From: Tony Hollick (anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 24 1998 - 01:38:00 MST
On Fri Jan 23 19:38:37 1998,
"Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin" <warrl@mail.blarg.net> wrote:
> Given the amply-demonstrated advantages of a system of individual
> ownership over all the alternatives man has yet come up with, the
> only pragmatic reason for wondering about the origin of ownership is
> to assist in devising reasonable means of transferring all
> currently-unowned resources to individuals.
C'mon! So first we have predatory feaudalism (or whatever) and thus
a distribution of property (and the positional advantages property
buys over time), and the resulting patterns of injustice aren't of
any concern? That's just a stale 'conservative' apologia for
inherited privilege! Hardly fair, let alone optimal.
Why does 'capital' hire 'labour'? Why does not 'labour' hire
'capital' for time-preference (interest) plus a risk factor? Why do
we still have a _hierarchical_ -- 'Crony-Capitalist' -- verticalist
structure for our prevailing version of a 'free-market' society,
when most people would prefer a much more 'horizontal' reticular --
Agorist! -- pattern of economic interactions?
What objection (if any) would you advance to this idea?
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
HOW TO RESOLVE THE LARGER 'BT PROBLEM'?
Much of BT's network was built via capital levies on subscribers' phone
bills. Clearly, when BT was 'denationalized', this should have been
done simply (and without megabucks in 'sweeteners' and 'fees') by
mailing out equal shareholdings in BT to every elector on Monday
morning
BT staff seem to _hate_ BT -- most people do too, after all. Who can
forget the cartoon of a man making a call from a phone box, while Busby
(remember him? >:-} ) leaned out of the 'returned' slot and
surreptitiously picked the punter's pocket... >:-}
NOW, IMAGINE THIS FUNNY SCENARIO:
[A] BT staff start to 'work to rule' and make innocent mistakes...
Such things do happen... They all hate the bloody company, anyway...
[B] The BT Network declines. BT will never get into America now:
whoever would possibly want to import an MI5 spy network? >:-}
All of BT's competitors go all-out for new business.
[C] Job opportunities boom with BT's rivals, creaming off all the
more 'mobile' and/or competent BT staffers.
[D] Rumours spread like wildfire that BT is on the skids...
[E] The great offshore Hedge Funds (like George Soros' Quantum Fund
-- remember Black Wednesday? ERM? The Tories? ) smell 'blood in the
water', and start running relentless bear raids against BT stocks
and shares round the clock. BT shares decline more or less gracefully.
[F] Meanwhile President Clinton has issued Executive orders tasking:
the Central Intelligence Agency
http;//www.odci.gov/cia
and the National Security Agency
http://www.nsa.gov:8080
to become commercial 'players.'
Top flight outfit, NSA -- US$ 30,000,000,000 budget, 100 000
brilliant,dedicated and playful staffers, worldwide SIGINT and
Electronic Warfare capabilities, you know... Now tasked to gather
commercial and poplitical intelligence which can be useful to
American companies. America has lots of fiercely competitive telcos
(Actually, anyone with NSA's resources could bring down BT's entire
network in around five minutes...).
(A former CinCPAC and DIRNSA (Director, NSA) is a friend of mine...)
[G] BT slides inexorably into receivership. In the reconstruction,
the public finally receive the shares they should have received in
the first place, and the BT staff run BT as a co-op, replacing the
'senior management' and the board (Good Riddance!), and take on any
external management advisers necessary for the 'difficult bits.'
We-all then have our own phone company in our own hands, BT's
previous -- 'looter' -- shareholders see their shares zeroed, and
the good guys (all of us!) win! We can then have free local calls,
with competing trunk services, and superfast 'blinking' datacomms
services via spread-spectrum protocols over standard twisted-pair
lines.
Ideal for 'Blackbird' MacroComputers!!! Project details from:
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
COMING SOON: THE MICROSOFT CORPORATION MELT-DOWN
[ FX: "It was the year that everything changed" ]
----------- * * * * * -----------
>> There is a legal maxim: "Non Dat Quod Non Habet" (you cannot give
>> what you do not have). 97% of American land is owned by around 3%
>> of the population, or so I understand.
> I can easily prove that you understand incorrectly.
>
> That leaves only 3% of the land owned by anyone other than those 3%
> of the population.
That's a bit evasive! I'm more than happy to know the correct
distributions -- just amend the estimate to '97% of privately-held
American land is owned by 3% of the population, or so I understand.'
I think you'll find that the distributions of ownership are
_something_ like this. If the estimate's quite wrong, I'd like to
know a more accurate estimate, for purposes of future discussions.
Tony
PS: I love your name! Derivation, please?
[ FX: "Qsk yourself "Why don't I know already?" ] >:-}
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