From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon Apr 27 1998 - 17:23:41 MDT
At 11:06 PM 4/26/98 -0700, Paul Hughes wrote:
>
>**** So again I ask, is their any anracho-capitalist who can demonstrate
how the
>free-market can support and sustain a wide-spread liesure-class society
without
>resorting to "faith" that it simply will. If your conclusion is that we
must all
>continue to work in some form or another, then I DON'T WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
>****
There is a bigger problem with your hypothetical leisure class. Free
material replication and automation still won't create a leisure class in
any permanent sense.
First, there is the problem of energy, which is neither replicable nor
renewable. Yes, the creation and transport of energy can be automated, but
ambitious individuals could conceivably utilize more energy than could be
transported or generated locally without a mechanism for purchasing
additional energy. I can easily conceive of situations where the leisure
class would have to get off their collective asses, as it were, to move to
a location that could provide the increasing energy requirements of said
society. I can't think of a plausible situation where energy would not
have a finite value for these reasons.
Second, intellectual properties and similar abstractions will likely have
to be purchased as long as people are willing to produce them. Having the
sole copy of something useful is of great value in a society where
replication is free. The replication template for a second generation
transmorgifier might very well be worth exclusive access rights to a local
high-density energy source for a society that has free replication and
automation.
"We are not the children of God, but the descendents of His creators"
-James Rogers
<jamesr@best.com>
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