[From Mike Acree (2004.01.11.1727 PST)]
Bill Powers (2003.01.09.1525 MST)--
I simply don't care whether the possessor of the kidney donates it to a friend or >>relative or stranger, sells it to the highest bidder, or keeps it.
I think you would care if it was your kidney that needed replacing
True, I might prefer that the donor give it to me than sell it to me. That's true in any transaction. But irrelevant: I was talking about interference from outside parties to the transaction.
I said I wouldn't want wealth to be the criterion for getting the kidney. Specifically, I >wouldn't want it to be the criterion for my getting a kidney, since I am not wealthy. >Since this is a life and death choice and hardly anybody can get a kidney transplant except >through publicly supported institutions like hospitals, I would judge strictly on the >basis of urgency. Or maybe some even more equitable basis -- I can be persuaded once the >basis thesis is accepted.
If a hospital or similar agency has a supply of donated kidneys which it is giving away, urgency of need is one obvious basis for allocation, though in practice it would probably balanced with age and other factors. But if decisions are not made on the basis of money, _somebody_ will always be making judgments on some other criterion, and that will be the dimension on which people will compete. Patients and their doctors will be under pressure to exaggerate symptoms, and "connections" will now be relevant. Congressmen in need of organs have been catapulted to the top of the list.
Excluding money as the basis also has a catastrophic effect on supply, as I pointed out in my talk last summer. I wouldn't consider donating a kidney to a stranger for $10, and probably not for $10,000, though I might for $10,000,000. Other people will have different values. There are certainly people who would pay $100,000 for a kidney, and probably some who would donate for that price. Those transactions could go on quite apart from the handling of donations to charitable organizations, as happens already with other commodities and services.
But, as I understand it, we're not talking about mere preference on your part: You want >>to force your choice on the possessor of the kidney (else this discussion is idle).
No, I want a social contract to exist that applies, by majority agreement, to everyone. >Only in that way can I be assured of fair treatment if the need arises.
If people sign a contract (not under duress, presumably) about how they're going to treat each other, I have nothing to say about any arrangement they agree to; none of my business. But suppose that among those who don't sign the contract a kidney sale takes place. Do you want the buyer and seller jailed? If so, you're still forcing your choice on a transaction between two other persons.
(My preference, obviously, is for you to keep your nose--i.e., your guns--out of other >>people's business.
Fine, as long as there's no chance that keeping my nose out of it will serve me better >than butting in. Would an anarchist advise me to be altruistic about this?
Most people, as we know, believe that it serves them better to try to control other people, by force if necessary. That's largely why the world is such a mess. I wouldn't expect preaching altruism to have much effect. What I'm doing here, in part, is trying out arguments appealing to self-interest (e.g., a vastly larger supply of kidneys in a free market). But a larger part is trying to understand better where you're coming from. You're a nice, thoughtful, fair-minded person; I know that first-hand. But you advocate doing some things to some people (lots of things to lots of people, in fact) that to me are quite brutal. I may never quite understand, but it's an important quest. Maybe if I understood, I'd have a better idea how to get from here to there--to a social arrangement that seems much kinder and more respectful to me.
I say "other people's business" because I don't see the kidney as communal property, >>>calling for a communal decision.)
That's very altruistic of you to look out for other people's independence, but what about >your own interests? If you thought you or someone you care greatly about might need a >kidney some day, and you weren't wealthy, wouldn't you want to make donated kidneys into >communal property? It's not as if you were telling people they have to donate their >kidneys. You're just saying that donated kidneys are such a scarce life-saving commodity >that you want them allocated in an impartial way.
I was talking about a kidney that had not yet been donated, that was still part of the potential donor's body. I would still say that my kidneys are my property and nobody else's. With respect to kidneys which have already been donated to an organization, it seems to me simpler to regard them as the property of the receiving agency, rather than having to put the distribution to a popular vote each time. But if the donors are comfortable with their donations being communal property or whatever, I have no problem with that.
Once poor countries get started on the path to prosperity, they can progress rather >>rapidly to a higher standard of living.
Unfortuantely, positive feedback also works in the other direction: any little decline >leads to a greater decline. It's unstable.
