep in mind, these taxes are paid by all
consumers and are in addition to the almost 40 percent tax rate most
families pay in income and payroll taxes already.
Hotline:
(800) 767-7577
Fax:
(703) 368-5843
Citizens for an Alternative Tax System
10600-A Crestwood Drive, Manassas, VA, 20109-3432
---
The fairy tales about "public housing, education, etc." are just
calculated for naive like you.l
>and if they die, the Libertarians don't care. They
>also oppose laws regulating business to provide environmental,
>worker, and consumer protection.
Personally, I rather claim that it's not in right of govt to impose to anybody
and that individual negotiations and whent taking all factors into account it
will be better -- interests of anybody are not changed fundamentally
by the law, the law is just used as means in war.
>The only remedy they permit
>is lawsuits after the fact, which are expensive, slow, and
>permit lots of people to be injured and killed.
Bc people are idiots unable to take independent action and govt knows
better what's good for them.
<snip>
>http://www.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=618537352
>
>>The trouble with Social Democracy is that it doesn't put enough value on
>>individual freedom. No matter what social and/or political system we adopt,
>>individual freedom should be its highest priority.
>No, the highest priority should be for everyone to live
>well and successfully, *and* to have the maximum amount of
>individual freedom consistent with that.
Make up your mind -- only one thing can be of highest priority (I mean
really #1, not some ex aequo). That is the negative rights
of individual not being infringed upon.
>This is a very
>complex goal, which turns out to require a complex, well
>thought-out set of laws, many of which have to be created
>on an ad hoc basis.
And that complex web of laws will be used in selfish interest
by the most powerful party anyway. Which means that
individuals will be worse off than they would be without
those laws.
What individuals REALLY need is some means of defence against
negative externalities. That's all. The rest has to be subject
to individual negotiation. To quote Ludwig von Mises:
"In colloquial speech we call a man "happy" who has succeeded in attaining his
ends. A more adequate description of his state would be that he is happier
than he was before. There is however no valid objection to a
usage that defines human action as the striving for happiness.
But we must avoid current misunderstandings. The ultimate goal of human action
is always the satisfaction of the acting man's desire. There is no standard of
greater or lesser satisfaction other than individual judgments of value,
different for various people and for the same people at various times. What
makes a man feel uneasy and less uneasy is established by him from the standard
of his own will and judgment, from his personal and subjective valuation.
Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.
To establish this fact does not refer in any way to the antitheses of egoism
and altruism, of materialism and idealism, of individualism and collectivism,
of atheism and religion. There are people whose only aim is to improve the
condition of their own ego. There are other people with whom awareness of the
troubles of their fellow men causes as much uneasiness as or even more
uneasiness than their own wants. There are people who desire nothing else than
the satisfaction of their appetites for sexual intercourse, food, drinks, fine
homes, and other material things. But other men care more for the
satisfactions commonly called "higher" and "ideal." There are individuals
eager to adjust their actions to the requirements of social cooperation; there
are, on the other hand, refractory people who defy the rules of social life.
There are people for whom the ultimate goal of the earthly pilgrimage is the
preparation for a life of bliss. There are other people who do not believe in
the teachings of any religion and do not allow their actions to be influenced
by them."
MK
---
Involuntary redistribution is theft in coating of hypocrisy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was: Microsoft
Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 18:10:13 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 20:42:04 -0800, "salvador peralta"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <8j152l$6tc$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark
> S. Bilk) wrote:
>
>> Also the policy of opposing public education, housing, and healthcare;
>> people are just supposed to do without these things, and if they die,
>> the Libertarians don't care. They also oppose laws regulating business
>> to provide environmental, worker, and consumer protection. The only
>> remedy they permit is lawsuits after the fact, which are expensive,
>> slow, and permit lots of people to be injured and killed.
>
>True enough. And watch them raise bloody murder as soon as anyone
>actually uses a lawsuit to remedy those injustices.
If so, why do the libertarians call for "no immigration bariers for peaceful
people"? Truly capitalist countries do not have a problem with allowing people
in and out of country as they want it. But the country with socialdemocratic
policies effectively has to put "barbed wire" on its borders to keep
the people out, and it does -- look at France or Germany.
Socialism in any form ALWAYS results in political and bureaucratic barriers.
It's only a matter of where in particular they are put. Laissez faire
does not have this problem -- supply follows the demand.
MK
---
Involuntary redistribution is theft in coating of hypocrisy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics,alt.society.liberalism
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was:
Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 18:10:15 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 00:42:04 -0400, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> However, Libertarians, including (un)Reason magazine, don't
>> care. They're in the business of justifying anything that big
>> business does. (Un)Reason magazine's website says they get
>> half their income from private donors whose identities they
>> keep secret.
