Letters to the Editor
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@LWM re: Transactional economics
I like that Mona said she didn't like to lie. In making that remark, I didn't intend an endorsement of libertarianism.
I have heard Marxist, ararcho-syndicalist, anarcho-capitalist, corporate capitalist, socialist, libertarian, fascist and any number of other viewpoints since I've been reading here.
For my own part, I tend to think in terms of transactions. My background is in technology, but I have had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about global supply chain management. One of the key concepts in supply chain management is the idea of a transaction as a model for almost any domain: physical, economic and/or behavioral. In the real world of making and selling things, transactions are defined in so many ways and across so many domains that they are often best viewed as chains of transactions and even long-lived sagas of transactions, each with their respective subtransactions. The point at which you being a chain (set, saga) of transactions and end the chain may be determined by corporate boundaries, contractual boundaries, physical boundaries such as time and location -- any number of criteria in any combination.
The resources, costs and benefits associated with a transaction are not all necessarily contained within the transaction's context. By that I mean you can create products that have costs that you do not pay for and also create benefits that you do not receive. As a well-worn example, I can define all of the costs associated with a manufacturing process, but if my manufacturing plant dumps chemicals into a river, the people who live downstream may be assuming (perhaps without their knowledge or permission) some of the costs of my production. That cost may or may not be monetary. The fact that I don't include that cost in my calculations does not mean it is not there. All costs are not monetary. Neither are all benefits. Although I don't agree with everything he says, Ronald Coase has a lot to say on this subject.
When it's all said and done I like the idea that all human beings should be provided with a certain minimum level of resources such as food, water, shelter, healthcare and education. That's the socialist part of what I believe. I also believe that individuals should have the freedom and opportunity to pursue goals of their own choosing. That's the democratic/libertarian/capitalist part I guess. And while profit is the purpose of capitalism, there should be mechanisms to prevent an accumulation of resources, money and power that would remove or place at risk these other equally important benefits. That's the government law and regulatory part.
I'm definitely not a classical liberal or a neoliberal. If anything, I'm a new liberal or social liberal. I believe in private property, but I reject social darwinism and monopoly capitalism. I support anti-trust. I believe a government has the responsibility to actively promote liberty and individual freedom for every citizen. In fact, I think that should be the central goal and primary purpose of any government.
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How much Ellsburg is needed?
Not to belabor the point I was hoping to make earlier (I didn't get a chance to look at the thread all day, I'm returning), but how much Ellsburg behavior is needed to sink this thing? As I recall, Ellsburg eventually got off as a prototype for whistleblowing, but not until he got harrassed, fired, and several criminal acts were done trying to discredit him. Suppose that all you did was provide evidence that the wiretapping was done on Americans calling Americans without warrants or evidence of terrorism rising to the level of a search warrant. Would that allow the lawyers to go to court and get rid of it?
Or does there need to be a lawsuit and someone who got harmed and all that? Isn't it illegal without damaging someone?
How sure could someone who could get such information be that the lawyers would prevail, the program would get stopped, and a milestone in the battle against abuse of power get laid? How close were they really to stopping it?
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@Michael Harold
Mona lies to herself all the time by calling herself a "libertarian". She's a Hayekian and she probably doesn't even understand what that means. He was in favor of a guaranteed basic income for all people to cover food and shelter. Run that up old Mona's vulgar libertarian Cato flag pole and see how that flies.
Here is an interesting blog for you to read:
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
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@ Michael
I like Henry George. He realized that land was the key.
And Tucker, "The natural wage of labor is its product".
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@LWM
Excuse me, L.W.M. but is it really necessary to carry this discussion on how to name each of the individual varieties and subspecies of libertarianism into so many days? Some of us have never claimed libertarianism as a credo, and it's getting to be like trying to have a discussion in the middle of a Pentecostal meeting. No matter what anyone wants to talk about, there's people falling on the floors and speaking in tongues.
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@ Ondolette
You can just tune me out. I happen to think it is necessary to prevent another catastrophe befalling this nation, like Ron Paul or some other proto-fascist populist, vulgar or pseudo-libertarian coming to power. It's happened before, usually while people like you weren't paying attention.
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@ Karen M
The Internet? In this context. I suspect you have something very interesting to say here, but I'm not clear about it. Would you mind elaborating?
My point was that what was done after Watergate was a shoring up of defenses, legally speaking, against the abuses Nixon had perpetrated against the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which up until that time, I suspect most people, including those in Congress, had thought pretty much a complete defense against the abuses in question. The threat of impeachment must have seemed an awfully scary and unreliable defense to the Congress at that point, despite Nixon's subsequent resignation, and all the public relief expressed about the system working, etc., etc.
In my opinion, those laws which were passed in the wake of Watergate were weak, and they were weak precisely because they were intended as patches. Just how weak they were is evident in how easily a determined Bush administration, guided by authoritarian survivors of the Watergate era, were able to usurp them and the Constitution once again.
As I see it, this hasn't been a series of battles, but one long battle interrupted briefly by the Clinton administration. (Carter, in my opinion did little to restrain these right-wing forces; indeed in the area of foreign policy, despite the Camp David accords, he was largely captured by them.) The intent all along was usurpation, and we have awakened now to find that it's been almost completely successful.
One of the things which initially attracted me to UT was that only Glenn, it seemed to me, understood clearly that what was happening was in fact a usurpation in the legal and constitutional sense. His training as a constitutional lawyer, and his lack of a partisan political lens through which to view the struggle, seemed to allow him to perceive very clearly and unequivocally what few otherwise astute commenters saw.
Now it may seem to you, and to others here, that the resources available on the Web, and the broadly participatory nature of their creation and distribution may result in a political consciousness among the people which will allow them to understand what is happening, and encourage them to fight back in a way which none of the TV generations which preceded it were capable of doing. Possibly so, but not soon, I think.
You have to remember that the engaged activists of the Viet Nam era fought back on a much broader front than any we have at the moment, even though it rarely exceeded Bush's current base as a percentage of the population, and even though it was largely composed of young, rather than middle-aged people. In the end, though, the institutions, as they often do, outlasted the passions of the people, and the institutions were structurally incapable of resisting what the right-wing continued to have in mind for them.
It is hard for me to see how the Internet can help us do any better in the short term, although in the long term it might. Am I missing something here? (Being as old as I am, and dragging as much of that baggage we flatter ourselves in calling experience behind me, it's entirely possible.)