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Current SpeakerLet's assume for a moment that we have a society in which there is a libertarian group, a social democratic group, and another group in the middle. The libertarians want to pay minimal deference to others. The social democrats believe in a larger degree of corporate responsibility and so they want a lot more deference paid to others. The other group in somewhere in between.

Lomasky talks as though the only alternatives that the social democrats have are (1) to return to the state of nature with all its problems, or (2) to make large concessions to the libertarians. Given those options, they choose to make large concessions. I'm not sure how stable that would be, but they might make that choice if those are the only options. But the reality is that they have a third option; namely, to separate and form their own society based on social democratic principles. (The libertarians have a similar option.) Once we recognize this new option I think it is clear that if both parties want to stay together they are BOTH going to have to make some major concessions. The result is going to be somewhere in the middle. It will not be the libertarian solution that Lomasky describes.



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