Still typing out a reply to your other question re: welfare. Want to give it the respect it deserves.
I think it depends how far you take socialism. If we define socialism as ‘public ownership of the means of production’, then I think yes, it does indeed impinge upon these things, in myriad ways.
That lady didn’t live under freedom. She lived under the British government system, who set certain conditions in the economy, provided her with welfare, and then reduced it, and she suffered. Where’s the freedom?
Wow, even Socialists realise the benefits of voluntary donations 
If you keep it small and local it really isn’t worth anyone’s time to corrupt… There are much easier places to go after the big bucks. The board members are elected by the customers in proportion to the amount of land they own. The annual statement is audited by a local CPA firm that is known… The salaries for the whole operation are <800k USD – so I doubt anyone is running off with a massive salary…
There is no perfect solution. But we can make one better than the ones we have. It isn’t a one size fits all thing… It’s a whatever works best will work thing. In the US we used to have AT&T as a state monopoly and we would pay dimes per minute to call long distance. Now we have any number of private carriers, and we pay nothing for long distance. Just because government did do something doesn’t mean they need to continue or will always be the best route.
Ahhh…right…I’m not an expert on the clear definitions of each “ism” btw. My rough idea of Socialism would probably extend public ownership to things like power/utilities only, rather than manufacturing etc if that’s what you mean?
Arg here we go again. No one is arguing against providing social welfare or any of that. The only contention is doing it voluntarily vs involuntarily. That’s it. We’re not even arguing collective action vs living on your own or the benefit of social safety nets. We are arguing one simple point: One camp seems to think it is acceptable to coerce people for the good of the many and the other camp thinks it is not. Neither disagree on the benefit of social safety nets Neither disagree on collaboration. Neither disagree on helping people in general. Both camps believe they are helping society and humanity in general. So let’s stop casting stones here this is getting boring. Let the statists go their way and the anarchists go another. There’s plenty of cyberspace for all of us. If you take the left path I shall take the right. If you take the right hand path I shall take the left.
In fact I haven’t met a single anarchist yet that wants to make statists stop being statist. They just want a plot of land to call their own and have the statists leave them be and stop trying to coerce money out of them. So how about this. We’ll build a new system and and instead of it all being “unrealisitic” it’ll be a proven reality. Then if you still want your statist system you’re welcome to it but it’ll be proven that it’s not the only way.
Fact is the anarchists STILL want something for nothing - because no matter how far you try to place yorself “off-grid” you are still taking advantage of structures. whether physical or social, that the rest of us paid for.
TANSTAAFL as Heinlein would say and you are getting no free lunch off me, pal - no matter how anti-social you are.
Yes, I was just outlining what had happened here, in one instance.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
In the instances where this is true (many), absolutely.
Many of the roads in the United States were originally privately built. Not highways, mind you. But smaller roads.
It’s besides the point anyway. Governments have covered practically every inch of the planet for some time now, and, as far as I know, all governments in the West have undertaken these infrastructure projects themselves. Why would private business do this if governments will undertake it anyway? They can’t compete with an entity that doesn’t need to source it’s income through voluntary commerce. And just because governments have been the main funders of this kind of production in the past, doesn’t mean that other entities cannot.
Lol…brilliant 
No…the only contention is that one camp actually has a social safety net and the other camp doesn’t and is reliant on charity and philanthropy.
THe point is that those who reduced her welfare are trhe very same ones who whine about “freedom”.
And you ask why we don’t trust you or anyone who spouts this right-wing libertarian shite?
No, not the ‘rest of us’. All of us. Anarchists pay taxes too. And I’m not off the grid.
You assume a lot. I recognise that publicly-owned property was paid for by the people. And there is no way it should simply be immediately privatised; that would be grossly unjust. I would actually advocate placing all infrastructure already built into a public trust, as they did in the electricity market in my home city of Auckland. Not all of the people agreed with this, and so they took a vote in different areas. Only one area chose the public trust option; the rest of the people voted to receive an immediate payout, and to sell to private interests. But those who are customers to my particular electricity company receive a yearly dividend.
