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The last line is key for me: either unowned or owned collectively. I prefer unowned.
And further proof of you not knowing what you're talking about I have no concern of whether it will "work" or not. That mindset (ends over means) is everything a statist stands for.
You can call yourself whatever you like, it does not make it so. When you claim that "means of production" is something that a person cannot own it tells me that you are a warmed over socialist of some type or another, and I don't much care which. Like many others, you use terms assuming that the definition is self evident, never realizing or caring that many will not accept your definition of "means of production".
Means of production can be nothing more than a set of machinery that is used to produce a marketable product - someone owns that stuff. Without it there is no product to sell.
Means of production can also be the stepwise program which is followed to produce a marketable product - someone owns that too because it took effort to produce it.
Means of production can be the skills of the workers who do the work making a product - they own those skills themselves and take them along to other workplaces with them.
Means of production can also be the effort those workers make to produce what the employer sells - they own that effort and are selling it to their employer.
That is off the top of my head - take issue with it if you like, it would be an interesting debate.
Common ownership is nothing more than state ownership, and yes, it is maintained by force. Private ownership is maintained by force as well - either on the part of the private owner or by the state. Unownership is not practically possible.
You do realize if there was no government everything would be taken over by private enterprise, right? I'm not going to go as far as to say the government is our friend, but at least they are accountable to the general public on a certain level. Private enterprises aren't always bad, but their prime motivation is profit. Without a government the more unsavory corporations would be free to exploit people in any way they want. Comcast could charge you $200 a week for your Internet connection and you'd just have to pony it up or live like it's 1985.
The police would all be privatized so you'd either have amateur security guards going around and killing people on a regular basis or you would simply have mob rule and people suspected of crimes would be killed in gruesome ways by their neighbors without any trial. I'm not a huge fan of cops myself but I respect them because I know that if the average citizen was dishing out justice they would be far less forgiving and more likely to hurt innocent people.
Piracy and human trafficking would explode in prevalence due to the lack of law enforcement and child labor would become the norm since there would no longer be public schools. It would be like the old days when only rich kids were able to have an education while the rest worked in fields and factories. And all the gun nuts in right wing states would finally be able to go out and become the warlords they have fantasized about being for so long.
Oh yeah and if you're an atheist and support anarchy or libertarianism, you are inadvertently supporting religion too, since aside from private enterprise and government the most powerful organizations are religious ones. Without a welfare system poor people would be forced to rely on religious charity (and theft), and the middle class would live in gated communities ala South Africa to get away from the desperate indigent who will steal from them if it means their kids don't starve. If you think panhandlers are annoying now try dealing with 20 times more of them.
It would be the end of civil rights since nobody could enforce anti-discrimination laws and the wealth gap between the majority and the minority would only grow due to the nature of capitalism. Eventually this would lead to a race/class war as people became more and more desperate. If you think Ferguson is bad...
I was going to go through this point by point and basically refute everything, but there is so much stupidity and ignorance in this post that it's not worth even getting started.
You can call yourself whatever you like, it does not make it so. When you claim that "means of production" is something that a person cannot own it tells me that you are a warmed over socialist of some type or another, and I don't much care which. Like many others, you use terms assuming that the definition is self evident, never realizing or caring that many will not accept your definition of "means of production".
Means of production can be nothing more than a set of machinery that is used to produce a marketable product - someone owns that stuff. Without it there is no product to sell.
Means of production can also be the stepwise program which is followed to produce a marketable product - someone owns that too because it took effort to produce it.
Means of production can be the skills of the workers who do the work making a product - they own those skills themselves and take them along to other workplaces with them.
Means of production can also be the effort those workers make to produce what the employer sells - they own that effort and are selling it to their employer.
That is off the top of my head - take issue with it if you like, it would be an interesting debate.
Common ownership is nothing more than state ownership, and yes, it is maintained by force. Private ownership is maintained by force as well - either on the part of the private owner or by the state. Unownership is not practically possible.
I only believe in personal private ownership.
A man can't go out and cut down all the trees and gather all the natural resources then store them on his "private property" so that others must come to him and provide a service or pay tribute to attain these resources. This can't be done "intellectually" either. A man can't mix honey and grass together...say it helped his arthritis...then say no one can mix these resources together without his permission or pay tribute to him first.
I don't believe in common ownership. Why is unownership not practically possible? So you believe in paying tribute to a man for walking across "his land" to get to a lake to fish?
A man can't go out and cut down all the trees and gather all the natural resources then store them on his "private property" so that others must come to him and provide a service or pay tribute to attain these resources. This can't be done "intellectually" either. A man can't mix honey and grass together...say it helped his arthritis...then say no one can mix these resources together without his permission or pay tribute to him first.
