Samson Corwell

The silliness of his statement is only second to the nitwits who claim net neutrality means government can ban certain content.

As for your point about language, well, science just disagrees. If you were raised without social interaction, you wouldn't be an individual. You'd be a mindless animal.

I don't consider airwaves to be property (or money, either, really, but that's just me).

I know it when I see it. That's the most you're going to get out of me.

Is that an unwillingness to define your terms or an inability? Just curious.

More an inability. I don't think I can layout a definition if doing so will get me into situations where my opponent can say "Ha! That doesn't match your definition!" and deprive me of the chance to revise it. I mean, I think most people know what it means to speak of government and I'd think it would be obvious that anarcho-capitalism's form of government isn't anarchy but kritarchy (rule by judges).

you're qualified, BTW, to sit on the SCOTUS???

Are you suggesting he sit on his balls (his scrotum?) Now considering how painful that is - that is just plain mean. Isn't it odd how a man so infrequently squishes them after the first time?

Uhhhh...?

I know it when I see it. That's the most you're going to get out of me.

They own and control the island, so, yeah, kind of. Also, a network of private defense agencies and judges actually constitutes a state. The only competition that can be had between them is civil war.

You can call it "private" if you like, but once an agency starts forcing people to pay taxes and and prohibits competition, it is a state no different than the ones in Albania or Zambia.

Similarly you can call the Presbyterian Church a "state," but that designation would not match reality.

I see no contradiction in terms. A private state is what it would be. Corporatocracies, bankocracies, and corporate republics are all (theoretical) private forms of government. What's more, these four companies own the island. They can do whatever the hell they want with it! And who says you need to be forced to pay taxes for something to count as a state? A small town might not have taxes, but it would still have government. Here is the reality: government is not a monopoly. You talk about voluntary versus involuntary payment making a difference. I just don't see it.

One idea in fiction that's always fascinated me is that of megacorporations. A company with the powers/traits of a government like a military and a police force was just very exotic. It offered a different paradigm for espionage, war, and politics (in a fictional setting, of course). I was able to dive into worlds like that while playing James Bond 007: Nightfire or watching Avatar or The International. I was surprised to learn that such a thing had real world examples such as the British East India Trading Company, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and Operation Snow White.

My reason for bringing this up is that I think it challenges the coherence of the concept of "laissez faire"/" let it act" and demonstrates that the "public"/"private" dichotomy can be illusory. What do I mean by this? Well I'm not talking "corporatism", "crony capitalism", or what have you, but rather a totally different model of society. For the moment, just forget all the political/economic stuff about markets, supply/demand, regulation, competition, trade, contracts, property, and all that jazz.

Imagine we have an island (chosen because it's easy to distinguish from its backdrop) of decent size, say, fifty square miles. It's proprietary in nature and its law is fundamentally corporate. The society situated on this island is dominated by an alliance of three or four companies--it's a corporate republic. This alliance of corporations maintains a system of schools, passes legislation, conducts foreign intelligence operations, and patrols the roads amongst other things. Most residents are in the employ of these four companies. What we normally think of as contemporary social welfare manifests in the form of employment benefits.

I've designed this hypothetical scenario in such a way so as to remlve what we traditionally think of as government while showing how the traits associated with it could take on a different form. I don't intend for this to comes across as parodic. So, what are your thoughts?

Two questions:

1. Does the corporation tax the residents of the island? And I am not speaking of rents or other market-based fees.

2. Does the corporation act as the exclusive provider/enforcer of justice in the island?

If the answer to either question is "yes," then we are dealing with an extra-market phenomenon known as "the state."

Note: The East India Company was not a creature of the market but of government charter by Elizabeth I. It exercised military and administrative power in India. Thus, "yes" to 1. and 2. above.

They own and control the island, so, yeah, kind of. Also, a network of private defense agencies and judges actually constitutes a state. The only competition that can be had between them is civil war.

FFS, people. My point is that complete privatization does not eliminate government and give way to anarchy, as some seem to believe. What you end up with are corporate republics. Are there any essential differences, for example, between a private community and a small town? I don't think that there are.

Because I've always been a tech-oriented person, I've become familiar with the ins and outs of intellectual property, an institution which I wouldn't exactly call "property" but one I still believe is legitimate. In addition to copyright, patents, and trademarks, there are also database rights, mask work protections, plant breeder's rights, trade dress protections, and indigenous IP. The important question where are the limits.

Some of the statements made by some pro-IPers have made me gag. I could not support SOPA for the havoc it would have wreaked on the multistakeholder model of the internet and ICE's domain name seizures are an unjust unilateral action in the international sphere. So, when I see support for these things I usually can't help but feel I'm kore informed than the supporters.(When's the last time a free market think tank understood the multistakeholder model?) I recall Richard Epstein saying that patented inventions should be seen not as tking from the commons but adding something that wasn't there before. I facepalmed. Then again, this was the man some stupid comments about the GNU GPL and the open source movement a while back.

