[mikema63]

Mike really doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut yet. There are times in a discussion where it's better to hold your ground rather than to go chasing the other side. You don't give away information when there are no prospects of getting much information back. It makes you look like a desperate tool.

isn't the purpose of a debate to find out the truth? i dont care about winning only learning, my trap shall remain wide thank you very much.

[Daktoria]

isn't the purpose of a debate to find out the truth?

No.

Debate is a social engagement, not a nature expedition. You don't find out truth. You relate with other people.

When other people aren't willing to relate as much as you want to, you stop trying. Otherwise, you're selling yourself short.

i dont care about winning only learning, my trap shall remain wide thank you very much.

This is why you're always going to be behind. When all you care about is learning, you give the other side an excuse to ram its cock down your throat under the guise of teaching you a lesson.

You need to have more self-respect. The other side isn't better than you.

[mikema63]

i guess we all have different reasons for being on this forum, my self esteem shouldn't be tied to my version of the truth being true.

mabye i just like cock sucking

[Eran]

All of this implies that a threat of violence must be somewhere in the cards.

I disagree. Many radical political changes took place without violence, following changes in public sentiment. If the American public opinion changes such that Ron Paul is considered a centrist, the current system will have to change, and there is nothing bankers or others could do about that.

But how can you respect all, as in all of the previous accumulation, if you also believe that people are using the state apparatus to loot people?

First, we don't plan to respect all existing property rights. A transition to a free society will involve some property transfers to try and make the starting point a little more just. The key, however, is to remove ongoing right violations, predominantly by government. If we do, ongoing accumulation of wealth would make the relevance of past injustices progressively more minor.

Yes, but you surely realise that in a pluralist system, with the previous accumulation that I mentioned above, there is no such thing as a good faith negotiation because most of the people at the table have no leverage and no threats they can make.

Where did that come from? Negotiations apply to people's existing property. Every person has, at the very least, property in his own body. He can thus negotiate an employment agreement with an effective leverage/threat of working elsewhere.

That is impossible. Who will the working class on that island be? I'd just like to point out that someone needs to hold onto that tractor's steering wheel and till the soil, and it will not be me.

An island in which there are no government regulations will represent a great opportunity. I personally won't be able to start a business there, but plenty of people will. As for labour, that can easily and cheaply be recruited from third-world countries. Remember - no government = no immigration restrictions.

[Rei Murasame]

I disagree. Many radical political changes took place without violence, following changes in public sentiment. If the American public opinion changes such that Ron Paul is considered a centrist, the current system will have to change, and there is nothing bankers or others could do about that.

They would 'make the economy scream', and then you'd see otherwise.

First, we don't plan to respect all existing property rights. A transition to a free society will involve some property transfers to try and make the starting point a little more just.

Who decides, and which vanguard party with a team bureaucrats will do it, and what will their material incentives be to do so?

Also, you say 'a little more just', which means that you are acknowledging that you are in fact perpetuating some injustices based on previous accumulation while simultaneously cutting the remedial programmes that used to soften the impact of that on the people who are most vulnerable?

Where did that come from? Negotiations apply to people's existing property. Every person has, at the very least, property in his own body. He can thus negotiate an employment agreement with an effective leverage/threat of working elsewhere.

Well, you and I both know how that usually has worked out. Unless you are asking most of the country to literally go on a hunger strike until Goldman Sachs, Meryll Lynch, Lloyds TSB, Barclays, various hedge funds, and indeed the top 100 companies on every major internatioal bourse all cry 'uncle'?

An island in which there are no government regulations will represent a great opportunity. I personally won't be able to start a business there, but plenty of people will.

But why would they? In fact, there is one way that they would, which you allude to in your next comment.

As for labour, that can easily and cheaply be recruited from third-world countries. Remember - no government = no immigration restrictions.

So we get to create an economically-induced triangle trade all over again? Quite shortly you'll be proposing that we ought to go and set up signs in Cameroon and Nigeria that are calling for labour on some island somewhere, and then we can fly them out there all packed together on rented commercial airliner jets.

After they reach our island, they'll be in our privatised 'we swear its not government' residential districts. The houses will look mysteriously like the chattel-houses that we once housed---- hold on, we did this in the mid-1700s at bayonet point, didn't we?

