[bobman0330]

Boro,

Thanks for your post: it gave me a lot to think about. First, though, we should clear up a misunderstanding. I'm not advocating stealing from Bill Gates or murdering factory owners unless they increase their wages. I'm merely postulating that a large number of people would. So, not only are your attempts to convince me that Industrial Revolution-era factories were a good thing (I wholeheartedly agree), but your repeated attempts to label me a demagogue are quite unfair. Really, the only political persuasion I engage in this forum, and I doubt the libertarians and anarchists who are the majority here are in much danger from my clumsy rhetoric.

There are a couple of points you made that I disagree with. First, you claim the fact that civilization exists means there is no inherent inclination to jealousy and covetousness. Since all our evidence comes from government-indoctrinated societies, I don't see how we can solve the problem. (Maybe 100 guys named Og tried to invent agriculture in prehistoric times, but their tribemembers, also named Og, got greedy and stole all their seeds and ate them. Perhaps it was only an exceptionally tough 101st Og who managed to invent agriculture, beat the hell out of all the other Ogs, name himself Priest-King and start indoctrinating everyone.) Fortunately, it's not all that important. The important question is what people believe now, or what they'll believe in the near future. And right now, I think it's pretty clear that people are jealous. Read the editorial page of any newspaper for two consecutive days and you're almost certain to find some class resentment. Nor is it likely that these beliefs are going to go away. Libertarian beliefs are attractive to a certain subset, but it's hardly the demographic that I fear will be trying to storm Bill Gates' house. Those people are far less likely to succumb to economic explanations and rational arguments than the denizens of this forum.

(I do have to note here that it's ironic that you cite early America as an example of the natural state. Post-revolutionary America was probably the most libertarian society that ever existed everywhere (with the unfortunate exception of slavery). Furthermore, that libertarianism was the result of the exceptionally skillful propaganda campaign that led up to the Revolution. Again, though, not especially relevant. )

Second, you claimed that my hypothetical "oppressed" factory workers would support their factory owner. Sure, they would choose working for him over their other voluntary options, but my whole point is that that's not the only choice. Maybe they and their friends (perhaps fired up by some union demagogues who no longer have a non-violent path to power) are going to trash the factory or murder the owner or whatever. The mere fact that the existence of the factory is an objective benefit to them doesn't mean they understand it, and even if they did, it doesn't mean they wouldn't fight to get a better deal.

Finally, you've claimed in several places that the market is the best arbiter of any kind of conflict. What sort of free-market solution do we have to one person's demand for a piece of another person's property or for a higher wage than supply and demand dictates? The very definition of the free market implies (I think) that the solution is "[censored] off, you parasite." That may be the morally justified answer, but it does a very poor job of actually resolving the conflict, and that's what I worry about. With these conflicts unsolved, how can we be sure that the US would be on the road to free-market paradise and not the Haitian kleptoclysm?