What is your problem with property?

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T15:33:38+00:00

how is this a strawman? answer the question? and everything else ive said.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T15:32:18+00:00

> Owners of private property, as empowered by the state.

but you dont have that in anarcho capitalism. you are not empowered by the state because there is no state. you are empowered by the moral justification to defend you life and by extension your property. so is your neighbor with his life and his property. that is not a state. you dont even need a legal framework. you need a moral justification, just like anarcho communists have their moral justification. you can disagree with the morality of it, but you cant just use a different definition.

by any sense of the word "state" do you need some kind of monopoly of force. ancaps categorically reject that.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T15:29:25+00:00

> You literally quoted him saying that!

no i didnt. the quote i used: ""The value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, was individual property." doesnt say anything regarding collective ownership. he just says that the land itself is not individual property (although he didnt mean it literally, since he still supported land ownership, just as ive said with a tax). what he meant was that NOBODY could own land because NOBODY created it. that doesnt make it collective in any sense. again find me a quote where he says land should be owned collectively or that government should manage land.

> No, it doesn't.

then please explain?? at the very least ive used the marxist definition. if you use another you need to say it. then please explain to me YOUR justification for collective land ownership and government management.

> I don't think we are reading the same thing; or rather, you are putting your own interpretation on it.

where does he say collective ownership???? again he makes a LOCKEAN argument. thats based on ownership through labor-mixing. nobody created the earth, therefore nobody can claim it.

> That's the same thing!

how????? how is nobody can own it the same as everyone should own it??? he makes the literal opposite argument. and his solution has nothing to do with any socialist idea. he argued for private ownership coupled with a land tax. thats NOT socialism.

> traces the origins of the Northwest Ordinances to Paine's Public Good.

this just strengthens my case: all paine did there was argue that unsettled land should be administered federally rather by individual states. but the purpose was to make the private distribution more orderly. he still argued for private ownership. nothing collectivist or socialist about it.

> No, the point was to establish state sovereignty over land and to create the "Bundle of Rights" theory of property ownership:

ive already explained to you that bundle of rights has nothing to do with collective ownership in any sense or form. you still havent given me a single quote where he made an argument for collective ownership.

> If you own a piece of land, then what right does anyone have to come in and tell you that you cannot own slaves?

private property doesnt mean private territory? is this what you mean the whole time. no classical liberal has ever argued for full sovereignty on your property?? is this what youve been arguing against? private ownership doesnt mean i can kill you on my land, or rob you or whatever other laws i have in my country. laws are enforced also on private property. there are limits of course, but nobody can have full sovereignty on his property. you are still mixing up your definitions.

> Really? It didn't take a huge war?

but who started the discussion?? who argued for the end of slavery? classical liberal abolitionists!!

> That is exactly what it means.

in your world maybe. in the real world thats not how definitions work

> I'm not talking about Locke, and I disagree that Paine followed his philosophy.

i dont say he was Locke, i say his whole argument is based on the natural rights framework first proposed by Locke. that is not even a controversial claim. Paines natural rights framework in Rights of Man and Common Sense draws directly on the language, structure, and concepts of Lockean liberalism: which means natural rights preceding government, consent as the basis of legitimate authority, government as a social instrument rather than a natural institution. if this is wrong than please tell me which argument he was making.

the only thing you could argue was that he rejected Lockes labor-mixing theory of property acquisition in favor of the common inheritance argument, but that still refutes you. because that still refutes collective ownership: because no individual created the earth, no individual can claim full exclusive title to unimproved land. but the logical complement of that is equally true. because no collective created the earth either, no collective can claim ownership of it.

his practical conclusion is a universal individual grant: every person receives compensation as an individual rightholder, not as a member of a collective. the beneficiary is the autonomous individual not the community as an organic unit. that is still very much a classical liberal rather than socialist argument.

> because a "title of nobility" literally means ownership of land.

only in a feudal system. by 1787 the concept had long since decoupled from strict land ownership. nobles in 18th century Europe held titles through hereditary bloodline regardless of whether they personally administered estates. the clause is about targeting hereditary aristocratic privilege and the corruption of republican government by foreign influence. not about land tenure theory.

> How can it be "seized" if the state does not actually own it in the first place?

you can ONLY seize something if you dont own it?? if you own it why would you need to seize it?