So this seems to be a novel re-presentation of British Caribbean colonialism and the slave trade, even right down to your logic that storing the third world populations on the islands prevents the site of ethnic tensions and contradictions (which are inevitable!) from being on the precious already-industrialised homeland soil.

Given that this island you've set up must be integrated with the global economy, it would effectively function as a new colony of whichever countries we engage in the most trade of raw materials or commodities with. Due to your liberal market policies, it is also likely that we will not play 'catch up' with other industrialised countries, and so we'd be exporting materials that will be converted into finished products elsewhere.

It would literally be an island colony. The only missing thing is that I would not be overtly wearing the khaki uniform or flying the union flag. Your attempt to make 'going Galt' workable, seems to have created something that looks nothing like Galt's gultch at all.

[Rich]

First, we don't plan to respect all existing property rights. A transition to a free society will involve some property transfers to try and make the starting point a little more just. The key, however, is to remove ongoing right violations, predominantly by government. If we do, ongoing accumulation of wealth would make the relevance of past injustices progressively more minor.

Who's this mysterious we? So you're no different from any other statists, you'll respect property rights when you feel like it. Presumably using force to enforce your utilitarian property redistribution. But I guess like the Commies its only a transitional measure. The State will just wither away and die and we'll be left in a sort of free market version of the Communist paradise, where everyone agrees on property rights and there are no divisions in society at all. No doubt even the animals will be affected by this brotherly harmony and the lion will lie down with the lamb and become vegetarian.

[Rei Murasame]

I also anticipate that Eran will say that the Nigerians and Cameroons are 'free' to decide whether they would like to sign the contract with us. After all, they could look at the plan and say, "fuck you all", and not get on the plane.

Oh, but they need to make money and eat right? Oh, yes, and wouldn't you know it, the whole reason that we are there with jets on the tarmac and shiny suits on, asking them to consider boarding our planes to the colony, is because 250 years ago, our ancestors (literally and directly) extracted raw materials and human bodies in chains from that exact region, and accumulated wealth from it.

And now, we invite them to partake in a portion of the fruits of that wealth we accumulated, by offering them work contracts to come and use capital equipment that we invested in with wealth that we accumulated in previous generations which we had expropriated from them.

And then Eran calls it a 'free market', to my surprise! I can't see anything free about this, but the opportunities for profit seem massive, I'll give him that. Heck, why even bother finding an island, we could just all buy up tracts of land from right under them in Africa, become the governors of all we survey (pun intended), and build the businesses right there.

[Eran]

They would 'make the economy scream', and then you'd see otherwise.

Rei, you are not thinking about the dynamics of long-term gradual evolution. Political and economic elites have been losing power for centuries. Landed aristocracy in England is a good example. White Anglo-Saxon Male Protestants in America is another such example.

Who decides, and which vanguard party with a team bureaucrats will do it, and what will their material incentives be to do so?

People who claim they have superior title to a given piece of property will bring a claim against the current title-holder to any arbitration firm. The current holder may agree to the arbitration (in which case whatever the arbitrator decides goes) or else judgement will be provided without their cooperation.

If the arbitration firm is sufficiently well-respected, enforcement firms and banks would comply with its decision.

Payment will ultimately comes from the property being recovered, though personal wrong-doing by current holders would entitle the parties initiating the suit to demand compensation for the cost of enforcement as well.

Also, you say 'a little more just', which means that you are acknowledging that you are in fact perpetuating some injustices based on previous accumulation while simultaneously cutting the remedial programmes that used to soften the impact of that on the people who are most vulnerable?

I am not perpetuating injustices - I am accepting a less-than-perfect starting point. From that starting point, the effect of past injustices will slowly wither away.

Any system that allows "remedial programmes" that go beyond case-by-case consideration on merits is certain to evolve abuses of power. It won't mitigate, but only exacerbate existing injustices.

Unless you are asking most of the country to literally go on a hunger strike until Goldman Sachs, Meryll Lynch, Lloyds TSB, Barclays, various hedge funds, and indeed the top 100 companies on every major internatioal bourse all cry 'uncle'?

What power do banks have, if current regulatory restrictions on competition are scaled back, and most people choose not to do business with those companies? The country need not go on a "hunger strike". They merely have to take their business elsewhere.

But why would they?

