In a message dated 22/03/2001 21:00:42 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> The liberal state has no useful role in trying to prevent people from making
> choices about friends and business associates on any basis they like. The
> point is to repeal any legislation that prevents people from making their
> own business arrangements about their workforce and their business
> associates.
> Rafe
>

Obviously, this misses the point. I never made arguments for the liberal
state to say/determine who we can talk to and who we cannot to talk. Indeed,
when
another writer was trying to make Mises look like a bigot for his private
prejudices, i made the case for a private realm of which none has a right to
go after so long as it doesn't threaten the public realm.  My point is about
the enforcing/implementing/policing/monitoring of " any legislation that
prevents people from making their
own business arrangements about their workforce and their business
associates." [your words]
You naively assume that society can through evolution reach a maturity
whereby there would never ever be the case to adjudicate between individuals
and or groups in the event that " business arrangements", legislations that
protect liberty, etc, etc, are violated or reneged. To see to it that rules
are observed that seek to preserve our liberties, there would have to be a
"referee" that adjudicates between us. Even a libertarian like Friedman
concedes on the need for an "umpire" because and as he puts it, "in both
games and society also, no set of rules can prevail unless most participants
most of the time conform to them without external sanctions; unless that is,
there is a broad underlying social consensus. But we cannot rely on custom or
on this  consensus alone to interpret and to enforce the rules; *we need an
umpire*. These then are the basic roles of government in a free society
society: to provide a means whereby we can modify the rules, and mediate
differences among us on the meaning of the rules, and to enforce compliance
with the rules on the part of those few who would otherwise not play the
game. The need for government in these respects arises because absolute
freedom is impossible. However attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it
is not feasible in a world of imperfect men. Men's freedoms can conflict, and
when they do, one man's freedom must be limited to preserve another's - as a
Supreme Court Justice once put it, "My freedom to move my fist must be
limited by the proximity of your chin"." [Milton Friedman, The Role of
Government in a Free Society, in Capitalism and Freedom, pp.25-26. University
of Chicago Press, 1998]
Lets face it: Not everyone would play ball with the liberal states perception
of things or to stretch it, the very idea of individual liberty; there would
always be someone out there who thinks otherwise. Liberty
un-protected/un-attended to, is always under threat from forces that have no
regard for the liberal order. This is why - and much to the chagrin of
anarchists - politics is inevitable and intervention and monitoring to a
certain degree is not only unavoidable but a necessity. Going by your
definition of the terms of reference of the liberal state, is it any wonder
such reckless interpretation of liberty and the free market has been such a
disaster in Russia from the early 1990s to this very day?
My own take on the terms of reference of a liberal state is that which
evolves from the imperium of the centre to the rolling back of the frontiers
of such a state as it matures with civic society to point where the state
would be trimmed as not to be a menace on individual liberty and expressly
based on our [the citizenry's] consent in periodic consultations through
democratic elections. However much a society matures civic-wise, the case for
politics and a key role for the state is both inevitable and a necessity.
Thus my earlier question remains valid and un-answered: "It is one thing to
have laws that strictly forbid discrimination against
any group for whatever reason, yet quite another to see those laws become
actual reality i.e., implementing or policing these laws to see the desired
effects become a reality. Such policing and or implementing of laws,
contracts, conventions, etc, etc, require to a degree collective effort to
the point of a central authority being in charge.
Are libertarians telling me this is not needed? If not can they tell me
succinctly what role, if any, there is for a central authority/state in a
libertarian order/society/entity."

Hamjatta

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