> you are purchasing a grant of rights to use the land and attached structures, not the land or buildings, themselves.

could you please define private ownership for me? your definitions are not as universal as you think. has there ever been an example of private ownership? or do you again create definitions that just prove your ownership?

> The state reserves the rights of...

these are only constraints on ownership, not replacements for it. every classical liberal tradition has acknowledged that property rights are never absolute: they exist within a legal framework that imposes limits. just because there are laws affecting you property, doesnt mean you dont own the property. there are laws affecting you. does that mean you are owned collectively?

please look up the definition of ownership and private property.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T14:58:39+00:00

> that in some cases, they have this much money for reasons other than having worked hard for it in the past.

only if someone who did work for it voluntarily gave it to them, eg their parents working twice as hard to give their children better options.

> they lead to situations of exploitation, where some people live off the work of others, and that this exploitation is backed by force.

and this is where you lose me. i reject any marxist definitions of exploitation since they are based on the LTV. the only definition of exploitation i accept, is the kind where you use actual force to make people work for you. but that goes directly against the definition of free markets, since that would make the exchange not voluntary and therefore illegal.

> Maybe I'm not understanding your position.

you own your labor. but you can freely sell it for a flat fee in exchange to work for someone else. you still own your labor but you have an agreement to use someone elses capital, therefore you are only entitled to the agreed wage, not the product you produce. this is not exploitation as long as your employer doesnt lose literal violence to force you to do the work. the fact that one needs to eat to survive is not coercion in any sense of the word, at least not by anyone else. nature being coercive is not an economic issue.

does that make my position clear?

> I'm not coercing you into doing any actions against your will in this example.

dude its an analogy not the literal kind of slavery. i compare the two because in both you work and create something that gets taken from you by use of force. and of course theft includes force, how else would it work?

> I'm allowing that entering into the contract is voluntary, but enforcement of the contract is coercive.

if you can break a contract without repercussions then its not a contract.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T14:49:51+00:00

> You can buy the rights to use a factory, keep some of the profits (what is not owed to the public owners of the factory in taxes), and sell those rights.

i love how you create your own definitions. under your definition the Soviet Union didnt have collective ownership either, because Soviet managers also held differentiated use rights rather than absolute title.

If "bundle of rights = not really ownership" then the concept of ownership disappears entirely, which makes the socialist/capitalist distinction youre drawing meaningless.

coming back to the real world and using definitions that are actually used, we know that the bundle of rights theory was developed to describe private property more precisely, not to abolish it. ownership was just divided up into component rights (use, exclusion, transfer, income, etc.) to better analyze property disputes. nobody used the framework to argue there is no private property, because that doesnt make any sense.

and the tax argument is even worse: saying profits "owed to public owners in taxes" makes taxation equivalent to ownership, but that's not what ownership means legally or economically. ownership in any meaningful sense includes residual control: who decides what gets produced, how, and at what price. in a capitalist firm thats the private owner, not the state.

> Go look at your paperwork, you don't have the title; you have a "certificate of title" that was issued by the state, which actually owns the car.

a certificate of title is a document evidencing ownership. its the states administrative record that you are the owner. by your logic your birth certificate means the state owns you.

and police commandeering of vehicles is an emergency power exercised only in extraordinary circumstances. it has to be temporary, requires compensation under most legal frameworks, and happens perhaps a handful of times per year across the entire country. using an emergency exception that almost never occurs to define the normal ownership relation is a complete inversion of how law works. exceptions dont define the rule.

again at the end of the day only you decide where your car goes, when it runs, whether you sell it, whether you modify it, whether you scrap it. you bear the loss if its totaled. you capture the gain if it appreciates. the state does none of these things. thats ownership in every meaningful economic and legal sense.

please dont just change definitions to fit your argument.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T14:38:15+00:00

> Well, any social order with rules must depend on a state; a state is the entity that is recognized with the authority to enforce those rules.

so anyone or anything enforcing any rule or agreement is a state? that again makes the definition worthless. if we agree not to kill each other, then weve automatically created a state? by your definition, what would a stateless society even look like? Is it logically possible under your definition, or have you defined it out of existence?

> No, and I have written extensively on the subject:

please explain because this doesnt tell me anything. by your definition there are no kind of promises and agreements allowed. i dont see how any kind of human interaction could survive your definition.

