Dan, Roger, Platt, David "Evolve" Wilkinson, Clarke, Brian
(mentioned)
and MD (it's quite impossible to entitle the post to all!)
as beginning, sorry for the length.....
Dan:
> Thank you for including me in your discussion.
well, it's always good, even if you are a damned libertarian :-)
You rightly point out that there is a difference between the central and the
peripheral government. I also live in a small town and of course there's a
different perception of the local government, if confronted with the national
one, or with the arising European Union. I was obviously talking about the
central governments, that are perceived normally "far" from the everyday life,
usually filtered through TV glasses.
Here in western Europe there's an interesting experiment: the building of a
overnational entity, the European Union, which is designed to be quite different
(with less powers) from your federal USA. Even if there are many oppositions to
the process toward a stronger union (especially in the UK, Denmark, Norway), IMO
there's not the same hidden *hate* that pops out reading *between the lines* of
American posters.
And I've never listened to anyone here in Italy stating so directly and
seriously, like Platt did, that taxation is in itself a theft. Of course,
everyone would like to pay less taxes, and many here in Italy voted our new
government after such a promise, but zero taxes is behind every possible serious
will. At the contrary, many here really want more services as possible to be
paid by the Nation (note that I write "pay" and not "provide").
(by the way, thanks Roger for remembering us that we are talking of entire
populations, where of course there are many different ideas... even in Italy
there are tons of libertarians...)
After this long discussion, I came to few conclusions:
1. An advise to Europeans
Europeans should learn from Americans to be a bit more watchful about
governments. Even if I'm sure that the fascist/nazi/communist lessons have
taught a lot, and consequently we are more libertarian today than in the past,
it's probably true that we tend to forget sometimes that we must keep ourselves
very watchful to avoid possible degenerations of the political system. By
degenerations I don't mean an authoritarian evolution to fascism or communism -
very improbable, I guess -rather the too frequent scandals we suffered even
recently: ever heard of Craxi, Kohl and Mitterand affaires? Just examples of the
high probability of real thefts of public money for unclear purposes. We feel
secure within our giant, then we get furious when we discover it has swindled
us and it's late.
2. An advise to Americans
On the other hand, Americans should become more watchful about the free trade
myth. It seems to me that the economic recipe of the USA can't work abroad as it
is, and also I feel that in the USA (more than here) there are too many cases of
a bad influence of the market logic on the intellectual/individual level.
Examples are school sponsorships; the lack of courage of media about death
penalty ("too unpopular!"); the power that private lobbies have on the politics
( what about the intimacy between George W and oil companies?). Market, that is
social, is blind to the individual needs: when profit is the main goal, the risk
that the single becomes a number is huge.
In both cases the solution is the individual. We all should learn to say *NO* to
the giants we live within. IMHO the intellectual level is, in the end, the
supremacy of the individuals over the giants, both political and economical
giants. My personal interpretation of the MOQ sees the political-economic
system as the *environment* of the social level. To support the market against
the public, or the public against the market is to argue about two limits of the
same level. I think that a *moral* viewpoint should look at the whole thing from
above.
3. Free trade
This supposed free trade is not free at all in the third world, where capitalist
firms (not only American, of course) still persevere to act immorally toward the
local populations and environments. It's cynical to say that it's fault of the
Nigerian government, so to say, if the oil companies are *legally* destroying
the environment. We all know that the oil firms can make the laws there. And
probably all the blind supporters of this system (that is NOT the ideal free
trade the MOQ talks about) too easily forget that the western richness has been
built also thanks to the exploitation of the third world. A good intellectual
project should be to build a fair world, even helping those people to create a
*really free* market and a *really representative* democracy. After the WWII,
for
the fear of communists, USA helped western Europe with the "Marshall Plan".
Isn't it time for another plan like that? Roger is surely right now typing his
usual answer that capitalism inherited poverty. I don't think so, but even if it
was true, it's like to say: a flash destroyed the house of my neighbor.. who
cares? my house is untouched and there's the NBA final this evening..... Even
the slave traders used to say that they did not invented slavery. This
introduces the next point.
4. Libertarianism is a dangerous illusion.
Of course we have the right to smoke a cigarette, but we also have the duty to
ask for the other's permission. Maybe I'm stating obvious things, but it's good
to remember that our freedom begins in the point where the other's freedom ends.
