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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Thanks NOBC. I have some questions but I need to save them for later.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:


So there I am on my own plot of land not bothering anyone. But directly upwind of me, on THEIR own plot of land, a battery recycling facility gets built. Now all of the sudden I'm breathing lead fumes; and lead, arsenic and cadmium dust; as well as generically harmful ultrafine particles; and having my health and lifespan slowly chipped away at. Not to mention the dust, traffic, and noise, and that I think the place is an eyesore. Surely they haven't taken out a gun and FORCED me to do anything. OTOH they didn't exactly give me a choice about whether or not I wanted to breathe toxic air. I suppose I could always stop breathing. Or I could sell my property and move away. But somehow that doesn't seem very libertarian to me - I didn't create the problem, so why should I have to be mitigating it?

Who in this circumstance wins the coveted 'allowed in libertarian-land' award? Me and my right to 'own' my own health and the qualities of the property, and the air and water that flow through, as I bought it? Or the battery recycler to do what they want on their own property as long as they haven't 'forced' anyone else to do anything.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Rules should apply or not apply to all or none, anything less reeks of a caste system and is by design, a tyranny - and make no mistake, a lot of so-called libertarians are really just a false front for the NeoFeudoFascists who want exactly that and have ever since Robespierre put paid to that divine right of kings crap.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
That case SHOULD be covered in the "freedom to do whatever they want, up to the point where it harms someone else" , which is to say "you", rule, but you'd probably have to PROVE that they were harming you. Which would involve a court or voluntary arbitration, and if they had enough influence (money) could stretch out until you die of the cancer they caused. Which would (maybe, or maybe not) be enough to prove that they harmed you. Your descendants might win, eventually.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:


So, what is the purpose of libertarianism? Usually, political/ economic philosophies have some sort of stated goal: prosperity for all. Prosperity for some now, so that there will be more in the future. The genetic improvement of the human race in a dog-eat-dog system. Equity. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

I've heard no such overarching goal for libertarianism. Now usually if people won't tell me why they're doing something and why I should too (What's in it for me and mine?) I get the strange feeling that either they don't know, or they don't WANT to tell me because... well, I probably wouldn't agree with it.

So, for anyone who has an idea of what the end goal of libertarianism is, please feel free to speak up!

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
So there I am on my own plot of land not bothering anyone. But directly upwind of me, on THEIR own plot of land, a battery recycling facility gets built. Now all of the sudden I'm breathing lead fumes; and lead, arsenic and cadmium dust; as well as generically harmful ultrafine particles; and having my health and lifespan slowly chipped away at. Not to mention the dust, traffic, and noise, and that I think the place is an eyesore. Surely they haven't taken out a gun and FORCED me to do anything. OTOH they didn't exactly give me a choice about whether or not I wanted to breathe toxic air. I suppose I could always stop breathing. Or I could sell my property and move away. But somehow that doesn't seem very libertarian to me - I didn't create the problem, so why should I have to be mitigating it?

Who in this circumstance wins the coveted 'allowed in libertarian-land' award? Me and my right to 'own' my own health and the qualities of the property, and the air and water that flow through, as I bought it? Or the battery recycler to do what they want on their own property as long as they haven't 'forced' anyone else to do anything.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
'Anthony and Serg x, as well as Frem'

Those are names I've not heard for a long time ...

That sounds like it goes years back ... ??? If so, that would be some digging.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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This is the spiel, but what do you actually mean by it all? How does it really work? How, in a large and complex society, where your individual rights start to infringe on anothers individual rights, and how does this get defined and sorted?

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RAPPY- Waving the word "freedom" like a flag isn't an explanation. Is it possible that you could come up with an answer to this question, and more?

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Look at you. Wanting more and more answers, to be told what to think and how to live. And sure as hell if i were to produce any sort of manifesto, you'd call me CRAZY for trying to impose my rules on your lifestyle

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Necrodredging FTW!