Now, I support some software patents and I'm fine with existing copyright protections. Genetic patents are right out. The situation with Myriad and its patents on BRCA1/BRCA2 sounded too much like a parody of capitalism than anything serious. It also screams Repoman.

I do not believe, as some libertarians do, that IP protections are monopolies. Not the right word for them. Any objection to IP on the grounds that intrudes on tangible property by restricting its use is silly on the basis that exclusive doesn't mean any use. I can't drive my car at 1000 miles per hour on the highway and I can't build outwards and block out the sun over my neighbor's house.

However, it is true that every kind of exclusive claim limits what others can do. This is neither good nor bad on its own, but is case-dependent. Onr man having exclusive rights over a large plot of land is indistinguishable from a country and can easily be the basis of despotism (i.e., King Leopold II and the Congo Free State). The thing about IP, like mineral rights in the continental shelves, is that it requires international agreement and can quickly lead to incompatibility. The European Union has database rights and moral rights whereas we do not, for example.

Intellectual property is property, but it's also not. It's a complicated issue, certainly moreso than land, and there a variety of opinions on the matter.

They're not "state holidays", they're simply " holidays".

Then what is marriage?

--Brant

Sui generis. It's certainly not replaceable with contracts.

The owner of a team should be free to name it as he pleases. It's his/ her property

Offended? Don't like it? Then there's the economic boycott.

-J

He is. What he can't do now is claim exclusive rights to the name.

The owner of a team should be free to name it as he pleases. It's his/ her property

Offended? Don't like it? Then there's the economic boycott.

-J

He is. What he can't do now is claim exclusive rights to the name.

Then he doesn't really own it.

Horseshit. Trademarks are a form of intellectual property--that term is disputable--while the team is an organization. Owning the team is like owning a business. Owning the name is like owning a word. Two completely separate things. Claiming someone doesn't "truly own" whatever because some trivial issue is borderline stupid. By the way, why did you quote my post twice?

Samson,

My misunderstanding. Now that clears it up + I only knowingly quoted your post once.

Having a bad day? Calling a post borderline stupid is not necessary...and quite immature. Just state why you disagree, no?

-J

Eh, alright. It's just silly to say one doesn't own something because of some restriction or other triviality. Though some of them are understandable like a property tax, revocation of trademark is totally unrelated to ownership of the team. The revocation can be criticized on other grounds like fairness or overreaction, but it absolutely does not nullify ownership.

The owner of a team should be free to name it as he pleases. It's his/ her property

Offended? Don't like it? Then there's the economic boycott.

-J

He is. What he can't do now is claim exclusive rights to the name.

The owner of a team should be free to name it as he pleases. It's his/ her property

Offended? Don't like it? Then there's the economic boycott.

-J

He is. What he can't do now is claim exclusive rights to the name.

Then he doesn't really own it.

Horseshit. Trademarks are a form of intellectual property--that term is disputable--while the team is an organization. Owning the team is like owning a business. Owning the name is like owning a word. Two completely separate things. Claiming someone doesn't "truly own" whatever because some trivial issue is borderline stupid. By the way, why did you quote my post twice?

The owner of a team should be free to name it as he pleases. It's his/ her property

Offended? Don't like it? Then there's the economic boycott.

-J

He is. What he can't do now is claim exclusive rights to the name.

You don't need to be a conservative to realize the move was stupid. For crying out loud, I didn't even know "redskin" was an insult until a year or so ago.

Social Laws, Part 10

Smith explores Emile Durkheim’s major objections to Herbert Spencer’s theory of a free society based on voluntary contracts.

My Cato Essay #145 is now up.

Ghs

George, is there any particular reason for why contracts are so important? When I go through libertarian literature, I get a fill of writing that treats contracts as if they fit into every aspect of human life. I mean, when I think of freedom and liberty and all that jazz...a commercial tool is not what I imagine.

In the classical liberal tradition, contracts were viewed as far more than a "commercial tool." As I explain in the current essay, "contract" was used as a generic term that covered voluntary agreements of all sorts, whether informal or formal. When Lockeans spoke of a "social contract," for example, they didn't mean that a people had entered into formal contractual agreement with a ruler. Rather, the point was that voluntary consent was required for a legitimate government. That consent might be "tacit," however, and such variations generated an extensive literature on the meaning of "consent" and "contract."

In short, if we advocate a free society, we are advocating a society based on voluntary consent, and that demands that we understand the nature of noncoercive agreements, or "contracts." The matter can get quite complicated.

Ghs

Aye. I think the problem though is that with contracts you've got a problem when someone changes their mind later on, at which point it ceases to be "voluntary". Another problem, I think, is the fact that there are multiple perspectives on what counts as forcing someone to do something. I, for example, have advocated laws barring employers from requiring that employees proffer their passwords for social networks. It always seemed to me that it was the case that the employers were doing coercing. A third problem is the distribution of wealth or property, the rules for which are not voluntary. It was because of this that I gave up on political contractarianism and embraced more Burkean views on government. None of the stuff about holism or individualism factors into it, though.