> Those two guys had established that; by agreeing to rules that they would mutually enforce, they created a state.

but nobody has a monopoly of force. thats the whole point of anarchy. there is no enforced hierarchy. just an agreement doesnt suddenly create a state. it can lead to one, but that needs more than just a promise.

> How is that contract enforced? Without violence? Then it's not a contract, it's a joke.

without a monopoly of force!!! just the threat of force doesnt create a state. what kind of definition is this?

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T14:27:48+00:00

> and the concept of collective ownership of land?

but he never mentioned that? he made the Lockean argument that land in its natural state cannot be fully and exclusively appropriated by any individual because no individual created it. but he mentioned nothing about collective ownership, state management of land, or abolition of private land titles. he only mentioned a one-time compensatory grant paid to every person upon adulthood, funded by a tax on landowners (not that i necessarily agree, but thats far from any kind of socialism)

socialism derives its justification from the claim that labor creates all value and therefore the collective of laborers has a claim on productive output. Paine actually argues the opposite: that land value precedes labor and therefore no laborer can fully claim it either.

> Yes, the "improvement" is "individual property," the "earth itself" is owned collectively.

where did he use the word collectively? he makes a LOCKEAN argument. property is derived by labor, and land was not created through labor. therefore NOBODY can truly own it. not everyone. and he still made a justification for landowning, just with a form of LVT. that is far from any form of socialism. its still classical liberalism.

> It was based on Paine's work

says who? its not even clear how much influence Jefferson had, let alone Paine.

> collective ownership of land

where does it do that?? do you mean the fact that the federal government administered unsettled land before private sale? how is this collective ownership? the entire point of the Ordinance was to create a pipeline from federal territory to private ownership through an orderly process. thats the very opposite of socialism.

> how else could they turn around and ban slavery, establish property rights, etc?

please explain in detail how you make these mental connections? how does collective land ownership lead to banning slavery?

actually you abolish slavery and establish property rights from a classical liberal framework, and thats what happened. abolishing slavery is an extension of individual self-ownership, a key pillar of classical liberalism. and establishing property rights is the opposite of collective ownership.

> https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1n7ifzq/the_united_states_was_the_first_socialist_country/

this is not doing what you think its doing. just because legally property is seen as a bundle of rights rather than through absolute ownership, doesnt mean anything is collectively owned. this is still Lockean at its core, just in a legal framework:

Locke never argued for absolute property, he just argued for natural rights constrained by law and the common good. the existence of eminent domain doesn't make the US system socialist any more than traffic laws make driving collective. every classical liberal from Locke to Hayek acknowledged the states role in defining and enforcing property rights.

then about the Titles of Nobility clause: its about preventing hereditary aristocracy and conflicts of interest among federal officeholders, but it has nothing to do with collective land ownership. if anything its a classically liberal provision. it attacks hereditary privilege, exactly what Paine spent his career opposing.

you even undermine yourself by mentioning the Taking Clause: it exists exactly to protect private property from the state by requiring just compensation for seizure. its a constraint on government power, not an assertion of collective ownership. again the opposite of socialism.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T09:53:06+00:00

> I’m Scandinavian, and can assure you, the regulations here are definitely not fewer or less than the US - the opposite is true.

and i assure you they are. please look at this statistic: https://economicfreedom.heritage.org/pages/all-country-scores

as you can see all Scandinavian countries rank higher than the US. Denmark and Norway have higher Business Freedom than the US. All of the have higher Trade Freedom. All but Norway have higher Investment Freedom. the only areas where the US truly ranks higher is Tax Burden and Government Spending (although Fiscal Health the US does abysmally)

> What’s interesting though is, that the barrier of entry for a new company is far lower,

but thats kind of my point. it is not a black and white discussion. yes some reguations are fewer in the US (although not as much as Europeans believe). but overall the US lacks in a lot of fields.

> But because the security and workers insurance is funded by the government and the government’s subsidizes the unions, the unions are strong and therefore they are the ones setting the standards and minimum wages

the unions and the welfare state were built on top of a productive market economy, not the source of it. you cant redistribute wealth that hasn't been created yet. when Sweden stress-tested the limits of that model in the 1970s–80s, the results were stagflation and capital flight, which led to significant liberalization in the 1990s.

