Re: Mayoral race

Kevin Dempsey Peterson (peterson@ocf.Berkeley.EDU)
Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:01:41 -0800 

On 8 Feb 1998, Daniel C. Burton wrote:

>Kevin Dempsey Peterson <peterson@ocf.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in article

>> Now, if "give small businesses and neighborhoods precedence over big
>> businesses" didn't mean, "the evil capitalists are out to enslave us," I
>> would go for that.  A city policy to (say) give a construction job to a
>> local contractor rather than a national company is a good thing, and if
>> you don't like it, "vote with your feet."
>
>No, it's not.  Such policies provide unnatural incentives for inefficient
>forms of production at the expense of ones that produce things of value to
>society.  This creates a discourages the creation of wealth on a local
>level, which rests of the greatest creation of value possible.  Ultimately
>this damages the local economy, because, though it might encourage
>production, it could be the wrong kind of production....

Protecting local (small) businesses at the expense of large chains is
economically inefficient on a large scale, but good for other reasons.
I can find books at Cody's that I can't find at all in Thousand Oaks,
whcih has only chain bookstores.  Local businesses have the aditional
advantage that more of the wealth stays in the area.  Profits from Joe's
Garage are spent in local businesses, while profits from Pep Boys are
spent by the shareholders out of the area.

>And people will "vote with their feet."  Specifically, local businesses
>will flee to other areas.

I respect the right of idiots in groups, in addition to idiots
individually, to do stupid things.  Over protective economic policies
ruin the economy.  Slight incentives may (I'm not sure) have benefits
which outway the incentive to be inefficient.

>I don't care if there are other localities available to move to.  Doing so
>is not without cost.  Nobody should have the right to take peoples' money
>and subject them to such policies on any level of government, no matter
>where they are.

I disagree.  When I moved to Berkeley and signed my lease, I agreed to
play by the local rules.  If a private protection agency owned an area
of land, and sold perpetual, transferable leases to land in that area,
on the condition that the leasee obey the laws handed down by that
protection agency, then it's a legitimate government, and can do
anything provided for in the contract.  We don't have an explicit
contract with the city, but I do think we have an implicit contract.
The question is what it says.  I don't think we have even an implicit
contract with "the United States", so it's more or less irrelvent what
it says.

I've got an essay kicking around in my mind that might clear some of
this up (or at least provide a better defined point of argument).  I'll
have to try to get it written.  The main idea is that people don't have
any rights, but agree to a government because it is efficient.  I really
don't like the idea of anarchy (even with protection agencies) because
it doesn't provide a moral basis for saying what power a protection
agency has over people who are not clients, and where its power to
enforce its contracts ends, such as, Can clients leave the area where a
protection agency is active (possibly competing with other agencies)
when they own money to the protection agency?  Can the protection agency
legitimately enslave them for failure to pay?

Some things I'm still not sure of:
Do people have any inherent (natural) rights, or are rights only a
relic of government?
Is "the right to govern" a legitimate right to tie to (real) property,
or can the right to govern only arise from the voluntary agreement to an
explicit contract?
Does acceptance of and participation in a form of government imply
agreement to the nebulous social contract?
In the absense of government, do people have a right to nothing, a right
to everything, or a right to certain things (this last is the natural
rights idea)?
Is there any method of establishing a government which will have a
legitimate claim to exert coercion over residents of an area who have
not explicitly agreed to obey that government?

-- 
peterson@autobahn.org (preferred)
http://www.autobahn.org/~peterson