More than one century ago, an Italian thinker, Giuseppe Mazzini, while the whole
world was going mad talking about the rights of peoples, workers, women,
minorities and so on, wrote a book entitled "I doveri dell'uomo" (The duty of
man). I've always thought that if Mazzini was German and Marx Italian, the
history of twentieth century had been different. In few words, every right has a
duty as counterpart. Apply the discourse to the MOQ, and you can easily read
that rights are dynamic, while duties are static. There's no way out: you can't
have only rights; an absolute freedom is impossible. You should live aboard
alone your whole life to be socially free, but ONLY through the social
interaction -that is full of duties- with someone else (Rigel, Lila, Capella)
you evolve intellectually.
And this is the limit of libertarianism. When Clarke declares proudly that he
reaches the peace of mind thanks to his .22 caliber, the first thing I can think
is that I COULD NOT LIVE IN SUCH A STUPID NATION. Clarke, I'm not meaning that
YOU are stupid! I'm just saying that if it is necessary to own a GUN to be
PEACEful, (as the town is full of freely armed people) well, there's something
wrong in that nation. It reminds me of Orwell's 1984, where the Ministry of
Peace was there to arrange war; or the Romans, who used to say "Si vis parare
pacem, para bellum" (In order to keep peace, prepare war) and I think it was a
perfect mot for a socially focused age like that. 2k years passed in vain?
Fortunately, Roger will assure me that tons of Americans don't bear arms, and
that all these news about the passion for arms are intentionally provided by
those leftists of Hollywood. More seriously, the second thing is that, like in
the cigarette example, you own a gun but don't care about the low rate of peace
of mind you are provoking among your neighbors, who probably are going to
purchase a gun. A nation where it is normal for Brian Taylor to write:
> for some reason we are very paranoid about
> everything really. nobody trusts any body.
is probably the paradise of Rights and the tomb of Duties. That is, a place
where it becomes very hard to have a fertile social *ground* where intellect can
richly flourish. Of course right now Roger is preparing the usual list of the
intellectual developments of American technology and science, and even arts.
Well, I'm beginning to think that intellect must be ALSO something more.
Back to the libertarianism, the quiz Roger suggested (even if lacking of many
important questions) shows well that there are two different dimensions of
libertarianism. One is about the individual, another one is about economy. It
seems that we all are more or less libertarian on the individual dimension,
while
we have different ideas on economy (there we range from almost 0 to almost 100
! ). As said, what I write about duties is probably obvious at the individual
dimension. The "duty topic" was underlying there, that's why we all are
individually libertarians. To say "free sex" is not like to say "free sex of
consenting adults". You well see that the duty was explicit in the question. In
the other questions was hopefully implicit in our minds.
It's on the economic dimension that the duty thing is not clear at all. Maybe
Americans are more libertarians only 'cause they don't need an explicit mention
to duties even on this dimension; they well know, for example, that the freedom
of the market is controlled by antitrust laws; on the other hand, Europeans
moqers hardly arrive to 50 points, probably 'cause we have a scarce confidence
in the respect of the duties by private firms. More likely, simply Americans
have less care about duties.
5. Private or Public?
It was the initial question, and my last answer. Well, let me say that the main
thing is democracy. Who decides what has to be public, and what has to be
private? In a democratic context, the population, through their representants
freely elected, decides what's to be private. So it is good *if they really want
that* for Americans that the health system is private. It is good as well for
British, *if they really want that*, to support their NHS. Every confrontation
of data, (number of operations, costs of cures and so on) could be very useful,
but also, let me say, very *objective*. We all know that we can read every
statistics as we want. Surely there are good things in both systems, and surely
what's good in England is not good in Minnesota and viceversa.
Anyway, to state that it is a robbery to take money from British people for
something they want is absurd. The recent disaster of the conservative party
seems to confirm this point. I'd suggest also to read the very interesting post
from David "Evolve" Wilkinson ( 5
June 2001 ) about New Zealand, in which he shows the bad consequences of a
brutal privatization in his country. In this sense, Roger's position about the
legitimacy of what he calls *experiments* (but I'd say from my view point that a
private health system is an experiment!) is at least open minded.
Sorry again for the length, and thanks for your attention
Marco
p.s. to Platt.
As you see, even if I'm the most vehement on these themes, I'm not the most
leftist! Anyway, given that it is impossible to agree on all things, hope we
both have understood the other's reason.
> I have sold some of my paintings. I'll be glad to show you
> some of my work by attachments to personal e-mail if you wish.
As I told you, I'm not used to judge artists on the basis of their political
ideas... :-) so I'll be glad to receive some imagines of your works. Bye!
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