>
>Reason's problem is that they are not technical people, and
>weren't following Microsoft's business practices closely
>enough to realize that Microsoft specifically set out to
>subvert one of Reason Magazine's primary goals: FREE MARKETS.
I beg to disagree -- IMAO, the articles in Reason contain a _lot_
more good understanding of technical issues than the mainstream
press.
Also, there's not just technology to it, there are economics, business
and social consequences of it -- and that is where Reason
is strongest and where MS-bashers are extremely weak.
>> Since the magazine constantly prints propaganda saying that
>> employers should be allowed to pay their employees as little
>As a matter of FACT, employers pay their employees as little
>as possible RIGHT NOW.
Of course -- think what would happen if they did not. Employers try to pay as
little as possible, employees try to get paid as highly as possible. Otherwise
one of two things could happen:
-- wages would skyrocket all the time, like it happened in former Yugoslavia,
where enterprises were put mainly in control of workers -- the result were
systematic wage hikes to which other enterprises responded with even
greater wage hikes to which previous enterprises responded with another
wave of wage hikes -- hyperinflation (and you know how hyperinflation
ended up in Weimar Republic -- the similarities are chilling)
-- wages would fall to zero -- not very sensible result
Without pressure from both sides, there is no way to achieve any,
even chaotic equilibrium. No economy could work -- and they
do, better or worse but they do.
MK
---
Involuntary redistribution is theft in coating of hypocrisy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MK)
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics,alt.society.liberalism
Subject: Re: Anti-Human Libertarians Oppose Microsoft Antitrust Action (was:
Microsoft Ruling Too Harsh
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 18:10:21 GMT
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 00:49:58 -0400, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Mark K, I don't mean to attack you personally, especially
>> seeing as you're posting from Poland. But in Russia they
>> are finding that unregulated Capitalism is worse for people
>> economically than Communism. Both of these systems are
>> coercive and cruel. Social Democracy is much better.
>I have been in Russia three times.
>What they have is NOT capitalism.
I confirm that -- we still have large chunk of intl trade with Russia (even
though it's smaller since the last Russian crisis) and for obvious reasons we
have to know what's up there.
>It is the newest form of
>communis (perestroika means "restructuring"...and that is exactly
>what they did...the RESTRUCTURED COMMUNISM), wherein they pass out
>all of the economic goodies to a few party insiders (recall the
>child's nursery rhyme about "Little Jack Horner" pulling out a
>plum. This is a reference to an actual historical event in which
>a certain John Horner was given a lot of valuable properties for
>pennies on the pound.)....they call this "robber baron" economy
>capitalism... and yet, they tie up the ordinary person in a sea
>of red tape to keep them from starting any competing businesses.
I call it neofeudalism.
Some call it mafiocracy -- see http://www.konanykhine.com/mafiocracy.htm
Same thing really. The typical manner of acting of medieval societies
was monopolizing particular econ domains and granting them to mafias,
err, guilds. Similar to the Russia today. Even in the West there
are traces of this mentality, see "labor unions" -- that's really
expression of pseudo-tribal, guild mentality. Monopolize some area
of economy for sake of insiders (read that article on illegal workers in USA
and how unions keep them out -- same as guilds in Middle Ages).
Note LOVE of guilds, i.e. labor unions. That's really an expression of feudal
mentality. Compatible feelings, compatible argumentation, the same losses of
customers and unemployed that they are supposed to suffer quietly
bc labor union/guild members want to love their monopoly and enjoy
the "brotherhood of tribe that cares for its members (and to hell
with plight of outsiders)".
In Russia: Gazprom, huge oil & gas company. It has not been created in
capitalist way, it is political organism in which all major positions are
basically result of political connections and games of the govt. Socially,
it is sort of kingdom, or state within the state, not company.
Except short period between 1900 and beginning of WWI (even
though in that time the late Industrial Revolution was really gaining
speed there), Russia has never had either capitalism nor it has ever had
democracy.
Our police has serious problem with criminals from former SU racketeering their
own people. They never hit upon our citizens, only their own, and they do not
want to testify (for obvious reasons), so police and justice can do little
about it.
However, I don't want to be some sort of doomsayer -- OTOH, as one guy living
in Siberia told me, many people are living normally there, it's not like it's
all sort of Wild East. There are brighter spots, too -- the industrial
production in Russia recently has started to rise, even though the
exchange is mainly based on dollars or... barter.
MK
---
Involuntary redistribution is theft in coating of hypocrisy.
------------------------------
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