Because it affords freedom from both regulations and taxes. Why do so many financial institutions move to tropical islands in the Caribbean ?

hold on, we did this in the mid-1700s at bayonet point, didn't we?

Don't you see this is the critical difference? If you use bayonets, it is tempting and easy to abuse those on the other side. But if you don't, you have to tempt people to come. You have to credibly promise them a deal which is better than what they currently have access to.

Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Irish, Germans, Italians and members of countless other nations have left their homes in search of better economic existence. Economic migration doesn't equal slavery.

Due to your liberal market policies, it is also likely that we will not play 'catch up' with other industrialised countries, and so we'd be exporting materials that will be converted into finished products elsewhere.

Why? Wouldn't liberal economic policies encourage manufacturing and innovation?

Who's this mysterious we? So you're no different from any other statists, you'll respect property rights when you feel like it.

The "we" refers to other anarcho-capitalists. The difference between us and statists (which we are not) is the mechanism and criteria used to decide. Statists support a system in which a group of privileged people (e.g. parliament) can make arbitrary decisions on how property titles should be handled. They do decide on property rights based on whim (or political expediency).

What I advocate, as above, is a system in which arbitrators would decide on property disputes based on strict principles which leave very little to personal discretion. Ultimately, those arbitrators whose judicial philosophy is most acceptable to society would prevail. I am describing a state of affairs premised on the dominance of a Rothbardian conception of property rights. That conception leaves very little room for judicial discretion.

we'll be left in a sort of free market version of the Communist paradise, where everyone agrees on property rights and there are no divisions in society at all.

If you don't understand the philosophy I am advocating, why don't you ask, rather than make assumptions?

I back a system that includes institutions for resolving conflicts (using force if necessary). I don't expect everybody to agree on which property belongs to whom. I do expect the majority of members of society to share a view of what are legitimate means for resolving conflicts. That isn't far-fetched - it is a feature of every stable and peaceful society, including our own.

I also anticipate that Eran will say that the Nigerians and Cameroons are 'free' to decide whether they would like to sign the contract with us. After all, they could look at the plan and say, "fuck you all", and not get on the plane.

Well done. Moving on then:

Oh, but they need to make money and eat right? Oh, yes, and wouldn't you know it, the whole reason that we are there with jets on the tarmac and shiny suits on, asking them to consider boarding our planes to the colony, is because 250 years ago, our ancestors (literally and directly) extracted raw materials and human bodies in chains from that exact region, and accumulated wealth from it.

This is historically totally false. Colonialization is neither the reason the West is rich, nor the reason Africa is poor. If anything, it is the result of those, rather than their cause.

The West is rich because it offers tolerable levels of property right protection, together with a culture that values commerce and industry. Africa is poor because it has horrible government. Historically, Africa was poor because it has unfortunate geography.

But I am now confused. Your previous comment suggested that offering Africans to come and work in our island is somehow akin to slavery. Now you acknowledge that those workers will only come if what we offer is better than what they have. Why then is it morally questionable? Even taking your narrative of colonial exploitation, those Africans are still better off for being offered an option to work in our island. Why is that an argument against the island?

[Rei Murasame]

See, this is where our moralities diverge. Since I think that it is their own weakness that allowed us to colonise them and build our Empire atop their resources in the first place (I cannot imagine why you'd deny this), I can probably sleep at night knowing that this is just how it works out in the end. But I don't put window-dressing on it.

That we would return a second time, at a stage of civilisation that is capable of bringing to bear forces of production much more advanced than theirs, and that we would then have them making widgets to serve European needs and interests primarily (and their own secondarily, after all, they are lifted a little when the tide of wealth rises), is grim, but if Europe doesn't do it, then we might be the only people that miss out on 'round two' of the Africa game.

So basically my key points are these:

• We differ in narrative. I support the action now that you've made it into a viable scenario, but I support it under the belief that we entered an ethnic contradiction and that to resolve the contradiction we simply stomped on Africa because they didn't build a society (and as you point out, they still have not built one) that was organised enough to defend itself from us. Had they used certain rules about property and set up a state that could preside over industrial development before we did; or had they at least taken the time to pursue a developmental model from the 1960s onward, then this would not have happened to them.
  
