Re: PFF's Magna Carta and the new netserfs

[Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>]

    From: "Ed Carp [khijol Sysadmin]" <erc@s116.slcslip.indirect.com>
    Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 01:07:21 -0700 (MST)
    
    > I've never figured out why governments are made out to be so
    > bad; guns, ok, but the problems of privacy we face on this list
    > have little to do with that.  Corporations can be at least as
    > bad - extreme government leads to socialism, which often retains
    > some form of citizen-participation in decision-making; the
    > corporate state, though, is exemplified in fascism, inherently
    > much less concerned about citizen's rights.

    Extreme government leads to totalitarianism, not socialism.

This statement, as well as the one to which it is a response, confuse
decision making forces in government and government control of
economic forces.  Democratic socialism, totalitarian socialism,
democratic capitalism and totalitarian capitalism are all possible, at
least theoretically.  Moving beyond theory, one could easily claim
that no truly {democratic,totalitarian,capitalist,socialist}
society/economy has ever existed.

    Governments as a whole are seen to be "bad" because they
    invariably undermine the right of the individual to make choices
    for themselves.

Unrestrained economic powers (companies, corporations, whatever) have
the same property.  This seemed to me to be a fundamental point that
Rishab was making -- and one that is often ignored in discussions of
economic libertarianism.

			Rick