Libertarian Vs. Minarchy Vs. Anarchy
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=35023

Sadly, parts I and IV return a 404, but here is part II and III

The Libertarian and Anarchist Society- Part II
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=32312

Libertarian and Anarchist Society Part III
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=32384

Yay me, I found the "Story of Burt" post - Siggy no doubt remembers THAT one!
A story and a question.
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=32089

Here's a shorter thread which seems useful.
For those thumbing through the brochures..
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=33044

Help from Libertarians/Anarchists
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=32253&p=1

Smallish thread, more spiritual perspectives.
What do I as an individual owe to society and/or mankind?
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=37006&mid=6
78918

Ah, and one of the be-all-end-all arguments, a five pager, right to travel vs right to protest.
Stop the Traffic
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=43940

That'll keep ya busy for a while, I think.

-Frem

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I've already told you.

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Made me sad at the number of folks we've lost, and at the loss of civility in even pretty heated discussions.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Made me sad at the number of folks we've lost, and at the loss of civility in even pretty heated discussions.

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Well, there was a lot less rappy-and-PN-and Zit-posting.

You're right- the boards were better then!

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Way back in 1975, a Republican agitator named Ronald Reagan had this to say about an esoteric young movement that was roiling politics: “If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”


Neither the GOP old guard nor the rowdy libertarians ever quite bought that argument.

They both lay claim to the same conservative economic philosophy. But libertarians are more isolationist and antiwar than Republican orthodoxy allows on foreign policy and more permissive on social issues.

Still, in the nearly four decades since Reagan made those comments, the two have managed — at least most of the time — to maintain an uneasy marriage of expedience.

Libertarianism once again appears to be on the rise, particularly among the young. But its alliance with the Republican establishment is fraying, as demonstrated by the increasingly personal war of words between two leading potential 2016 presidential contenders.

The sparring began last week, when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) posited: “As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought.”

After Christie made it clear that he was referring to Rand Paul, the Senate’s leading critic of the National Security Agency and its surveillance programs, the Kentucky Republican fired back on his Twitter account: “Christie worries about the dangers of freedom. I worry about the danger of losing that freedom. Spying without warrants is unconstitutional.”

Their feud — which is being watched closely as a possible warmup round for 2016 — has continued, expanded and spilled over into other issues.

On Tuesday, Christie chided: “If Senator Paul wants to start looking at where he’s going to cut spending to afford defense, maybe he should start cutting the pork-barrel spending that he brings home to Kentucky.” After which Paul told CNN that the plus-size governor was “the king of bacon talking about bacon.”

This kind of rancor is pretty much the last thing the Republican Party needs right now as it struggles to broaden its appeal and find its footing in the wake of two successive presidential defeats.

For their part, libertarians are thrilled. They say it is a sign they truly have arrived as a force to be dealt with, rather than dismissed as a fringe element.

“There are a lot of people within establishment Republican Party politics who have controlled the process for the last 10 or 20 years who fear that their grip on the party is slipping away,” said Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), whose amendment to restrict the NSA’s ability to collect telephone records came surprisingly close to passing in the House last week.

In an interview, Amash argued that despite opposition from House GOP leaders, his point of view represents an advancing wave among House Republicans. He cited an analysis by Bloomberg News showing that while House Republicans who have served more than five years opposed his amendment by more than 2 to 1, it won a slim majority among those who have arrived there more recently.


The amendment, which was co-authored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), a liberal stalwart who is a half-century older than Amash, also won more than 100 Democratic votes.

Libertarianism tends to rise as a backlash to government expansiveness and incompetence, said David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, who has written extensively about the movement’s history.

He said the modern movement began to flower in the late 1960s and early 1970s in reaction to the Vietnam War, disenchantment with the growth of social programs during the Great Society era, stagflation and the Watergate scandal.

Libertarianism also took on an intellectual sheen after proponents Friedrich August von Hayek and Milton Friedman won Nobel Memorial Prizes in economics in 1974 and 1976, respectively, and Harvard University professor Robert Nozick’s defense of it, titled “Anarchy, State, and Utopia,” won the National Book Award in 1975.

Politically, “libertarianism with a small L was very skeptical of Republicanism with a capital R,” but they were bound by their mutual abhorrence of communism and the welfare state, Boaz said.

After the Soviet Union fell apart, their relationship became more tenuous.

