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Topic: Private property is the same as a state?? (Read 22436 times)
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CurtHowland
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So you want us to give NH back to the French and Indians?
That's the only consistent result I can see from his assertions. One of the interesting "little things" in L. Neil Smith's _The Probability Broach_, and what the Great Northern Railroad did in fact do, is that the aborigine's lands were purchased, or rights of way secured through negotiation, rather than simply taken by force of numbers or arms. That the King declared the lands to be His, and thus correct to give out in His favor, is in no way an argument against peace, property rights and the market. It is, if anything, an argument in favor of recognizing rights to property AGAINST arbitrary authority. Eminent Domain is one of the remaining elements of the Divine Right of Kings that must be abolished, along with Sovereign Immunity and Legal Tender. |
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Alex Libman
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Much of the property in NH was 'purchased' from men that never set foot on it...
and 'acquired' it through the granting of a Monarch that also never set foot on it. |
Yes, sad. Life was/is very "unfair" to people who've lived before a higher order of civilization could be established - and it wasn't established for all the world's cultures uniformly at the same time. In some remote jungles things like human sacrifices and cannibalism still happen to this very day, as they did from the dawn of time. Some rodents evolved into monkeys and some monkeys evolved into men, but rodents and monkeys are still around today - I'm not comparing anyone to animals, just pointing out that the mechanisms of evolution don't work evenly, and this applies to social evolution as well as biological. C'est la vie.Rights don't just fall from the sky or come about from a bunch of people signing a piece of paper (people can recognize Rights to some degree, but not create them). Rights emerge as a result of economic circumstances that make rulesets for cooperation (aka non-violent competition) beneficial - which wasn't the case when Columbus first sailed the ocean blue, and sadly it took took a few centuries to lay the groundwork for peaceful economic cooperation. You can't institute justice for things that happen in prior generations - all of our ancestors were rats chewing each-others testicles off in fierce instinct-driven struggle for proliferation. The only thing you can do is institute justice moving forward, and this allows plenty of opportunities for people to regain what they feel is their "ancestral legacy" by peaceful means. And the ability to read and write did not pre-date property rights... either personal or land. |
I'm not saying you're wrong, I just asked for a specific example of a culture that doesn't have a writing system but does have a reasonably well established system of recognizing individual Property Rights. I don't know everything, but I can't think of any. And that's a side conversation anyway - perhaps your original point simply needs to be clarified... |
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Polemic
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Eminent Domain is one of the remaining elements of the Divine Right of Kings that must be abolished . . .
This is consistent. Are you willing to accept the resulting world? No highways, no power grid, no phone lines & no real internet (not in the sense it exists today). I worked in the legal department of a power company here in Los Angeles. I can assure you, sighting transmission towers is logistically impossible without eminent domain. Now, I happen to think that this is a cost I'm willing to pay. But don't kid yourself, it is absolutely impossible to have a completely private power grid or completely private telecommunication grid obtained solely via negotiation. |
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"Optimists proclaim that we live in the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear that this is true."
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Alex Libman
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Are you willing to accept the resulting world? |
Use of non-violent persuasion methods against nail houses? Neighborhood associations or charter cities that would preemptively address this potentiality through contract law? Freedom to travel along property boundaries? Private highways? A more decentralized power grid with more incentive to develop high-tech solutions like solar and mini-nuke? A stronger more censorship-resistant Internet with more locally-owned hubs, local wifi, mesh networking, satellite fallbacks, etc, etc, etc? Personal flying vehicles (which we would have already if not for a century of government interventionism)? More advanced tunnel boring machines? Each of those subjects, and dozens of others, can fill at least one bookshelf of technical details that already are attainable today. All those technologies would be a functional improvement on the comparative stagnation of today, and without that all-important side-effect of the world turning into a socialist dystopia, which is where we are headed at present! The modern world developed a certain way because it had the blind mindless solution of government force to deal with every problem. That doesn't mean non-violent solutions are impossible. You are like a person who was forced to drink coffee made with sewer water all his life, and now finds the idea of using clean water unthinkable! What's worse, you are endorsing force against people who want to use clean water, and making it impossible for them to demonstrate the difference! |
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MaineShark
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This is consistent. Are you willing to accept the resulting world? No highways, no power grid, no phone lines & no real internet (not in the sense it exists today). Those things are already there. They won't evaporate. I worked in the legal department of a power company here in Los Angeles. I can assure you, sighting transmission towers is logistically impossible without eminent domain. I disagree. It's impossible, now, because the NIMBY folks make so many demands about where they can and cannot be. Without that, it becomes much easier to find potential paths. Also, superconducting cables require a much smaller right-of-way, so it's orders of magnitude easier to negotiate a path for them. Now, I happen to think that this is a cost I'm willing to pay. But don't kid yourself, it is absolutely impossible to have a completely private power grid or completely private telecommunication grid obtained solely via negotiation. Telecom doesn't even need a grid. Wireless is exceeding wires in many cases. Add in distributed power generation, and the power grid becomes simpler, because it is carrying less load - the overall load is the same, but less of it makes it to the large lines, as more of it is satisfied locally. Joe |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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MaineShark
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What's worse, you are endorsing force against people who want to use clean water, and making it impossible for them to demonstrate the difference! Um, he did quite clearly say that he'd rather give those things up, than use force to obtain them. You might want to read more carefully... Joe |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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Alex Libman
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Yes, that was a canned rant, directed at a straw man.