I'm thinking more along the lines of a different example:
Say I want to make furniture from walnut wood, and have specific requirements for the lumber - I want that lumber flitch matched (that means all the boards sawn from the same log so that the grain is mirrored from one to the next). I can go to a land owner, say a farmer, who has a bunch of walnut growing on his farm and pay him for logs that I can then take to a sawmill and pay the sawyer to cut them into planks according to my specification.
I bought the logs from the man who owned the trees. He could choose not to cut them down and sell them to me if he prefers their shade instead, or he could cut them down and sell them to someone else who is less cheap than I and will give him a more attractive price. Had I shown up with a chainsaw and tractor and started cutting them myself, presumably he would find a way to stop me.
I bought the time and expertise of the sawyer who cut the logs up as desired for me. He already has the equipment that I do not for handling large green (that means wet) logs, which are quite heavy. He has the expertise to use that equipment to gain maximum yield from those logs with little risk to his personal safety - I don't have that expertise even if I had the equipment - that is intellectual property. Like logs, it is not unique, he is not the sole purveyor of it, but he has it, I don't, and I need it and so pay him for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
I don't believe in common ownership. Why is unownership not practically possible? So you believe in paying tribute to a man for walking across "his land" to get to a lake to fish?
Unownership or nonownership is not practically possible because someone capable of claiming a nonowned resource by force will always do so. Most often this ends up being states due to our relative lack of significant nonowned property found in everyday life. If it has value to someone or some state, they claim ownership of it and defend that by force.
If I want to fish from my neighbor's land, I would ask him if I may. Usually that works fine around here. If he was reluctant I would probably tell him I would find somewhere else to fish and not to worry about it, or if it were very important (ie valuable) to me to fish in that particular spot, I would offer something of comparable value to encourage him to let me fish. Nothing wrong with this as far as I can tell. If I were rich enough and wanted to monopolize the fishing in this spot, I might buy all his land and keep everyone else from fishing there - I'm not wired that way, but lots of people seem to be.
A more accurate example is a true one. I know a guy around here with an old flagstone quarry on his property. I asked if I could collect some stone for my own use, and he said sure, as long as it's not huge amounts. Depending on how he defines that, I will certainly offer him some cash if I want more than he wants to give up for free. Knowing the guy, I doubt he'll take it, he just said what he said in case I had some idea of loading up huge trucks and selling the stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
Sounds like statism to me.
Well, it might to you, but that is your problem. I define statism a bit differently when I bother to think about it, which is not often. I think it sounds more like capitalism or if you want to be excessively precise, propertyism.
I'm thinking more along the lines of a different example:
Say I want to make furniture from walnut wood, and have specific requirements for the lumber - I want that lumber flitch matched (that means all the boards sawn from the same log so that the grain is mirrored from one to the next). I can go to a land owner, say a farmer, who has a bunch of walnut growing on his farm and pay him for logs that I can then take to a sawmill and pay the sawyer to cut them into planks according to my specification.
I bought the logs from the man who owned the trees. He could choose not to cut them down and sell them to me if he prefers their shade instead, or he could cut them down and sell them to someone else who is less cheap than I and will give him a more attractive price. Had I shown up with a chainsaw and tractor and started cutting them myself, presumably he would find a way to stop me.
I bought the time and expertise of the sawyer who cut the logs up as desired for me. He already has the equipment that I do not for handling large green (that means wet) logs, which are quite heavy. He has the expertise to use that equipment to gain maximum yield from those logs with little risk to his personal safety - I don't have that expertise even if I had the equipment - that is intellectual property. Like logs, it is not unique, he is not the sole purveyor of it, but he has it, I don't, and I need it and so pay him for it.
Unownership or nonownership is not practically possible because someone capable of claiming a nonowned resource by force will always do so. Most often this ends up being states due to our relative lack of significant nonowned property found in everyday life. If it has value to someone or some state, they claim ownership of it and defend that by force.
If I want to fish from my neighbor's land, I would ask him if I may. Usually that works fine around here. If he was reluctant I would probably tell him I would find somewhere else to fish and not to worry about it, or if it were very important (ie valuable) to me to fish in that particular spot, I would offer something of comparable value to encourage him to let me fish. Nothing wrong with this as far as I can tell. If I were rich enough and wanted to monopolize the fishing in this spot, I might buy all his land and keep everyone else from fishing there - I'm not wired that way, but lots of people seem to be.
A more accurate example is a true one. I know a guy around here with an old flagstone quarry on his property. I asked if I could collect some stone for my own use, and he said sure, as long as it's not huge amounts. Depending on how he defines that, I will certainly offer him some cash if I want more than he wants to give up for free. Knowing the guy, I doubt he'll take it, he just said what he said in case I had some idea of loading up huge trucks and selling the stuff.
