On Tue, 8 May 2001, Mikus 29 wrote:
> >Obviously. Property requires a government to enforce it (anything less is
> >barbarism). But who said he was an "anarcho"capitalist?
>
> How so?
>
> It's not quite so obvious to me.
>
> My idea of the concept of property is that most people on this planet find
> it worthwhile to label things as his, hers, theirs, ours, mine, public,
> private, or whatever other forms of ownership you can define. No government
> is necessary to establish the idea or defend the concept of private
> property.
So my community decides that property is a good idea. Soon, a couple
people disagree about something. How do they resolve their dispute?
They can't--so they get angry and kill each other. Or maybe one side gives
in and accepts the loss in exchange for his life.
Now, I'm not stupid--I don't want to end up like them! So before I make
any deals, my partner and I pick a trustworthy, fair, level-headed guy and
make another deal.
In the event of a dispute, he agrees to resolve it according to an
agreed-upon procedure that we like. For example, we might agree to argue
our cases in public before him, or that a group of ordinary people would
be asked to consider our case and make a decision. We might specify
previous rulings upon which to base new ones. We also agree to allow him
to enforce his decision. After all, if this guy doesn't hold up his end of
the bargain, I want my money back!
In short, we would create a new government, because trading without one is
too risky.
> All it takes to be able to enforce it is a number of like-minded individuals
> to agree that the property in question belongs to this or that certain
> person or business entity. That group of people is NOT a loose form of
> government, but the local peers. Societal norms, and conventions won't
> disappear if government were to suddendly go away(like that's the biggest
> pipe dream of all), but they would certainly be refined, and adjusted for
> each locale.
Which brings me to my next point: criminal law. Norms and conventions mean
nothing if they are not enforced. We don't think murder is right--but what
good does that do when there's a murderer terrorizing the community!
What (better) alternative is there to demanding that all people in zone A
abide by our rules X, Y, and Z--and alleged violations of the rules must
be handled according to procedures M and N?
> Even in the days before foreigners set foot on American soil, the
> Indians(yes, I know they may not have been the first ones here) had no need
> for the concept of property, as it seemed ludicrous to them to think one
> could own the very land that sustained their lives, BUT they did defend
> their local hunting grounds, grazing lands, territory, etc... and the other
> indian tribes in the area usually respected those boundaries, and they even
> engaged in trade, and no such concept of "government" had even occured to
> them at that point. Sure each tribe probably had its own rules, and elders
> for guidance, and some probably even were oppressed by the elders of the
> tribe, but that's a part of human nature we're still trying to overcome.
No, that was the way they governed themselves. Tribal aristocracies are as
much a government as their European counterparts. I wouldn't want to live
under either.
> It's thinking like that above that keeps the human race stagnant in the
> middle ages. We may have computers and cars, and all sorts of fancy
Like what above?
> technology, but that, to me, is no indicator of advancement of the species.
> We're not far removed from a sharpened stone tied to a stick today. Maybe
That's not true. A modern, pluralist democracy offers its citizens
incomparably more freedom than any other form of government so far tried.
> some day, we'll have no need for money, or capitalist systems, and maybe
> we'll move past a need for a controlling authority to keep those with too
> much monkey DNA, from harming those advancing past their evolutionary
> ancestors, but right now, it seems that most people today are addicted to
> the idea that government is necessary, and money is the solution, and not
> the cause of their problems.
>
> I don't think that "money" or "capitalism" is the problem here. I think
> it's the tendency for people to seek out power, and the tendency of those
> without to think they can do nothing about what their oppressors are doing
> to them, that makes some people hate the idea of capitalism. The concept is
> not the problem, it's the way people think it's supposed to work, and when
> it doesn't seem to be working to the ideal, let's abandon the whole idea,
> instead of addressing the reasons why it isn't working. I'm not going to
> address the multi-faceted, nested reasoning I have come up with, I'm just
> trying to show that it's not the property that is guilty of the crime, it's
> the mind of the person who used the property to commit the crime, who is to
> blame.
>
> Capitalism is not "bad", it's just not being put to it's "highest and best
> use" at the moment, and I don't think it has been, since governments decided
> to stick their fingers into the "free-market" millenia ago...
Please describe this free market of millennia ago, and what high uses it
was put to.
--
"...it must be held that third-party electronic monitoring, subject
only to the self-restraint of law enforcement officials, has no place
in our society..." Mark Roberts | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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