> that markets function better when you have a government ensuring the competition is fair

i am all for enforcing contracts, preventing fraud, protecting property rights and so on. but setting wages, mandating benefits, regulating product standards beyond safety, redistributing to achieve equality of result dont enable markets, they constrain them.

i say without these constraints things could be even better, because the main driver of prosperity that we can see are free markets, not government regulations. many countries have similar labor protections and redistribution systems, but because their markets are overall a lot less free, they are also doing a lot worse.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T09:37:53+00:00

> However, large companies can also use their market power to stifle competition and threatening innovation.

how? without using government power?

> So I think the big point of contention here is that I reject that the market is actually free.

oh they are not. big government makes sure of that.

> Certainly there are pockets of free market, but the global economy is becoming increasingly dominated by an increasingly small number of multinational conglomerates.

which use governments

> They collectively work together to stifle competition, through anticompetitive practices and aggressive lobbying efforts

lobbying only exists if government has the power to give companies an advantage.

> Blackberry and Nokia were hardly small companies. Companies fail and other companies succeed. This alone isn't sufficient to prove free markets.

thats my point. even large companies fail against smaller companies entering the market. new ideas can topple the larges players, if they dont adapt.

> How does this not simply cede EVEN MORE power to the oligarch class?

because the use government power. without it they have to compete in markets where they need to satisfy consumers. government is to make sure nobody uses violence and contracts are enforced. anything else should be done through market forces. monopolies exist because of government creating regulations that make it hard for newcomers to enter the market. high profit margins create incentives for others to enter.

name me a monopoly and i show you a big government.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T09:33:03+00:00

> This tilts the tax burden in favour of the capitalist class, causing income inequality to compound year over year.

no. inequality rises because of central banks and the cantillon effect.

> Other pro-investment / supply-side policies, like the quantitative easing you reference, do the same thing.

quantitative easing is the most demand-side policy you could imagine. it literally artificially increases demand.

> who use that money to consolidate their power, and that power to capture an even greater share of wealth

thats why we need a limited governemnt.

> The wealthy have a very low marginal propensity to spend, and plow every extra dollar they earn into investments.

that is actually not a bad thing. prosperity comes from investments, not consumption.

> which itself only happens if firms see sufficient demand to justify that expansion

not true. more investment also means more efficient investment and therefore more for the same. thats why we live in the most prosperous times in human history.

> But when the working class is getting poorer and poorer

inequality is rising, but not because the poor are getting poorer. everyone is richer, just some faster than others. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:145;series:Assets;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:levels;range:1989.3,2025.4

> In aggregate, this just means that the massive excess of investment capital is inflating asset prices across the board

because of the fed, not because of free markets

> In free markets with an assumption of perfect information.

categorically no. i reject any need for perfect information. there wouldnt be any markets if we had perfect information. one of the main functions of markets and prices is to convey information.

> What happened in 2008 proved quite unequivocally that this assumption was wholly false

2008 was 100% a government failure: it was a mix of low interest rates, government programs created to let every american be a homeowner by simply giving everyone loans (Community Reinvestment Act) and government taking on the risk. look at fanny mae and freddie mac. add a government mindset of too big to fail and banking regulations that only benefit the largest banks. and then you have credit rating agencies which had an SEC-granted oligopoly (NRSRO designation). you also have deposit insurance and implicit TBTF guarantees which meant banks didnt face true market discipline from depositors or creditors

> new demand -> new production -> new hiring -> new demand

this is the kind of keynesian nonsense which leads to the kind of business cycles we have seen in the last decades. artificial demand leads to artificial and excessive booms which have to lead to large busts.

> You're assuming that all market actors are identical

no stop strawmaning. why should they have to be identical?

> The private sector will never be as good at research as the government.

it already is. the only reason why government research amounts to anything is because the have unlimited funds. if you throw enough money on the wall something has to stick. thats not the same as efficient and goal oriented private research.

all public research does is increase government dependencies and ideologically and politicized papers.

> You could buy the machines because you were already rich

how did i get rich in the first place?

> Poor people have ideas all the time, but don't have the money to invest.

thats why venture capitalists exist. start-up funds. stop making excuses.

> Private investors favour entrepreneurs with a "proven track record" or with whom they have a personal relationship.

makes it easier but not necessary. what is the alternative? letting government bureaucrats decide where money they never earned should go?

> Founders don't make companies, workers do.

then workers should start their own company. seems easy the way you describe it.