In the 1992 election, for example, a Cato Institute analysis found that the 13 percent or so of voters who were libertarian-minded — those who told pollsters they wanted smaller government but tolerant social policies — split almost evenly among Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton and third-party candidate Ross Perot.

The movement these days has been galvanized in part by the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.), father of the Kentucky senator, which drew a vocal following among young people.

When libertarian Clark Ruper was a University of Michigan student from 2004 to 2007, he recalled, “there were, like, five of us on campus, and we all knew each other.”

Now vice president of a rapidly growing organization called Students for Liberty, Ruper says of the dust-up between Christie and Paul: “I think it’s fantastic. When guys like Chris Christie are attacking us, we must be doing something right.”

Ruper, for one, rejects Reagan’s depiction of conservatism and libertarianism as being one and the same.

“We are not a branch of conservatism,” largely because of social issues like same-sex marriage and drug legalization, Rupar said. “Those are real deal-breakers where we can’t get along with conservatives. We find our allies there on the left.”

Nor was Reagan himself comfortable with all the tenets of libertarianism.

“I think that, like in any political movement, there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy,” Reagan said in that same 1975 interview with the libertarian magazine Reason.

Libertarians also have pronounced differences with many on the right when it comes to foreign policy.

Jeff Frazee, executive director of a more politically oriented libertarian organization called Young Americans for Liberty, said that young people today are skeptical of intrusive government at home and want to see an end to mililtary intervention overseas.

“Many of the members in our group were not even 10 years old when 9/11 happened,” Frazee said. “They’ve grown up with war, and they are war-weary.”

Libertarians still count relatively few elected officials as their own.

Rand Paul comes the closest. Libertarians have cheered his stance on surveillance and his 13-hour filibuster in March to protest the Obama administration’s use of unmanned drones.

That filibuster brought withering commentary from the conservative establishment.

“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms,” the Wall Street Journal wrote. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Paul and his Senate allies “wacko birds.”

Yet even Paul draws some skepticism from libertarian purists. They are leery, for instance, of his recent overtures to the Christian right, a constituency he cannot afford to alienate if he hopes to win his party’s presidential nomination.

For now, however, libertarian activists seem to believe that their best shot at advancing their ideas is in changing the Republican Party from the inside.

“Where else are you going to go?” asks Brian Doherty, senior editor at Reason. “Given the shape of the culture and the ideology of American politics, the Republican Party is at least willing to pay lip service to libertarian values. It is the existing space that a libertarian can move into and sort of fit in.”

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Made me sad at the number of folks we've lost, and at the loss of civility in even pretty heated discussions.

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Well, there was a lot less rappy-and-PN-and Zit-posting.

You're right- the boards were better then!

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Originally posted by Geezer:

In a strange serendipity, there's an article about current libertarians in the Washington Post today. Since the Post has gone 'pay-per-view', I'll post the whole thing.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
After all, how does it benefit them to give their stuff away?

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BTW, I posted a basic definition of what the heck libertarianism is (cribbed from Wiki but close enough for a start), and defined where in the libertarian spectrum I stand (Propertarian, Minarchist).
I've also expressed opinions on a couple of hypothetical situations.
Frem has kindly provided a path to previous discussions.
So.
Any comments?

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I was talking to Madame Geezer last night about the fact that so many of the anti-libertarians here seemed to think that without government, even folks steeped in libertarian philosophy would turn into ravening, raping, killing, looting beasts. She noted that this seemed to be like the cohort of Muslims who believe that you have to cover a woman's body from head to toe, lest a good man see some bare flesh and fall to his lustful urges.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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BTW, I posted a basic definition of what the heck libertarianism is (cribbed from Wiki but close enough for a start), and defined where in the libertarian spectrum I stand (Propertarian, Minarchist).
I've also expressed opinions on a couple of hypothetical situations.
Frem has kindly provided a path to previous discussions.
So.
Any comments?

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I'm trying to work my way thru them, but I've been busy and the little time I have away from work I've been plagued by a set of muscle spasms in my back, neck, shoulder and arm. Makes it painful to stand, sit at a desk, or even lie down for that matter. I took off from work bc between the pain and the painkillers (which only made me sleepy but didn't do jack for the spasms) I wasn't getting much done. Won't do much here, either, for now.