ETA: I've always been fond of the idea of consent. But it gets tricky when talking about what consent should be required for. Should consent apply to using others inventions? How about their faces or likenesses? I'm a big advocate of privacy and I wrote a bill in model legislature that would've made it illegal to take pictures of people in certain settings without their consent. See also personality rights.

I've also bristled with libertarians over what constitutes a contract. Marriage, for instance, is one thing I've been telling them isn't a contract. Sales are another, though I might be wrong.

This is an official notice to Sampson that I am not an Internet troll ...

Mark Levin carefully lays the Utopian scheme out so that whomsoever is scripting the Utopia, Plato, Muhammad, Thomas Moore, Hobbes, Bentham, Marx, Hitler, Stalin, Clinton, O'bama, Elizabeth Warren, etc. it ends in brutal tyrannies.

American Spectator commented on Ameritopia:

When I came across the line that "Utopia misapprehends man's nature," I had to stop reading and make a note to self. I do this with any brilliantly succinct and accurate notion. This line was so good that I wish I had written it myself. I had not.

Mark Levin wrote that and many other such nuggets -- and wove them into a tightly coherent narrative on where and why America is today. It's entitled Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, published today. Like his Liberty and Tyranny three years ago, this book should defy publishing gravity and demonstrate that Americans are indeed interested in intellectual history -- as long as the author can make it compelling and demonstrate relevance.

Levin does both.

Before reading the book, I assumed that Mark would show us where we are headed as a nation. I was wrong. Instead he shows us where we already are and why we are there. The style is conversational -- like the style of that one history professor you might have known who really made history fun. But do not be fooled. The research underlying the conversation is comprehensive, and the easy flow is infused throughout with simple profundities.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/ameritopia_mark_levin_connects_the_dot.html#ixzz3FDSGCHvX

Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Hmm I guess some folks think he has something important to say.

A...

I take American Thinker as seriously as I take Free Republic. Which is to say, not at all. I don't why you're calling Hobbes and Bentham utopians. They were both liberals and far from starry eyed idealists.

Samson,

Don't get too upset if George doesn't reply. He posts these essays on several venues so he may not see your question. Not to say he won't, however.

Occasionally he gets a conversation going on another OL thread and I suggest you jump in there instead of his essay thread. For over two years he's been knocking off an essay a week--now it must be getting close to three years. Never seen a damn thing like it.

Note I'm not trying to answer your question. You didn't ask me. You're treating the situation like a private conversation I'm not a part of. Or anybody else but you two. If I came up with something and others chimed in I'm sure he'd notice and start setting things straight.

--Brant

he's just trying to get it all out there before "my brain turns to mush"

click on his avatar go to his profile click on his "content" and find his other threads

Thanks.

Social Laws, Part 10

Smith explores Emile Durkheim’s major objections to Herbert Spencer’s theory of a free society based on voluntary contracts.

My Cato Essay #145 is now up.

Ghs

George, is there any particular reason for why contracts are so important? When I go through libertarian literature, I get a fill of writing that treats contracts as if they fit into every aspect of human life. I mean, when I think of freedom and liberty and all that jazz...a commercial tool is not what I imagine.

All the best, George.

Government uses force. Corporation uses voluntary trade.

A wee bit simplistic. I don't consider the voluntariness of business transaction to be of any real significance.

"...Teach Reason"

Platitudes makes us all feel warm and fuzzy, Ed, but they're of little practical use. I don't see him committing any "philosopher king fallacy", but I wouldn't endorse any of his ideas unless the child's welfare is as stake.

One idea in fiction that's always fascinated me is that of megacorporations. A company with the powers/traits of a government like a military and a police force was just very exotic. It offered a different paradigm for espionage, war, and politics (in a fictional setting, of course). I was able to dive into worlds like that while playing James Bond 007: Nightfire or watching Avatar or The International. I was surprised to learn that such a thing had real world examples such as the British East India Trading Company, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and Operation Snow White.

My reason for bringing this up is that I think it challenges the coherence of the concept of "laissez faire"/" let it act" and demonstrates that the "public"/"private" dichotomy can be illusory. What do I mean by this? Well I'm not talking "corporatism", "crony capitalism", or what have you, but rather a totally different model of society. For the moment, just forget all the political/economic stuff about markets, supply/demand, regulation, competition, trade, contracts, property, and all that jazz.

Imagine we have an island (chosen because it's easy to distinguish from its backdrop) of decent size, say, fifty square miles. It's proprietary in nature and its law is fundamentally corporate. The society situated on this island is dominated by an alliance of three or four companies--it's a corporate republic. This alliance of corporations maintains a system of schools, passes legislation, conducts foreign intelligence operations, and patrols the roads amongst other things. Most residents are in the employ of these four companies. What we normally think of as contemporary social welfare manifests in the form of employment benefits.

I've designed this hypothetical scenario in such a way so as to remlve what we traditionally think of as government while showing how the traits associated with it could take on a different form. I don't intend for this to comes across as parodic. So, what are your thoughts?

So what is your plan Francisco?

Not quarantining it. It's my plan, too.