That’s the natural conclusion of an individual rights based economy though. There are rules, and the rules lead to concentrations of power, but the rules apply

That’s the natural conclusion of an individual rights based economy though. There are rules, and the rules lead to concentrations of power, but the rules apply the same to everyone and anyone can take a shot at trying to get that at that concentration of power. Of course, capital is used to bend the rules, and that becomes unfair, but that’s a whole other topic... There are places where there is no presumption of rules uniformly applied. If Oakland were in China, for example, they might decide that East Oakland is a little shabby and has a crime problem, and so they’re just going to raze the whole area and build a new high density eco-city to provide housing for San Francisco offices. Heck, they might do that to the Sunset! But that’s not how America works. The people in East Oakland bought the rights to that land. They own it, and so long as they obey the statutes of the city it doesn’t matter how valuable the driving-out of those people might be, if it’s less than the buy-out cost it’s not legally feasible. The entire system relies on this principle. If I can’t rely on my land being sold at a price I set then I can’t make complex plans based on land use and prices. I have to add in a “government force” slush factor to every calculation and many delicate plans become too risky to try.