From: Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Date: Sun Apr 27 1997 - 05:27:09 MDT
On Sat, 26 Apr 1997, Patrick Wilken wrote:
> the first place. However trying to get Green groups to push a rational
> economic line is particularly difficult.
I've noticed...
> There is a strong almost religious
> fervor against all economic arguments. Money to many in the movement is
> seen as a tool of the devil.
As is technology (aside from cellular telephones, which many of them seem
to own; I've never seen such a concentration of cellphones as the time I
visited a protest camp against one of the new roads here). Frankly, many
of the Greens I've met just seem unable to operate in modern society and
hence dream of a return to some kind of agrarian wonderland. Most of them
are nice enough people but they're not very concerned with practicality,
which is why I doubt that you can get them interested in libertarian
ideas.
> I would very much appreciate getting a better understanding of how
> libertarian thought can be meshed with the idea of public property.
Easy; the public who want to 'protect' the land create a corporation which
buys it and holds it for them. This already happens in some countries
(e.g. the 'National Trust' in the UK which owns a lot of land and old
buildings). Of course the Green objection to this would be that they're
not into materialistic goals like making money, so they wouldn't be able
to afford to buy it.
However, some of the British Greens have used this tactic in the past to
prevent development of woodlands; they bought the land and split it into
thousands of plots which they sold off to individuals for a few pounds
each. Then when the government wanted to buy the land to build on they had
to at least try to hunt down every one of those people to buy up their
little plot of land. AFAIK it delayed them for quite a while and was
probably at least as effective as their more confrontational tactics.
Mark
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