Well, it might to you, but that is your problem. I define statism a bit differently when I bother to think about it, which is not often. I think it sounds more like capitalism or if you want to be excessively precise, propertyism.
We just disagree on the extent of property rights.
A man can't own land or rocks or trees in a virgin or idle state. That's force or coercion by denying a man willing to use those resources for personal use at that time. The guy you get the rocks or trees from isn't using them for personal use.
Only personal private property can exist. Unowned land is completely possible and logical. Anything not in personal use is free for others to use. People will police each other and cooperate with each other much more often than not.That's because the absence of private land ownership makes land only valuable to a specific person at a specific time to satisfy personal needs. I go to a lake to fish. The woods behind it is where I get my wood for burning. The value of the woods to me as I sit on the lake and fish is nothing. It is not being used in my means of production. After I catch my fish I walk into the woods to get some firewood. The lake now has no value to me but I find a tree that I want. It is now of value to me as I cut it down to use.
There's no need for "civil rights laws". People will police people thru our daily unregulated interactions. Don't want to do "personal business" with someone cuz of their color, gender, etc. others will find out and act accordingly.
You live in a vacuum and have a belief not based in reality.
The libertarian approach will allow a very wealthly elite to rule as government would be largely eliminated.
If you remotely think business will produce things that are good for people otherwise people won't buy, then explain the acts of Monsanto, Searle, Bayer, and dozens of other companies making sugar substitutes that are poisonous, genetically altered foods with no known outcome, pesticide and so much else.
Companies work on profit and the government gets in the way by demanding clean air, clean water and companies being held responsible for their products. You as a citizen could not afford the law suit required for compliance.
I doubt people are ready to give up their social security, medicare (which is the most efficiently run insurance) The EPA, FAA, student loans and grants. the libertarian approach would take us back to the stone age.
We just disagree on the extent of property rights.
A man can't own land or rocks or trees in a virgin or idle state. That's force or coercion by denying a man willing to use those resources for personal use at that time. The guy you get the rocks or trees from isn't using them for personal use.
This is only consistent within the limits of your own philosophy, which many of the rest of us do not share. The vast majority of us would conclude that a guy selling me stone or logs from his property is using them by the act of selling them. To the bulk of the civilized world, whether that use qualifies as personal to you or not is immaterial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
Only personal private property can exist. Unowned land is completely possible and logical. Anything not in personal use is free for others to use. People will police each other and cooperate with each other much more often than not.That's because the absence of private land ownership makes land only valuable to a specific person at a specific time to satisfy personal needs. I go to a lake to fish. The woods behind it is where I get my wood for burning. The value of the woods to me as I sit on the lake and fish is nothing. It is not being used in my means of production. After I catch my fish I walk into the woods to get some firewood. The lake now has no value to me but I find a tree that I want. It is now of value to me as I cut it down to use.
Only true if I accept your worldview, which I do not - primarily because I see no good philosophical reason to accept it even aside from the practical impossibility of getting all the other people around to agree with such a notion. The vast majority of the civilized world would find these notions quaint, but completely impractical - they realize that anyone who disagreed with your theory could simply walk out of those woods and whack you with a bit of that firewood.
Left to their own devices, human being's just don't seem to come up with what you've described. They come up with commerce - trading surplus of what they have to someone who wants it in exchange for something they themselves want.
This is only consistent within the limits of your own philosophy, which many of the rest of us do not share. The vast majority of us would conclude that a guy selling me stone or logs from his property is using them by the act of selling them. To the bulk of the civilized world, whether that use qualifies as personal to you or not is immaterial.
Only true if I accept your worldview, which I do not - primarily because I see no good philosophical reason to accept it even aside from the practical impossibility of getting all the other people around to agree with such a notion. The vast majority of the civilized world would find these notions quaint, but completely impractical - they realize that anyone who disagreed with your theory could simply walk out of those woods and whack you with a bit of that firewood.
Left to their own devices, human being's just don't seem to come up with what you've described. They come up with commerce - trading surplus of what they have to someone who wants it in exchange for something they themselves want.
Well, I'm guessing that makes you a right libertarian. I'm a left libertarian. You believe a man can own an idle tree. That in itself is force/coercion by denying another man his natural right to use said tree.
And this is why I view right libertarians as statists.
Statists with a different master than we have now but still statists.
I strongly disagree that people wouldn't see the logic in how I think when put in action.
The concept of idle resource ownership relies on people illegitamately possessing something. A big no-no for left libertarians. The only reason any life on earth (aside from humans) take physical control of a resource is for personal use.
You keep using words like "practical" in how life would progress. You can't judge how anyone would live. Freedom to live or die is all that matters.
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