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That's like arguing we shouldn't oppose Internet censorship because censorship is just a kind of regulation and other regulations make the Internet possible. B

by astine 15y ago

That's like arguing we shouldn't oppose Internet censorship because censorship is just a kind of regulation and other regulations make the Internet possible. Besides it's totally possible for billionaires to exist without a state or regulations. It's just that they would look more like feudal lords than the relatively benign fellows we have today. So it is a matter of limitations in the legal framework. It's just an issue of which limitations are appropriate and which are excessive.

rayiner 15y ago
Feudal lords were the state. They created and enforced laws, in a form that is quite recognizable to us today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta (this is an 800 year old document created in feudal England). Our system of property law can be recognizably traced back to laws of feudal England more than a thousand years old. What you're thinking of is more along the lines of a warlord in a stateless place. Such a warlord would have a lot of relative wealth, but because such a society would produce very little wealth, would not be wealthy in absolute terms. People who have a billion dollars wealth of wealth, in absolute terms, only exist in this country because you have 300 million people working in a highly organized system of divided labor. Without a state you'd have a society of peasant farmers and hunter-gatherers that had a fraction of the population (how many hunter-gatherers can you support in a territory of a size a single warlord can reasonably defend?) and produced a minuscule fraction of the wealth. The state enables, in a very fundamental way, the social concert of action that creates the wealth that billionaires reap.
- astine 15y ago
  My point is, in a stateless society, the rich and power become the state. If they have good sense, they will encourage order and economic growth but they will be the wealthiest members of their respective societies and above any laws they make. You're right however in pointing out that in current society wealthy people depend on the state and so must support it, somehow. I just find your logic confused.

by astine 15y ago

rayiner 15y ago

Feudal lords were the state. They created and enforced laws, in a form that is quite recognizable to us today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta (this is an 800 year old document created in feudal England). Our system of property law can be recognizably traced back to laws of feudal England more than a thousand years old. What you're thinking of is more along the lines of a warlord in a stateless place. Such a warlord would have a lot of relative wealth, but because such a society would produce very little wealth, would not be wealthy in absolute terms. People who have a billion dollars wealth of wealth, in absolute terms, only exist in this country because you have 300 million people working in a highly organized system of divided labor. Without a state you'd have a society of peasant farmers and hunter-gatherers that had a fraction of the population (how many hunter-gatherers can you support in a territory of a size a single warlord can reasonably defend?) and produced a minuscule fraction of the wealth. The state enables, in a very fundamental way, the social concert of action that creates the wealth that billionaires reap.

astine 15y ago
My point is, in a stateless society, the rich and power become the state. If they have good sense, they will encourage order and economic growth but they will be the wealthiest members of their respective societies and above any laws they make. You're right however in pointing out that in current society wealthy people depend on the state and so must support it, somehow. I just find your logic confused.