Yes. The best illustration I can think of is _Atlas Shrugged_, which traces the process is some detail.
The question is who places--i.e., enforces--those limits? They are by necessity not >>subject to those limits themselves.
Why not? If the experts on kidney replacement work out distribution rules, those rules >would apply to them as well as others. And we can have review panels made of people who do >not have the same interests. Sort of like checks and balances. Where have I heard that >before?
The question was about limits on power, about those who enforce the rules. Of necessity, they have decisively greater power than anyone else, and that's sufficient to allow them to keep expanding their power. It's no longer surprising to me that that's what we see happening. Congress exempts itself from the rules it makes for others--every major piece of social legislation from Social Security to ADA. And, as Marc Abrams points out, we keep electing them. One of the major structural checks, the indirect election of Senators, was repealed in 1913, coinciding with the beginning of an era of rapid expansion of government power. The original structure of checks and balances was about as good as any I can imagine, but its breakdown over the last century and a half looks to me pretty much inevitable. This point was made by Hugh Gibbons: that any government will keep expanding its power until it collapses, whether by provoking an armed revolution or strangling the economy o!
r some other means.
No, I am the individual I am thinking about, and I don't want to remove power limits on >others. Being fair (i.e., recognizing that only fair rules can long survive and be >enforced) I would expect to be subject to the same limitations, so whatever details I >propose should not cripple others relative to me, and vice versa. After I convince enough >other individuals to support the same program, we will have a social contract, even if >there is no such thing as Society.
I thought the Rousseauian social contract concept was one of the things Bill Williams was criticizing, and I was sympathetic with what I took his criticisms to be. But I don't have any real issue with what you've described here. I'm concerned only if you physically attack those nonsigners buying or selling kidneys among themselves.
I should think that an anarchist would be very much against allowing any
one person to get control over other people.The verb "allow" presumes someone with the power to allow or disallow, so this >>formulation is self-contradicting.
If there is an inherent self-contradiction in anarchy. I would not be surprised, but that >is for you to decide.
I was not saying (or implying) that there was any contradiction in anarchy, only in your formulation of it. I'm intrigued both by the fact that you gave a self-contradictory formulation and that you attributed the contradiction to me; but I'm unsure whether I should try to infer anything from that.
Perhaps you do not get together with other anarchists, or try to persuade them to adopt >your version of anarchy. Perhaps you do not want to eliminate factors that reduce >acceptance of anarchy. Perhaps it doesn't matter to you if anarchy dies out.
On the other hand, if these things matter, then I don't see how you can do anything about >them without persuasion, and without some sort of communal (that is, effective) response >to people who would act to wreck the anarchist movement -- especially those who would rule >you by force.
What anarchists oppose, I would say, is deliberately setting up one individual or >>institution with decisive power over all others.
The question remains, HOW can you oppose it? Don't you find that you have to violate your >own principles to keep those with decisive power from winning? Are you going to march >around waving signs? If you don't set up any institutions with power and voluntarily >support them, what chance do you give your ideas to prevail?
It sounds as though it bothers you that I'm not a violent revolutionary--am I reading you right? Rick seemed to have the same problem in the anarchy exchange 4 years ago--that if I advocate anarchy I must also advocate its forcible imposition on others. "Giving up the desire to control others" may be a a difficult goal to reach, but it's eternally strange to me that, on the CSGNet, of all places, the very idea should be so alien and impossible to grasp. Whence the fixation on "winning"?
At no point have I spoken of, or intended, anything but peaceful, intellectual opposition. I don't foresee advocating anything else. I see nothing wrong with attempts at persuasion--that's what I'm doing here--but also no reason to expect it to have any effect. I have no expectation at all of "winning," in my lifetime or for a long time after. The Declaration of Independence says that "when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government." Jefferson was complaining abou the likes of a 2% stamp tax. But the prospects for success of an armed revolution look to me much dimmer than in 1776, so I expect to end up having shirked my Duty.
The present system is, however, unstable. Even Robert Reich is sounding calls of alarm. If Strauss and Howe (authors of _The Fourth Turning_ and of the Gen-X concept) are right, we will see a major collapse in the next year or two. On the far side of that, things could be better, but that would not be my prediction.
Mike