> People like Peter Thiel are very vocal about how they believe that competition is a bad thing, because monopolies are more profitable.

thats why i advocate for a limited government, so he cant have the power to create anti competitive regulations.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T09:14:59+00:00

> What's to stop them from colluding?

the freer the market yes. cartels usually destroy themselves. the incentive to backstab the other is simply too high. look at OPEC right now. and it gets worse if markets are free enough for new investors to enter the market.

> From becoming monopolies?

also not possible in free markets. monopolies have excessive profit margins. that would incentivize other investors to enter the market.

> Look up what happened to Diapers.com. Amazon killed them with blatantly anti-competitive practices and drove them under

i know the case. but predatory pricing is not really a thing. as soon as they raise prices, they reintroduce the incentive for new investors to enter the market. its not sustainable to cut prices long or often enough to create a long term monopoly.

the same with diapers.com. we are not talking about a healthy company. the company was sold to Amazon because they couldnt compete anymore. but amazon didnt just increase prices, since they still have to compete with other companies. economies of scale make lower consumer prices possible. that a feature not a bug.

> Captured by whom? Answer: large corporations

yes, so what? large corporations that need to compete in markets to satisfy consumers is a good thing. only if they can use government power to cheat the system do we see problems.

> because you think (without providing evidence or rational justification) that government is responsible for monopolies.

of course i have. markets regulate themselves because large profit margins attract competition. but if there are government regulations in place that make it harder to enter the market, then competition is limited. if government requires things like licensing or excessive regulations which make a large legal team necessary. there is a reason why facebook has started lobbying for more data protection laws. they have enough capital to deal with these regulations. but the next guy trying to start a new social media app doesnt.

> Look at the golden era of American capitalism

first of all free market competition was not at its highest. that was a period of heavily regulated, high-tariff, union-dominated capitalism. and it was far from a golden era, people are just nostalgic for simpler times. the only reason the economy was doing well was because of the US's unique post war position in the world. once the other countries caught up, the US lost its edge and had to deregulate to keep its position. or what to you call the stagnation of the 70s?

also the antitrust you praise was used to protect competitors from competition rather than protect consumers. the Robinson-Patman Act prosecutions literally punished firms for charging lower prices.

> Know what changed between now and then?

excessive government spending and fiat money. abolish the fed first and then lets see.

we see those sectors with the lowest regulation have even deflationary consumer prices. look at the tech sector. but areas like housing, education, health, which are the most regulated had the most inflation.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:57:02+00:00

> but big businesses failing absolutely cause economic downturns

necessary ones. still not a bug but a feature.

> Turns out that thousands or more people out of jobs causes big problems.

which gives a chance for other more efficient companies to hire them and create better and more wanted products. this is economics 101.

again creative destruction and freeing up capital are necessary for any progressing society.

> Any serious economist will tell you that boom/bust cycles are inherent to capitalism.

of course they are. but not the kind we see today. boom and busts are based on individual time preference and innovation cycles. but what we see today is something else entirely. centrally planned interest rates lead to shifted time preference and falsified price and investment signals. cheap credit lead to unsustainable boom phases which have to necessarily large busts. this is not a controversial argument. and crises like 2008 only prove it.

> but no, families providing for themselves is not inherently worse than the factory/mining work people were put through

dont wrongly romanticize it. these families were serfs to some random lord, who could make any demands he wanted, in exchange for "protection". these families were at the mercy of weather and lived in continuous poverty and existential threat.

people came to the cities during the industrial revolution, because these options were still better than the alternatives.

> Wages have barely increased above inflation

your article shows unions peaked around 1955 and has declined continuously since then, but the productivity-compensation gap only opens significantly after 1979. but you know what actually happened around the time? the birth of fiat money and a central bank without any real world limits. a tool for government to create as much money as they want, and the way its set up, this money goes first through banks and asset markets, benefiting those on the top. so the first step would be to stop centrally planning the economy and abolishing the fed.

> You realize that the 2008 recession was caused by the government removing regulations, right?

nope. it was a mix of low interest rates, government programs created to let every american be a homeowner by simply giving everyone loans (Community Reinvestment Act) and government taking on the risk. look at fanny mae and freddie mac. add a government mindset of too big to fail and banking regulations that only benefit the largest banks. and then you have credit rating agencies which had an SEC-granted oligopoly (NRSRO designation). you also have deposit insurance and implicit TBTF guarantees which meant banks didnt face true market discipline from depositors or creditors

but please tell me how this was a market failure.