Clearly, selling off assets at pittance is a rip-off, by the government and their cronies, and inflicted upon the people who funded it.
I’m not anti-social at all. Just anti-socialist.
I never asked why anybody didn’t trust me. Are you having arguments with shadows?
If you are referring to those in parliament who made these decisions, I would have to call them out on their logical consistency. One cannot be at once a liberty-loving anarchist, and a politician, and not also be a hypocrite.
Again, there is no point trying to compare what people have to endure living in our current situation to how they might fare in a stateless society. The government reduced her welfare. They also didn’t reduce the prices she pays (which the central bank actually tries to avoid), they didn’t offer her any other means to support herself. The ‘system’ is broken. When you ‘tweak’ a fundamentally broken system, you just break more bits.
I thought this was all about one poor wee guy who was too scared to hitch-hike and was whining about being coerced into apying taxes?
As for the rest of your post, fine, little to disagree with. Except you know and I know and the wholee world knows thats not how it works in practice. So why try to tell us different?
Quite possibly - its late here
You have met our right-wingers then?
Scum, one and all.
Tell you what, YOU string them up on piano wire nooses and you will have some respect.
Agree with them and you will be treated with the same disgust and hatred that they deserve.
There has been a class war raging in the UK for the past 30 years. - Slowly, very slowly, the people are fighting back. We will not stop until we have won, because to stop is to be defeated. This is entirely the wrong time and place to try to persuade us of the joys of your right-wing ideologies. We know what people who share your ideology are capable of and we dont like it. Not one bit. Assume all the intellectual superiority you want, we know who will win in the end.
Well, I agree that taxation is theft. But I don’t break the law. I want to change the law.
I’m not. I’m saying this is one instance where it has worked. And I think it’s because of the participation of the people in the process at the time. I think public trusts would be a (semi)decentralised way to deal with currently existing infrastructure, that, at the very least, would avoid a theft from the people.
A number of points.
I agree with some things that the left says. And I agree with some things that the right says. Mostly I would describe my libertarian/anarcho-capitalist position as having the same concerns as the left (and some on the right), but entirely different solutions.
Its about the only instance I have heard of it working well with satisfaction all round for a sustained period. I suspect that it got off the ground in the first place because some short-sighted people went for the quick buck and took their pay-off.
It is when it is used as a basis for declaring class war,
we will not forget, we will not forgive, And we have VERY long memories.
Choose carefully who you stand beside because we might just be unconcerned with collateral damage.
Do you mean that the public trust got off the ground for this reason?
No, when the privatization was being discussed, people were understandably concerned about the effects and the ripoff of public assets. Because of this, they offered referenda at the time to allow the people to choose. The correct path, I think. Interestingly, it was the wealthier areas that opted for public trust.
Well, that sounds like threats of violence. Who’s your favourite commie? Lenin? Stain?
Interesting how you ‘might be unconcerned with collateral damage’ when people on welfare are exactly that: collateral damage. Both kinds are unacceptable.
Unsurprising really - the better-off areas would be less likely to be swayed by the “bribe” and could take the longer and more rational view.
The less well-off have to deal with the day to day and so a cash injection is hard to refuse.
I have no idea of the figures involved - all guesswork/
Lenin for getting things started, Stalin for ensuring that they stayed started and for defeating the Nazis. Without Stalin and the sacrifices of the Red Army at Stalingrad and elsewhere we would be having this conversation in German. The contribution by the Western Powers to the defeat of the Nazis was in comparison actually pretty minimal. A tough thing to say to a Kiwi, I know, but the honest truth, An great-uncle of my mothers flew with some Kiwi pilots and I remember he held them in high regard,
Yes both kinds are unacceptable, they started it, We’ll finish it. To take any other course is to admit defeat.