  
• We differ in goal. The difference in narrative means that everything is different, because whereas you are able to tell yourself that what you are calling for is about freedom and love, I know that actually this is grim stuff and it's really about a struggle for survival and the ability to deter others from making war against us. It's a completely different moral framework. It's from within that framework that I then say, "good thing we chose policies that prevented this from happening to us!"

So all that has happened is that in this particular instance we both agree on something; we agree that there needs to be a 'round two' in Africa, but it's for completely different reasons. Asia is already going in there, and while that is all well and good, Europe needs to also get involved or it will be left outside the banquet hall.

Just my big question is how could you believe that Africans are not being coerced? Certainly they are being coerced. Just it is also partly their fault that it happened.

Basically these are the three points I am trying to make:

• You should agree that we are coercing them, and that
  
  
• in fact is is very difficult to find a single 'fully legitimate' transaction in the entire world, by libertarian logic, simply because of history, and therefore
  
  
• all morality based on the quest for a world where 100% of transactions would be what your ideology calls 'legitimate' ones, is null and void, since life cannot practically be about that.

[Daktoria]

Rei, you are not thinking about the dynamics of long-term gradual evolution. Political and economic elites have been losing power for centuries. Landed aristocracy in England is a good example. White Anglo-Saxon Male Protestants in America is another such example.

This is a great point because it shows historical competence. Not only does it realize past circumstances, but it realizes how change takes time to happen.

As it pertains to colonization, the degradation of the Protestant Ascendancy in Britain is a perfect corollary to Rei's reference to African colonies.

For example:

Just my big question is how could you believe that Africans are not being coerced? Certainly they are being coerced. Just it is also partly their fault that it happened.

You would agree the Irish got their just deserts as well, then?

[Eran]

See, this is where our moralities diverge. Since I think that it is their own weakness that allowed us to colonise them and build our Empire atop their resources in the first place (I cannot imagine why you'd deny this), I can probably sleep at night knowing that this is just how it works out in the end. But I don't put window-dressing on it.

We seem to diverge on historic interpretation.

I don't think our Empire was built atop third-world resources. I cannot imagine why you'd claim that. More to the point, I reject your repeated use of "we". I didn't colonise anybody, your built or owned an Empire. So I can sleep well at night.

More to the point, I don't think any currently-alive African is materially worse off for European colonialisation. Do you seriously suggest otherwise (i.e. that absent colonialisation, Africans would have been better off)?

But if you don't put window-dressing, what DO you do (or propose to do)?


Now WE may have them making widgets to serve European needs and interests primarily. However, THEY will be making those widgets to serve their own needs primarily. This is how it should be - the ethics of capitalism is based on the realisation that self-interest (in conjunction with property rights) helps everybody.

We differ in narrative.

In the linked post, you wrongly characterise the leaders of sub-Saharan African nations as "short-sighted fools". They aren't. They tend to be clever people who live long and prosperous lives. You base your judgement on erroneously identifying the interests of the leaders with those of the countries they lead.

Your narrative there is also otherwise mistaken, but I'll address that in the relevant thread.

Having said that, I agree with the text in the paragraph that follows. Of course Europeans exploited Africans during colonialisation days. We differ in the degree to which that colonialisation is responsible for current wealth disparity.

We differ in goal

I would actually say with differ in methodology. We both want justice and happiness, prosperity and peace. You think about justice in group terms. I think of justice in individual terms. You think about what your group did to their group as critical to deciding what your group ought to now do (or not do) for their group today.

I think in individual terms. If I offer an attractive job to a specific African worker, both he and I will benefit from the exchange.

Just my big question is how could you believe that Africans are not being coerced?

Africans are being coerced first and foremost by their own governments. There is little I can do about that. There is little "we" can do about that. The only thing I can do (in the imaginary scenario in which I own an island, or a piece thereof) is offer those Africans an escape from their brutal oppression by their own governments.

Adding an option to the range already available to another person cannot be counted as "coercion". It is denying them of options that is coercive. Their government does that. I do the opposite.

So in what sense am I (or are we) coercing them?


Your logic appears to be a perfect example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Since we cannot have a perfectly just world, let's just forget about justice altogether. That same logic would state that we should abolish hospitals, since perfect health is not achievable.

I'd rather take the approach that perfect justice is a goal worth pursuing, even if it can never be achieved. We should minimise ingoing injustice. Regardless of initial (or current) allocation of property, over time, the world will converge on a just distribution.