Customized rants cost extra.
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Polemic
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I see the potential for all these innovations and agree that disempowering government would eventually result in such developments, but in the meantime, the currently government-supported infrastructures would degrade quickly leaving a few decades where the presence of technology in our daily lives is significantly reduced. As for wireless/satellite internet/telecommunication, almost all data individuals or businesses send and receive is via major fiber 'backbones' that stripe the country. Without these, international financial markets, as we think of them today, would go away until alternative technologies caught up. True, they wont evaporate over night, as you pointed out, but the inability to expand cheaply dooms them as the demand on load increases (increase demand with a fixed supply and you get rising prices). Like I said, this is all a price I'm willing to pay, but I think most FSPers think that they can have their cake and eat it too. Namely, that we can participate in international free trade while purposefully adopting a crippling handicap. In time, we may be *more* competitive, but that will be a long while. I've met and litigated against NIMBY people - they are absolutely, positively, persuadable, and in a three thousand mile information corridor, you're going to run into a few. What's worse, you are endorsing force against people who want to use clean water, and making it impossible for them to demonstrate the difference! Um, he did quite clearly say that he'd rather give those things up, than use force to obtain them. You might want to read more carefully... Thanks for that, I almost jumped down his throat on that one. Yes, that was a canned rant, directed at a straw man.
Customized rants cost extra.
This is hilarious. That is all. |
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"Optimists proclaim that we live in the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear that this is true."
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MaineShark
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I see the potential for all these innovations and agree that disempowering government would eventually result in such developments, but in the meantime, the currently government-supported infrastructures would degrade quickly leaving a few decades where the presence of technology in our daily lives is significantly reduced.
As for wireless/satellite internet/telecommunication, almost all data individuals or businesses send and receive is via major fiber 'backbones' that stripe the country. Without these, international financial markets, as we think of them today, would go away until alternative technologies caught up.
True, they wont evaporate over night, as you pointed out, but the inability to expand cheaply dooms them as the demand on load increases (increase demand with a fixed supply and you get rising prices). There's no reason that private companies couldn't maintain the current infrastructure, though. It wouldn't just be left to rot. I don't think there's any "inability" to expand to meet load. That doesn't require new "corridors" - just adding capacity to what exists. Joe |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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CurtHowland
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This is consistent. Are you willing to accept the resulting world? No highways, no power grid, no phone lines & no real internet (not in the sense it exists today). Maybe you don't realize that my "money job" is an internet infrastructure engineer. The one and only reason the "internet" exists as you know it is because the National Science Foundation go the hell out of the way in 1993. Here's a write up I did on it: http://anarchic-order.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-net-was-young.htmlYou do realize that the Great Northern Trans-Continental Railroad was built without eminent domain, land grants, or any govt money AT ALL? I don't disagree that what would be built would be different than what we know now, but I don't see that as a bad thing. It's a good thing, because it would be built by people who knew what they were doing. The current infrastructure degradation in the US is easily explained by Austrian economics: Long term investments, such as roads and bridges, were made with short-term funds. Now, when it's time to maintain them, the powers that be shake their heads wondering where the money will come from. Boom, bust. Now, I happen to think that this is a cost I'm willing to pay. But don't kid yourself, it is absolutely impossible to have a completely private power grid or completely private telecommunication grid obtained solely via negotiation.
Nope, not impossible at all. Merely different. When the Not In My Back Yard idiots say "No", then simply tell them they won't get electricity. Or "network". See how quickly they come around when they are INTERESTED parties, without the exceptionally cheap "cost" of merely electing someone who will order the power company to provide power, or the cable TV company to provide service. Freedom of Association works both ways. You might also want to look into the book "The Voluntary City" by Beito et al, to see how, as Libman addresses below, private associations, firms and organizations HAVE DONE IT ALL BEFORE. It's not like this hasn't been done, successfully, in the past. All those Turnpikes, and the entire New York City subway system, were built privately, and operated profitably. |
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Polemic
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You do realize that the Great Northern Trans-Continental Railroad was built without eminent domain, land grants, or any govt money AT ALL?