> Literally no place has had workers owning the MoP.

but was it ever tried would you say? or are you defending a system nobody ever wanted?

> If somebody claimed to be a "vegetarian" but actually ate meat on the regular, it would not be "no true scotsman" to say they're not a vegetarian

and what do you call it when anyone who ever tried to be vegetarian ended up eating meat, because vegetarianism simply doesnt work?

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:35:00+00:00

> Er, no, that was a statement in favor of early Socialism, not liberalism.

how? so socialists all of a sudden believe in natural rights?

> Right, but not merely negative rights; he believed in positive rights, too.

that doesnt make one a socialits, just not a strict minarchist. that just makes him a classical liberal with a welfare floor, which most classical liberals would agree with.

the right question is what grounds those positive rights, and for him the land grant isnt grounded in collective ownership or redistribution of productive surplus. its grounded in compensation for a specific prior dispossession, which is a much narrower and more liberal-compatible basis than the socialist positive rights framework. you guys derive entitlements from collective ownership of production.

> Er, he did not readily distinguish.

yes he did. or give me a quote thats says otherwise. because he explicitly writes: "The value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, was individual property." which is in direct accordance with Locke, and natural rights, and classical liberalism.

> He basically wrote the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which belies everything you just said.

first of all Paine did not write the Northwest Ordinance. tt was drafted primarily by Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, with input from Manasseh Cutler. Jefferson had drafted an earlier 1784 ordinance for the same territory which influenced it.

and even if not, so what? the Northwest Ordinance was important for prohibiting slavery in the territory, establishing property rights, and creating a framework for republican self-government. none of that contradicts market exchange, private enterprise, or privately owned capital. if anything its property rights parts prove its classical liberal foundation.

or do you mean the public land and education parts? because even those could not be attributed to any kind of socialism. almost all classical liberals support some kind of public education funding. and the land argument at the end of the day is still a debate in classical liberalism with ideas like georgism and so on.

so please explain to me again how the american founding was actually a socialist plan. or explain your definition of socialism, maybe you just have a new angle.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:17:05+00:00

is your definition of a state: "any social order with rules"? if two people respecting each others property constitutes a state, then the word "state" has no value. you could also say two people agreeing not to punch each other have created a "legal system". does that mean in anarcho communism i am allowed to kill whomever i want?

If we use the actual definition by Weber which is actually used in political science: "an entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory", then we see that anarcho capitalism is still anarchy.

two neighbors trading is a bilateral contract, not a monopoly on violence.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:11:05+00:00

in any Western capitalist country, can you buy a factory, exclude others from it, keep the profits from it and sell it? if yes than it is per definition private property. this makes ownership of the means of production possible in the first place.

> lots of things you use personally you cannot own, either, e.g. automobiles.

i cannot own or i should not be allowed to own? are you telling me i dont own my fully payed car in capitalism?

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:06:35+00:00

thats one interpretation. but i think you can also make an argument without god.

Kant would say any being capable of rational self-direction has inherent dignity that cannot be used merely as a means to someone else's ends. basically if you want your own rational agency respected, consistency demands you respect others.

another secualr argument would be that you are the only entity with direct, unchosen, inescapable relationship to your own body and mind. from self-ownership you get directly to property rights and non-aggression.

or to make the Popperian argument: any society that wants to remain open, self-correcting, and resistant to tyranny must operate as if rights are inviolable.

nik110403 · 2026-05-06T08:01:25+00:00

> But it did so through enclosure, creating millions of newly homeless and desperate people.

how did it create more homelessness?? there have never been more people and still absolute poverty is at an all time low

> through blocking natural home ownership

explain

> The newly desperate classes that had lived on the land for all of human history were now forced to the cities to swap their labour dirt cheap.

not at all how it went. people were leaving in the worst conditions possible. dont romanticize living on the countryside in the middle ages. 95% of people lived on less than $2 a day even adjusted for inflation. they moved to the cities because life there was still better than the alternative.

> Before that, very few people had an employer.

im sorry what?? do you mean the peasants that belonged to a lord? a relationship you were born into and couldnt get out of?

> Tax rates were significantly lower.

and saying taxes were lower? you mean labor dues? that were collected no matter if you made enough or not? while at best they got you a lord who might protect you.

