What is it, to be governed?

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But the right to property prohibits people from freely accessing plots of land. (I'm being deliberately difficult here; you need not feel obliged to respond to this point).

But seriously, I don't quite get the whole preoccupation with property as though it is some sacred institution. The whole concept is a human invention. Not to say that some of the things I will vehemently defend aren't just human inventions, but libertarians seem to have elevated the concept of property beyond that. When you think about it, the concept of owning land is rather odd. The Earth formed without any human intervention, and the land existed (in most cases, I'm ignoring actions like draining swamps here) well before humans had evolved. So why do we feel that we have the right to claim ownership of it?

AstroGeek wrote:
But the right to property prohibits people from freely accessing plots of land.

So you buy a piece of land then you're "free" to access it all you want.

As I said, that was tongue-in-cheek. And so is this:

But what if I really want to access their plot of land. And I can't afford land of my own.

More seriously, by ruveyn's logic, anything that restricts our freedom is bad, unless the restriction directly prevents us from harming someone else. The whole concept of property restricts my freedom. Of course, as he points, out, so does the abolition of private property. We seem to have reached a no-win situation here... One way or another our freedom is going to be restricted.

Yep, private property is just part of the world we now live in.

funny enough this is actually an underlying point of proudhon's view. he goes into some detail in chapter 4 of "what is property" http://www.marxists.org/reference/subje ... y/ch04.htm




again i'd point you towards the link above and proudhon's critique of the right to property.

in very general terms, his belief was that we should be entitled to possess the product of our labour, but that the vast accumulation of wealth (i.e. land, means of production etc) infringes upon the liberty of others.

he made a distinction between personal property (possessions) and private property, based largely upon use and occupation. i.e. if i am occupying a piece of land and making use of it, i can say that i possess it, but that laying claim to property for no other reason than to charge others for the use of it is morally objectionable.

now all of this ties in very closely with his views on government, with which ruveyn appears to agree. the difficulty, then, which you also appear to notice, arises in ruveyn's conflation of the right of property with the right of liberty. this is one of the major flaws in the thinking of american libertarians generally.

On what planet was the government created ground-up?!

Government is the administration the ruling class imposed on a people when they were conquered. Looking at all the blue bloods that own your ass, I thought that would have been OBVIOUS!

Governments were invented about 10,000 years ago. They started off when the strongest men in the tribe or family intimidated all the others by force or threat of force.

To put it in a word: Might is Right. Die Macht ist das Recht.

ruveyn

Government is a service. We created the state to serve us.

It is always ridiculous to see people bash the idea of government one day, and the very next day be glad that there are prisons for the poor people that rob them.

I don't know who these straw "people" are, but the people robbing us aren't poor, and they aren't in prison.

We didn't create the state. The state has always been imposed. It's there to collect revenue for a 'service' which pre-dates the state. Check out "The Enterprise of Law"

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was not created from a former government.


It is not because the rich gain something from it that the poor don't.

Bullhonkey!

The bureaucracy was left largely intact! What, you think the administration is what matters? Have you ever watched Yes, Minister?



"The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else." -Bastat

Have you got references on that? I am most sceptical.

(Yes, Minister is my favourite series, actually!)

OK, so that frame of reference probably depends on what you consider the center of power and what was created during the October revolution. The rural areas were largely feudal in nature so here they were completely replaced, but the cities had administrations which were charged with carrying out the new order.

What I should really point out is that the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was imposed by the Bolsheviks and while initially popular within the ranks of the infantry and many of the peasantry, you really didn't have a choice in the matter and they didn't allow any factionalism. I mean the Cossacks weren't exactly happy.

Sure, it wasn't a foreign imposition, but it was still emphatically imposed top-down. The people within the borders of the Czar's domain didn't choose this government, did they?

Also, all the 'autonomous' soviet socialist republics ( were also imposed. From the perspective of every region, imposed by a foreign power. The Bolshevik reign of terror used the WW1 war machine to conquer the whole country, and eventually beyond its original borders.

I don't know if you're arguing that this was somehow different in Moscow or St Petersberg. The Bolsheviks conquered the country by force of arms.

As I remember it, the Bolshevik Party mainly used its own structure and that of the Soviets to serve as relay, as administration. That was mostly certainly not the same as the czar's, although it probably reused some of the staff. However, I may be wrong. I must say my memory isn't fresh on the subject. I would still appreciate references, if you can find any.

I didn't say it wasn't imposed. Indeed, it was imposed most brutally. I just said it was not created out of a prior state. It more or less happened on its own (or from the will of the Party, in the context of a civil war).

Actually, it has been argued that government is a consequence of war and conflict, in response to it. I do not have the mind for the argument, however, so I just throw this for your consideration.

Well I can name at least one bureaucracy they took over: The army!

Moving the conversation forward, what maintains the fealty of the state is something I sometimes puzzle over. It usually isn't pure violence, although when pressed it always devolves into it. If we would all refuse to follow state edicts, they would have no power, but few are willing to lead such a movement and risk imprisonment or worse.

There are some historical examples of this, however. This one I found particularly interesting, and apropos to current events:

http://mises.org/daily/5886