[Sceptic]

Bastiat being [a] very influential [example] of non-Marxian leftists.

S-R, that is based on a very outdated mode of the old French days when the Absolute Monarchists were entrenched in right-wing political philosophy and everybody else, including authoritarian Jacobinists on one hand and classical liberals (egalitarian and libertarian; 'left' and 'right' liberals), were pitted on the left. Nowadays, I believe the best way to summarise the political spectrum is between right-wing hierarchical collectivists and left-wing egalitarian collectivists. The second dimension is between the collectivists and the individualists. Fascism ought to be a natural outgrowth of right-wing conservative thought in my view, a revolutionised model of conservatism and Marxism to left-of-centre social democracy what fascism is to conservatism. Yet the respective pairings are still diametrically opposed in so far as conservatism and social democracy are both stabilising the liberal capitalist mode of production. There is a grey area with respect to collectivist anarchism, should that be left of collectivism, or left of individualism? As a conservative liberal, my position is simple; I promote hierarchy in so far as it coincides with meritocracy and collectivism in so far as it does not suffocate individual liberty and responsibility.

Nowadays, Bastiat is best pitted in with the third dimension of individualism.

[Daktoria]

Your logic appears to be a perfect example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Since we cannot have a perfectly just world, let's just forget about justice altogether. That same logic would state that we should abolish hospitals, since perfect health is not achievable.

I'd rather take the approach that perfect justice is a goal worth pursuing, even if it can never be achieved. We should minimise ingoing injustice. Regardless of initial (or current) allocation of property, over time, the world will converge on a just distribution.

I seriously can't believe you just said this.

Rei should be able to sweep the entire debate with this gambit. The only question is whether or not she chooses to be stubborn over believing you two have different narratives.

[Rei Murasame]

Eran, the recurring theme of all this seems to be that for reasons unknown to anyone, you are an individualist. So before I give my response (and goodness do I have a response), I want to tackle that, and I'll begin with a question.

Do you have any siblings? If yes, would you risk your life for theirs? If so, why do you think that you really feel that way?

[Eran]

Do you have any siblings? If yes, would you risk your life for theirs? If so, why do you think that you really feel that way?

I'll gladly answer, though I believe your question reveals a different understanding of what it means to be an individualist (or, more precisely, a methodological individualist, which is how I would characterise myself).

I do have two sisters, and yes, I would risk my life for theirs (depending on circumstances). I would also risk my life for my parents, children, wife and, again, depending on circumstances, for perfect strangers.

I feel empathy to different people, with the degree of empathy depending on a wide range of circumstances. In the sibling case, shared genetic heritage is the ultimate evolutionary cause, though I doubt my feelings would have been substantially different if I was adopted. I would gladly risk my life for my wife and her daughter, despite us having no blood relation.


More interestingly, you seem to associate being an individualist with being an egoist, selfish or self-centred person. I don't view myself as exceptionally selfish or self-centred compared with those around me (most of whom are mainstream statists).

What I am is a methodological individualist. That means I view individuals and their choices and preferences as the basis for justice and morality. This is regardless of what those choices and preferences are (subject, of course, to respecting other people's property rights). Specifically, I fully recognize that caring for others, whether blood relations, neighbours, members of one's ethnic / national group, or perfect strangers, is something that is important to many people, myself included. There is no contradiction between caring for others and methodological individualism.

[Rei Murasame]

Okay, a good answer. My follow up is: are you willing to use coercion to keep them alive?

[Eran]

By "coercion" I am going to assume you mean "violating other people's just property rights". (Correct me if I am wrong).

The answer is yes, but requires further explanation. In my personal moral scale, keeping my immediate family members alive "trumps" other people's property rights (within reason - I won't kill innocent people to save them or myself).

This is an illustration of the difference between morality (broadly conceived) and justice. While under normal circumstances, my personal morality coincides with Rothbardian justice (essentially preservation of Rothbardian property rights, with proportionate monetary restitution payable to victims of aggression), the two are logically distinct, and provide different answers under exceptional circumstances. The two (personal morality vs. justice) are also different in nature - the former is personal and subjective. The latter is inter-personal and objective.

If I did, say, steal something to keep them alive, I will recognize that I ought to return that which I have stolen (or compensate its owner).

