Forwarded message:

From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net> Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:43:31 -0800

Robert Hettinga wrote:

...

A government is just another economic actor. A very large economic actor with lots of guns and a monopoly on force, but an economic actor nonetheless.

No they are not,

Yes, they are. Can you say 'taxes'? Can you say 'interstate commerce'? Can you say 'mint money'? Can you say 'federal reserve'? Can you say 'FDIC'? I thought so.

nor will they necessarily recognize the economic consequences of their actions before they entirely self-destruct or mutate only to do it again. History shows this.

Really? What history?

I generally use the economic/political distinction as made by Franz Oppenheimer, and furthered by Rothbard, Rand, etc. In that context they are a political actor, not an economic one.

False distinction. Politics is about control and power, and in human society that breaks down to force and money.

I purposefully ignored the prospect of corporations using coercive force to prevent privacy, it is rather

There you go again, confusing privacy with economics...

improbable and still preferable to government coercion -- but note they do use coercive force today preventing privacy, but government is their instrument of force.

True, but that isn't a function of regulation per se only the particular type of regulation that we have implimented. You're arguing from a specific example and trying to extrapolate to a general rule and it don't fly.

Jim Choate wrote:

...

You need to look around, the government has NO monopoly on force.

They have a *legal* monopoly on force (within a state).

No, they don't. It is perfectly legal for an individual to own a weapon. There is also a clear distinction between the local police, your state police, federal agents, military, etc. Lumping them all into one generic category is a disservice and is unrealistic (especialy since they are often in adversarial roles) if we really want to understand how our society works and where we can take it.

You do not generally consider the black market in determining monopolistic conditions, and in fact the existence of a black market in a segment generally points to a coercive monopoly in the public one.

No it doesn't. It points to the fact that individuals want to participate in some activity that some other party doesn't want to occur. It does not imply that the regulating party wants the potential income from those activities. Further more, even in a free-market there will exist black markets. It's always cheaper to buy stolen merchandise than legitimately purchased merchandise. The aspect of a free-market is that there is no consequence from such actions (unless you want to admit to allowing corporations to have their own hit squads). Again, a function of human psychology and not economics or political systems. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------