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I was talking to Madame Geezer last night about the fact that so many of the anti-libertarians here seemed to think that without government, even folks steeped in libertarian philosophy would turn into ravening, raping, killing, looting beasts. She noted that this seemed to be like the cohort of Muslims who believe that you have to cover a woman's body from head to toe, lest a good man see some bare flesh and fall to his lustful urges.

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I don't know who you else you misunderstand, but you cretainly misunderstand me. My view of societies has always tended more towards systems analysis.

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Let me give you an example: even today, under rampant and heavily reinforced corporatism, MOST people don't behave like corporatists. They go to work, they tend to their families, they care about their neighborhoods or their friends, they do little things. Yet DESPITE the fact that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of people are rather usually decent folk- not ravening, raping, killing, looting beasts, and productive (if given a job) the system does not reflect THEM or their concerns. It's not set up for them ie. us. The reality is that about 700 people own half of the world's assets, that's such a tiny fraction of the world's population that you have to wonder (or at least I do) how an entire system can be set up for the benefit 0.00001% of the population.

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In my thinking, even if you managed to convince the vast majority that they SHOULD be libertarians, and assuming they successfully managed the mental and emotional transformation, there is NOTHING in the libertarian philosophy (nor in primitive anarchism) that could prevent or erode such a concentration of power.

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There are other forces at work besides "how people feel" which drive economies: economies of scale, division of labor, the creation and ownership of "money", the desire for highly technological goods and the far-fling trade required to make it heppn- that nearly all economic activity would occur out of sight of nearly everyone.

I find the idea you can change society by changing people's minds to be very narrow-scoped thinking. Libertarianism, as far as I've read, doesn't address system-wide interactions. But I'll keep reading.

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economies of scale, division of labor, etc., have existed in pretty much all forms of government, from monarchies, to dictatorships, to democracies. The way they interact with society depends, it seems to me, on "how people feel" at that time.

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Seems to me that if a substantial majority of folks believed that they had sovereign rights to themselves and their property

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that the limited government existed mostly to support that belief, that a lot of the things you fear might not come about.

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If a good majority of folks believed that they were sovereign individuals who had complete control of themselves and their property, and that any aggression - be it physical, financial, etc. - against themselves or their property could be responded to with force (legal or physical) then any concentration of power would have to play by the libertarian rules or be subject to retribution.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
In my thinking, even if you managed to convince the vast majority that they SHOULD be libertarians, and assuming they successfully managed the mental and emotional transformation, there is NOTHING in the libertarian philosophy (nor in primitive anarchism) that could prevent or erode such a concentration of power.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is going to be short, but....

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The fact that they (economies of scale, division of labor, etc.,) have existed throughout a number of kinds of governments indicates to me that they are primary drivers and that the governments which sit on top of them are secondary. There is what seems to be a universal drive at work: larger numbers of people are collectivized, technology accumulates, division of labor becomes finer and finer, the amount of energy utilized per capita increases, economies of scale dictate the largest-possible centralized production, and the economic hierarchy becomes very tall.

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But that's the thing: We DON'T "own" our property. Oh sure, I may own an Android or a Blackberry, but I don't own the lithium mine that produces the lithium to make the batteries. Our "ownership" of items is so fragmented and intertwined as to be trivial, meaningless.

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What I fear is centralization/ monopolization, extreme disparity of wealth, and loss of control of our individual and collective futures to the will of the vanishingly tiny minority.

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And of course they'll come about. It already has. It has throughout history, and will continue.

