X-Message-Number: 28143
From: "egg plant" <>
Subject: Libertarian economics 
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:01:24 +0000

"Anthony ." <>

>What I would like to ask libertarians is: do you think our societies would 
>be able
>to provide the healthcare, education, civic services, and all the other 
>things
>that need taxes if there were no taxes?

Government healthcare is a Byzantine network of expensive and confusing 
regulations administered by foolish inefficient beaurocrates, the net result 
of it all is I pay your medical bills and you pay my medical bills. I humbly 
suggest we all just pay our own medical bills and be done with it. And by 
the way, the word  healthcare  is not mentioned once in the US constitution.

As for education, well look at the worst slum you can find in the USA, you 
will find far more good cars than students that go to good schools, why? 
Because the market supplies the cars and government supplies the schools. 
It's a fact of economics, when any service has no competition quality goes 
down. This is not a big problem for the rich, they can send their children 
to expensive private schools, but that isn't an option for the poor or even 
the middle class, they can't afford to pay for education twice, once in 
their taxes and again to a private school. And the reason the public schools 
stink is not lack of money, the dreadful Washington DC schools spend $13,330 
per student per year, think of a private school that charged that, which 
school do you think would be superior? And by the way, the word  education  
is not mentioned once in the US constitution.

>Should we all depend on the (unregulated,
>uncoerced by law) charity of the rich?

No, the first thing we should depend on is ourselves; but it's true that 
sometimes we can get so unlucky that the only way to survive is through 
charity. I admit that in a Libertarian society if nobody had any compassion 
for the poor they would be in very serious trouble, but it's no different in 
a democracy. If I refuse to give money to earthquake disaster victims 
voluntarily why would I vote for a politician that makes me?

>If a homeless person asks me for money, I give them every cent of cash I've 
>got.

I very much doubt that, if you did you'd soon be homeless yourself.

>the criminal underworld is a pretty good unregulated
>market right?

Right.

>well, except the force, threats, murder, etc.

What did you expect? If government made chocolate bars illegal then the 
underground Hershey candy company and Mars candy company would have no way 
to settle disputes except through baseball bats and machine guns.

John K Clark

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