Moreover, I would rather live in a society in which such coercion is not allowed. To be clear, I would hope society will be understanding and tolerant of exceptional emergency situations. I know I would be. Further, punishment for such an offence would have to be proportional. So a thief would have to pay back for the damage he caused, regardless of how well-intentioned or desperate he was. However, you couldn't execute something for stealing.

Since I am not 100% sure where you are going, I'll leave it at that.

[Happyhippo]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but do you know that Sheldon Richman (and Roderick Long) advocates private property, greatly admires "vulgar libertarians" (as you call them) Rand, Mises, Rothbard, Spencer and supports all voluntary associations... Now either he is not a left-libertarian or you are not. You may want to reconsider. I would say you're a "libertarian"-socialist, that is to say, a socialist.

First things first: Vulgar libertarianism sounds a lot worse than it is. Basically it`s just a name for people who have the tendency to defend current hierarchies by using free market principles when we are in fact not in a free market. It`s basically a logical fallacy. People who use this fallacy very often, shows their bias quickly. Rand, Mises and Spencer was notorious for doing this, but that does in no way say anything about their other writings. Both Long and Richman have taken up this point themselves, but both of them uses the terms right-conflationism and left-conflationism, where left-conflationism is basically to equate everything good with government and everything evil with the market. Carson calls this vulgar liberalism.

In short, it`s fucking annoying to read an-caps when they start doing this shit.
I`m absolutely fine with calling myself a libsos or whatever else than a left-libertarian. Anarchism is not compatible with Eran`s view of "justly acquired capital is the only just authority" for obvious reasons, and as long as your left-libertarianism is compatible with that landlordism, there is not much common ground here*. What really got my hopes up for a change in the philosophical outlook of left-libertarianism (your kind ) is the fact that over the last couple of years there`s been a lot of antagonism between the conservative an-caps and progressive an-caps, but I assume it`s just secterianism taking its toll on you guys as well.


*Well, I guess an-caps have trouble seeing the reason, so I`ll just state the rather obvious rebuttal from the Anarchist FAQ:

It is no coincidence that "anarcho"-capitalists try to limit the definition of anarchy or anarchism purely to opposition to the state or government. This is because capitalist property produces authoritarian structures (and so social relations) exactly like the state. By focusing on "government" rather than "authority," they hide the basic contradiction within their ideology namely that the "anarcho"-capitalist definition of private property is remarkably close to its definition of the state.

This is easy to prove. For example, leading "anarcho"-capitalist Murray Rothbard thundered against the evil of the state, stressing that it "arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area." Then, in the chapter's endnote, he quietly admitted that "[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc." [6]

Opps. How did the editor not pick up that one? But it shows the magical power of the expression "private property" - it can turn the bad ("ultimate decision-making power" over a given area) into the good ("ultimate decision-making power" over a given area). For anarchists, "[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst." [7] It should also be stressed that capitalist authoritarianism is dictatorial in nature, with significantly less freedom than that in a democratic state.

Anarchists, obviously, wonder what the difference actually is. Why is the authority of the state considered anti-anarchist while that of the property owner is not? Rothbard did provide an answer: the state has got its land "unjustly." Thus the answer lies in whether the state legitimately owns its territory or not. If it did, then "it is proper for it to make rules for everyone who presumes to live in that area . . . So long as the State permits its subjects to leave its territory, then, it can be said to act as does any other owner who sets down rules for people living on his property." [8]

So if the state were a legitimate landlord or capitalist then its authoritarianism would be fine? Sorry? This is an anarchist analysis? The question is, ultimately, one of liberty. Anarchists simply note that Rothbard himself shows that capitalism and the state are based on the same authority structures and, consequently, neither can be considered as anarchist.

But then again, anarchists are not surprised. The liberal tradition "anarcho"-capitalism happily places itself in has a long history of sophisticated defences for autocracy based on consent. Anarchists, in contrast, have always stressed that the internal regime of an association which is the key.

[Eran]

For instance, it took Eran literally one post until he started his usual knee-jerk defense of corporations using the same "logic".

Where have I done that?

[mikema63]

if everyone owns themselves and thus has complete dictatorial control over themselves (i hope thats okay ), then isn't that a significant difference when someone may control what they own but can never control you? government certainly seems to take the we can control you view but isn't dictatorial control over objects different than dictatorial control over others?