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...even the attempt to create such a concentration would be viewed as a form of mental illness

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The fact that they (economies of scale, division of labor, etc.,) have existed throughout a number of kinds of governments indicates to me that they are primary drivers and that the governments which sit on top of them are secondary. There is what seems to be a universal drive at work: larger numbers of people are collectivized, technology accumulates, division of labor becomes finer and finer, the amount of energy utilized per capita increases, economies of scale dictate the largest-possible centralized production, and the economic hierarchy becomes very tall.-Signy

Even given this might be true (and I may have a stab at that later), and it's inevitable that all systems fall into such an economic hierarchy, it'd seem to me that a libertarian type government would be slower to fall, and perhaps not fall as far, as some others... "I'll get mine, but not by screwing anyone else, or by begging/bribing/coercing the government to give it to me. And I expect everyone else to act the same way towards me." ... inevitable decline to the few mega-rich, in collusion with the government, running everything for their own benefit.-Geezer

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But that's the thing: We DON'T "own" our property. Oh sure, I may own an Android or a Blackberry, but I don't own the lithium mine that produces the lithium to make the batteries. Our "ownership" of items is so fragmented and intertwined as to be trivial, meaningless.-signy

Why should I have to own the lithium mine? ... In Geezertopia, each owner in this chain understands that it's not a good idea, from both philosophical and business standpoints, to screw over the folks they deal with.-geezer

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What I fear is centralization/ monopolization, extreme disparity of wealth, and loss of control of our individual and collective futures to the will of the vanishingly tiny minority.

But it seems to me that this is pretty much what a libertarian government would be designed to resist. First, most everyone would be very concerned about their individual rights, and the individual rights of everyone else.

Second, they would understand that aggression (physical, financial, whatever) against an individual was wrong, and would be willing to use force (in my Minarchist Geezertopia it'd probably be force of the limited government to enforce fair contracts and act against aggression) to stop it.

Third, folks feeling that way would act as a check on the government getting too big or powerful.

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And when we reach this point I have to ask, since you think it's all doomed to go down the road of monopoly and the few ultra-powerful running things, no matter what anyone does, why do you care whether the government during this period is Libertarian, Anarchist, democratic, a dictatorship, a commune, or what? Why the big animus against Libertarians? ...

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It would really help me frame the discussion of you could tell me why you consider Libertarianism so much worse than any of the other existing systems or philosophies of government.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The northern colonies started out as libertarian as you can get. There WERE rich people USA, but the difference was maybe a factor of 500 (I owned 2 acres, you owned 1000), businesses were small, democracy was an established fact (for white men) ... an economy of politically-involved farmers and small businessmen with no slave-holdings. So what happened?

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There are people who have gotten mega-rich without the government, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the couple who owned Cisco Systems, Zuckerberg for example. (None of these people actually developed what they sold, BTW.)

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Let me offer a theoretical example of a monopoly that develops without force, fraud, or government assistance: Let's say that I find a great way to use graphene to purify water. I'm able to develop water cheaply from fracked aquifers, industrially-contaminated aquifers, or just plain regular aquifers or lakes or rivers. I install my system, start selling cheap water, undercut all the other water systems in the area and drive them out of business. Make a few pennies more on the acre-foot. Buy up the adjoining water resources and so on, until I have a monopoly on every source of water within 100 miles.

So, what about that monopoply? According to libertarians, I legitimately own the resources, after all, I bought them up without force or fraud. I'm providing a service... cheaper clean water. My cheap water has marketplace merit, and therefore everything has worked according to the libertarian philosophy. And yet, I have a LOT of power. I can raise the rates. I can cut some people off. I can buy up the roads and communication services and anything else of near-universal value, without holding a gun to anyone's head or breaking anyone's knees.

Or worse, I do the same thing with lithium. But rather than selling locally, my market is worldwide. Nobody knows, really, what's going on in my little corner of the world, and therefore the locals have no pressure to bear. And, not too surprisingly, the guy who owns all of the tantalum in Africa has managed to do the same, as well as the lady who own all of the chip fabs in Vietnam, and the plastic-maker in Japan, and the assembly-line in China. As a consumer of smart-phones, how am I going to track- much less respond to-all of the monopolies developing around that item?

What is the libertarian answer to such a situation?

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It's not a good idea to screw people over, but only if there are consequences. And there are a LOT of ways to screw people over without force or fraud. All you have to do is own everything of productive value in an area: water, land, roads, communication lines, factories... and you can kill anyone you want by withholding services. And the beauty is, all you have to to is make an example of just a few people; because everyone else will fall in line. Economic power, especially the monopoly power over vital resources, is a power itself, without government. And you're free to own all the doodads and gizmos you want.