Same railroad couldn't be build today. Much different building across a *populated* nation. You might also want to look into the book "The Voluntary City" by Beito et al, to see how, as Libman addresses below, private associations, firms and organizations HAVE DONE IT ALL BEFORE.
I still don't see how this would be possible. But I look forward to reading this - thanks for the suggestion. |
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"Optimists proclaim that we live in the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear that this is true."
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B.D. Ross
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This is consistent. Are you willing to accept the resulting world? No highways, no power grid, no phone lines & no real internet (not in the sense it exists today).
Doesn't really follow. It's not like people suddenly stop wanting roads, power, and telecomm. But don't kid yourself, it is absolutely impossible to have a completely private power grid or completely private telecommunication grid obtained solely via negotiation.
Funny. There's a little small-scale project to do just that in a certain place here. A very, very cool project. Problem, of course, is actually tying it into the FERC-regulated grid. That probably won't happen. Then again, come to think of it, I guess they don't really have any reason to... |
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John Edward Mercier
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True... but the roads for the most part were private and later 'gifted' to the public when the landowner no longer wanted them and could not find someone to take them off his hands.
The grid, phone lines, and internet is private... and has been.
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John Edward Mercier
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This is consistent. Are you willing to accept the resulting world? No highways, no power grid, no phone lines & no real internet (not in the sense it exists today). Maybe you don't realize that my "money job" is an internet infrastructure engineer. The one and only reason the "internet" exists as you know it is because the National Science Foundation go the hell out of the way in 1993. Here's a write up I did on it: http://anarchic-order.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-net-was-young.htmlYou do realize that the Great Northern Trans-Continental Railroad was built without eminent domain, land grants, or any govt money AT ALL? I don't disagree that what would be built would be different than what we know now, but I don't see that as a bad thing. It's a good thing, because it would be built by people who knew what they were doing. The current infrastructure degradation in the US is easily explained by Austrian economics: Long term investments, such as roads and bridges, were made with short-term funds. Now, when it's time to maintain them, the powers that be shake their heads wondering where the money will come from. Boom, bust. Now, I happen to think that this is a cost I'm willing to pay. But don't kid yourself, it is absolutely impossible to have a completely private power grid or completely private telecommunication grid obtained solely via negotiation.
Nope, not impossible at all. Merely different. When the Not In My Back Yard idiots say "No", then simply tell them they won't get electricity. Or "network". See how quickly they come around when they are INTERESTED parties, without the exceptionally cheap "cost" of merely electing someone who will order the power company to provide power, or the cable TV company to provide service. Freedom of Association works both ways. You might also want to look into the book "The Voluntary City" by Beito et al, to see how, as Libman addresses below, private associations, firms and organizations HAVE DONE IT ALL BEFORE. It's not like this hasn't been done, successfully, in the past. All those Turnpikes, and the entire New York City subway system, were built privately, and operated profitably. Its called tolls and gas taxes. |
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Polemic
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True... but the roads for the most part were private and later 'gifted' to the public when the landowner no longer wanted them and could not find someone to take them off his hands.
The grid, phone lines, and internet is private... and has been.
They are the product of eminent domain by either government or private entities empowered by government. Here in California, all the utilities (except for the DWP in Los Angeles) are quasi-governmental agencies. They are nominatively private enterprises with stockholders and the like, but are heavily regulated & have the delegated authority of the government in limited respects. For example, SoCal Edison & PG&E both may condemn private property in order to build transmission corridors. I understand that without eminent domain, local grids would still be possible (and favorable) but large scale distribution would be logistically impossible. San Onofre Nuclear Power Generation Station supplies roughly 1.2 MW of power to most of Southern California. No facility of this size or efficiency would be possible because local distribution would make such a project unscalable. The result would be higher energy costs of less efficient technologies (again, I'm willing to take this trade!). The idea that we won't need more infrastructure for telecommunication or that all it takes is to expand current corridors is foolish. Especially with exponential demand and load growth. Most of the nation does not have access to fiber or the similar high speed access, only local access to high speed hubs. Satellite may be an alternative, but lag time makes real time communication less efficient (7-10 second delays v. real time with land lines). The market would absolutely provide proxies, but to think that it will be identical or better to the current system immediately is naive. Expect a ten to twenty year lag time as developers attempt to gain/expand rights of way. Now, *my* money job for a time was securing these rights of way. I'm just saying that it's a lot harder than the most realize, even WITH the coercive power of the government behind you! |
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"Optimists proclaim that we live in the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear that this is true."
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