Libertarians, Socialists Debate Government

Spokesmen for vastly different ideologies met to debate forced transfers of income last night, and quickly fell back on opposing views of the rights and nature of man.

Speaking before an audience of 50, Steven Kelman '70, author of Push Comes To Shove, said that there are "clearly no natural rights to property," while there is an overriding "social" right to a minimal standard of living.

For the libertarian side, Robert Campbell '75 and Gordon Nelson '65, head of Individuals for a Rational Society (IFRS), argued that rights to life and property were not social inventions, but rooted in the nature of man.

The debate, held before a predominantly libertarian audience in Burr Lecture Hall, was co-sponsored by IFRS and the H-R Democratic Socialist Club.

"The right to property is set up within society," Kelman asserted. Democratic socialists believe that men are products of their environment, he said, and owe a large portion of the success they achieve to others. "Thomas Alva Edison could not have gotten along without the contributions of all sorts of others who were less talented," he said.

"Each person has the right to live his own life for his own sake," Gordon said. "The alternative is collectivism. Collectivism means that the individual can't live for his own sake, but that his life belongs to someone else--the king, the poor, the race. To say that someone's need is a claim on another person's right is to advocate slavery."

Kelman admitted that democratic socialists were collectivist, but said that "doesn't mean individuals should be submerged, or made into faceless masses."