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Libertarianism doesn't seem to be "designed to resist" economic tyranny... unless there is something in your definition of "financial aggression" that I don't understand.


Because, as far as I can tell, there are a lot of ways of "legitimately" developing quite a monopoly (ie without guns or kneebreakers) from which all kinds of power can be exerted.

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Well, not sure that I think libertarians are worse than most other philosophies. But, in general, ownership, individualism, and market forces are what got us into the fustercluck to begin with. As I look thru history, that seems to be the case most of the time (and add military suppression). Not sure that more of the same would help.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Too wordy?

I'll try to make it shorter next time!

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The most obvious answer would be that in a libertarian society, you wouldn't want to drive everyone else out of business so you could have power over the people who rely on your water. You'd be philosophically opposed to doing this.

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Then again, as long as folks get water at a reasonable price from you, they won't really care if you have a local (100 mile) monopoly. if you start charging exorbitant prices, folks might decide to truck water in. They might drill wells on their own property, or set up rain catchment systems. Their mindset is to be independent, and they may pay more than you charge just to piss you off.

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Once you start threatening to deny people access to water, you ARE using force.

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But there are consequences. First, and once again, I'm kind'a doubtful that a region of independent-minded, property-oriented folks would all sell out to, or buy from, you.

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Next, when you talk about killing people by purposely withholding services, don't you think that's initiation of force?

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About the only thing government is for in a Propertarian, Minarchist, Libertarian world would be to protect people from initiation of force.

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As I've noted several times, I think it's the philosophy of the people, rather than particular economic forces, that make a society what it is. You don't agree with this.

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Unfortunately, I see your solution as something worse than the problem.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
really boils down to 'nothing that would impede me from living out my right winged philosophy as making as much money as I can without any questioning of the ethics that I might use to do so'.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The obvious answer to this is that just as there is a vanishingly small number of people with a thirst for power under ANY system, nonetheless there WILL be a small minority who is willing an able to do so in a libertarian system. It's inevitable, and demonstrated by history over and over. Unless your system is able to respond effectively to that situation- which WILL arise- the tall hierarchy will be created.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm not sure I've proposed a solution in this thread. Just maybe a lot of questions.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ive been tut-tutted at a few times about not knowing anything about libertarianism. Yet despite the fact that the topic has come up is several threads recently- the McDonald's war, where has libertarianism been tried in real life, are you a libertarian or wanna be, and the carbon dioxide thread... nobody has been able to provide a cogent explanation about libertarianism, and what it means TO THEM.

So, would someone... anyone, or preferably several someones... who claim to be libertarian please provide an explanation, and be prepared to answer specific direct questions about how it might work?

Until that explanation is provided, will you please refrain from tsking about a topic that you not yet explained?

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

That's one place it breaks down, see, in our world, and thanks to our outrageously asinine and downright insane legislation revolving around patent/trademark/whatever....

Everything, literally EVERYTHING, physical, mental or social, even fucking IDEAS, already has an "owner", ergo anyone born now has ZERO method of advancement in regard to a system based around said ownership, one could almost be said that they're born in servitude to those that have, and as said property passes at a familial level, you still have THAT heirarchy lacking any other, a class/caste system with an unbreachable barrier since without any property, there's nothing to trade but labor, and no leverage to force a decent price on it - which is effectively the system we have now once you strip all the bullshit off it, so then, THIS armor piercing question.

What exactly constitutes ownership ?

-Frem

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I suppose you've seen Aquanopoly advertising their low water rates on short-term contracts. You should know that those rates are below their profit margin, and unsustainable in the long term. I'll be glad to open my books so you can see my costs, and challange Aquanopoly to do the same."

Now if Aquanopoly wants to sell water at a loss, that's their business, and I won't question their motivation (wink, wink). I can't sell water like that. What I will do is contract with you, for as long as I provide you with water, to do so at a profit of X% of my costs. Once again, my books will be open for audit so you can verify my costs. This way I'll make a fair profit, and you'll know that six months - or six years - down the line I won't arbitrarily jack up the price.

If Aquanopoly wants to offer the same type of contract, we'll compete on who's most efficient in the long run.

Oh, and here's a free Rango DVD.

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