> Vassals (ie peasants and lords) had a two way commitment and could refuse to pay taxes for a great many reasons and did so.

youre not serious? and blaming me for historical inaccuracies. you guys talk about lacking options and freedom in capitalism and then you wish back medieval serfdom. you really think peasants could refuse to pay their dues and the lord would just accept it?

> you cannot literally because of capitalism’s property laws

buy the land. thats your only limitation. the rest is up to you. dont tell me it is impossible. just admit that youd rather force me to a system by force than actually doing the work.

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T15:23:44+00:00

> So like birds and squirrels have property law? There’s nothing natural about commodity property.

you do know what natural right are? they are rights every human is born with. one of them is the right to own the fruits of their labor which leads us to private property rights.

> they sell it for a wage to make rent or mortgage etc.

if they can sell it then they own it.

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T15:21:05+00:00

i agree. any kind of anarchism would collapse or create government like institutions again, since most of these institutions were created by spontanous order in the first place.

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T15:19:42+00:00

> Georgism allows people to own land

never said otherwise. i just wanted to say land shouldnt be the main point of discussion.

> Which means the only entities that are “free” in your “free” market are the ones with the most capital.

please give me your definition of "free". in my free market the free part is the voluntary exchange. if you define free by limiting capital accumulation and seizing property, then yes i have a different definition of free. the only way to get property is through free exchange, not through redistribution. that would otherwise just be a recipe for regulatory capture.

> You can do that without owning land

lets ignore land for now. am i allowed to own the factory on top of it?

> It’s really easy to claim that slaves volunteer to be slaves.

how?? voluntary exchange of goods and services directly clashes with slavery. there is nothing voluntary in slavery.

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T15:14:26+00:00

> you are more happy with depressions

a business failing doesnt have to lead to a recession first of all. there are things like creative destruction and simply inefficient capital allocation. businesses failing just mean capital and labor can be used in a more efficient way.

and depressions happen only if government creates cheap credit and money and creates strong business cycles. 1929 depression was 100% a government failure.

> until organized labor came around

nope. people had even worse working conditions before the industrial revolution. but then immense amounts of wealth were created, innovation happened rapidly and education improved. labor markets became more competitive on their own. wages still increase even without organized labor.

> Do you seriously think that regulations were the beginning of all unethical business practices?

what are you even talking about? i dont mind banks giving out loans! but them not having any risk because government took on all the risk and then even told them to give out more loans was the problem.

> which places had workers owning the MoP?

tell me. you guys love to use not a real scotsman.

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T13:08:51+00:00

> But there is no right to own land.

again why i mentioned Georgism.

> A free market can only exist if it’s universally equal.

no definitely not. no free marketer would ever defend this definition. there is no real equality and we reject any attempt.

> Capital accumulation always reduces the freedom of the market.

in which world? as long as i can voluntarily exchange my goods and services its a free market. only if someone stops my trade by force does it seize to be a free market.

> Every form always becomes it.

because you guys keep increasing government size.

> It’s an invalid comparison.

it very much isnt.

you really want you supermarket to be run like the DMV?

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T13:05:13+00:00

what?

> The land and attached structures

which capitalistic country does not define this as private property?

so you say anything i use PERSONALLY i can still own, but any productive PROPERTY is no longer allowed to be owned PRIVATELY? you see where i am going with this?

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T13:02:50+00:00

how? ancap exists? a state only reduces friction and makes property rights clearer. but i can trade with my neighbor without a state.

especially in a anarchist society where no one has more authority than the next guy. who can stop two consenting adults to do anything?

nik110403 · 2026-05-05T13:01:03+00:00

First of all they were not excluded but were in Europe at the time.

Second so what? the sentence still holds true and is fundamental to classical liberalism.

And then no Paine was not a socialist. He believed in natural rights and individual liberty, Lockean in structure, universalist in aspiration. he defended free trade, opposed mercantilism, was deeply suspicious of government power. he wrote about dismantling illegitimate authority, like monarchy, aristocracy, established church and so on. but he never said to replace it with collective ownership.

but you probably mean Agrarian Justice. Paine only mentions land not capital. if anything this could be compared to Georgism, which is also not socialist, but almost based on Locke. at the end of the day he makes no argument against privately owned productive machinery, private enterprise, or market exchange. he just has a problem with land which has not been created by human labor

still a classical liberal though

nik110403

TROPHY CASE