From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 14:08:30 MST
Michael Dickey wrote:
In what kind of
> situation could anyone ever actually own all the farmland in a
> country? A massive communist or socialist state is the only place in
> which such a thing has ever happened.
### This is incorrect. There were many despotic monarchies where the king
owned de iure all land, and merely rented it to his vassals. Smaller
countries were frequently owned by a single family. In socialist states
nobody owned land, which was one of the reasons for their downfall.
---------
Without restarting the
> whole bill gates debates, replace him with any wealthy person
> producing a product, and to remove the issue of intellectual property
> rights, consider someone who manufactures lollipops, for instance.
### This is like saying, let's stop talking about Mr. Dahmer, replace him
with a man who didn't kill anybody and ate beef only. The irrational,
economically ruinous use of copyright law is the main issue here, not the
exact amount of cash amassed by Mr Gates, to the detriment of the economy.
Rafal
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