Re: Property rights (was Re: Can't afford to rescue cows)

From: Thomas Buckner (tcbevolver@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 17 2008 - 17:52:57 MDT


--- mwaser@cox.net wrote:
>
> Why should anyone *own* various parts of the
> moon? If you aren't using it, why should you
> be able to hog it and insist that others pay
> you for the right to use it?
>
> Just because we've always done things like this
> in the past doesn't make it right for the
> future. Ownership makes a lot of sense in
> conditions of scarcity but I strongly doubt
> that it is rational in conditions of plenty --
> and in intermediate conditions, like those of
> today, I think that the concept of private
> property (and the necessity that everyone
> *must* work) is actually getting in the way of
> moving towards a condition of plenty (and
> fairness and happiness).
>
> Mark
>

How is it that wild tech advances leave people
working harder and for less pay? Because the
extra value is being siphoned off for the
employers. The logical end, as Bill Joy pointed
out, is that the boss gets what he wants from the
machines and the rest of humanity is expendable.

For a different idea on what to do, Robert Anton
Wilson's 1979 novel _The Homing Pigeons_ (book 3
of _Schrodinger's Cat_) proposes something called
the R.I.C.H. economy: Rising Income through
Cybernetic Homeostasis. Basically, guaranteed
good pay for those replaced by a machine, and a
good bounty for inventing yourself out of a job.
He anticipated many, many things discussed here.

Having said that, this is the sort of debate that
becomes utterly moot with FAI.

Tom Buckner

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