EGreg

My main problem with MMT is that it all looks neat and cozy when the world is buying your treasuries. Seems that you can run as much of a budget deficit as you want, and overextend yourself as much as you want. But there's a limit. When the world's banks start buying Chinese treasuries more than US treasuries and demand for US sovereign debt diminishes, suddenly the Fed might find it's cheaper to print than borrow, and it will print money, leading to inflation. That in itself isn't necessarily bad, but it is already not something the US government wanted to do, but rather what it was forced to do. If the process continues then the inflation might reach high levels. I mean imagine a simple scenario, where a government doesn't borrow and simply prints tons more money and spends it on UBI or infrastructure and other public goods. Rich people who feel their money is being taken to finance the "lazier" or "poorer" sectors of the population will simply move out, representing capital flight. Then the country will institute capital controls to try to fight this. What it comes down to is this, in my opinion: as long as there is inequality, there are different classes of people with different mentality. If you want your country / jurisdiction to do well, you have to make sure to attract capital and have it stay there. This can be done in a variety of ways, not necessarily low taxes. And then as long as the actual capital is there, you can denominate it in whatever local currency you like, and call it what you like. But if you print too much money that amounts to a flat tax and if it's too high, you risk capital flight. Your job as a government is to attract capital to the region, and redistribute enough of it to fund whatever mandates or programs you have, make life nice for the people there, which may attract more people if it works out. It's all a balance. Similar things happen when you run a company. You need to attract capital and invest it in projects, which may work out and attract more investors, or not. The main difference is that, with money parked in a company, the investors may not be able to simply withdraw their money from a bank and bounce.

I like Warren Mosler's debate with Bob Murphy on YouTube. (Disclaimer: Bob Murphy is my friend on facebook) Here is Warren Mosler debunking a lot of Ron Paul / Peter Schiff type fears that the whole thing is about to crash because of government spending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBSdryT8QWE

Capitalism taken to the extreme has massive problems. Most of those problems come from externalities. I wrote entire posts on this - you can search this board. Capitalism is A and B deciding that C is for dinner. All these externalities build up, and they're not accounted for by the NAP. Why? Because there is no direct aggressor. When you get evicted from your house or your lake gets polluted, it's all done in the name of "private property enFORCEment". Yes, force is used and you call it "defensive force" but the people on the receiving end have needs that are being threatened by the system. No one asked them when they got fired, or when the lake was sold. The system coerces the vast majority of people to work jobs they don't like, often jobs that will be replaced with automation very soon and they'll constantly scramble to avoid food and housing insecurity like rats from a sinking ship.

Israel is first in strength! Wow Where do you get those stats?

There were many small systems of government. Tribes, for instance. Feudalism is an example that's actually far more structured. The Japanese feudal system with the shogun was likewise structured. Tribal chiefs often interacted with kings. Democracy is a relatively recent form of governance when applied to an entire nation-state (and not just a city). The Romans had a form of democracy called a Republic. The USA modeled its ideas on various democratic (demo kratos is greek for "the people's power") governments including the Romans. And then other nations followed in the last few centuries. It seems to be a pretty good idea, leading to a lot more liberal and technologically advanced societies than previously existed.

I disagree with this argument. You haven't even defined the words "property" and "existence". So after you've defined them, I will ask you the following: Which individual owns you bank account? With which individual at the bank do you interact when you visit the bank's website and send money? With which individual at the bank do you contract when they store your money? With which individual at Apple do you contract when you buy an iPhone? Who currently owns the billions of dollars Apple is sitting on? Please answer from your own perspective.

I tried that for years. I have emailed [email protected], tried to outline topics I would love to discuss on the show. I even linked to many of my blog posts over the years to show my viewpoints. Never heard back. I also tried adding on Skype and contacting - nothing. So I joined this board to post here hoping Stefan will notice and invite me on the show. But as you say, he may not even read what's on these forums. I hope my comment gets approved but I actually hope that Michael (who runs hat operations email) responds and lets me debate Stefan on the show.

Andi - we see the same things and you attribute it to government - which is everywhere - and I attribute it to the profit motive - which is everywhere. The thing is - if there was no government, the same profit motive would still lead to factory farms and desertification. All it takes is everyone acting in their individual best interest. It's like you're playing this game by hiding "capitalism" and saying it's not around anywhere, but government is around everywhere. And then everything can be blamed on it and nothing on capitalism. A bit like patent trolls or Donald Trump's political record. He can attack politicians all day long but he has no record to attack (except of course his record as a businessman). Well, not everyone is going to go along with such a game.

"Most of your issues come down to well why wouldn't someone just own the whole forest or all of lake superior, or enforce intellectual property. Well they may be ABLE to do it in theory, but in PRACTICE its impossible because of capitalism." No, that's just a theoretical / philosophical parry. I'm saying that all the things you're against in a democracy, you'd be for IF someone privately owned the jurisdiction. Like if DisneyWorld was privately owned they'd be able to have all kinds of wacky rules and you'd say "if you don't like it, you don't have to go there". And I'm saying the same thing is true of states. If states had a contract that you sign when entering (as countries do which aren't under one empire) then voila, you have a contract. And if cities had it, same thing. Suddenly everything becomes legit. And if you argue that you aren't bound by the contract because you were born in the city and never left, then that's just a matter of scale. I can apply the same argument to private property: if you were born in an apartment and never signed a contract with the building, does that mean you can now squat rent-free your whole life, and no one can apply force to take you out? I'm not talking about the PRACTICAL but the THEORETICAL aspects of the complaints anarcho-capitalists make. The PRACTICAL aspects don't even get to that point, because people band together into organizations, and organizations join into larger organizations, and make agreements between them. All "government" is, is administration of those organizations.

"the greatest deaths in human history, by every metric was done by governments." Actually, no. When you lived as cavemen and early hunter-gatherers before governments, you had much more chance of being killed. It eclipses World War 2 by a long shot. Wherever people or groups have banded together into larger groups with common laws and language etc. instead of fighting each other, violence has been reduced. Here is a cool example I found. Read chapter 1: http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html During the Roman Empire, Stefan's ancestors the Celts (Gauls in Roman) were constantly waging war with the Germans. Daily. So no, there was no peace just cause there wasn't a large government. It was the Hobbsian trap - war of all vs all. Even your example of Europe ... the first World War started because mutual defense pacts made a regional conflict get out of hand. World War 2 was also countries fighting each other. Since the EU was formed, they stopped. When was the last the time USA fought each other? Once, during the civil war, and that's it. When was the last time the provinces of China fought each other instead of collaborated? When was the last time Russian Oblasts fought each other? And so on. Empires actually bring more peace, than war. And at all levels, collaboration brings more peace than independent competition.

Well, shouldn't you stop beating your wife after so many weeks?

Many of the actual problems with Anarcho-Capitalism as a system for organizing human activity can be traced to the concept of Negative Externalities. The incentive structure created by Capitalism in general leads to exploitation of free resources, and often times individuals acting in their own best (short-term) interest results in the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons. Factory Farms They say when you're not the customer, you're the product. That's certainly true of farm animals. They are slaughtered to be sold to people for food. The milk and eggs they produce are sold as well. So what happens? Well, very simply, Capitalism on its own will cause exploitation of animals on a massive scale. Billions of animals are raised in ever more cramped conditions, forcibly inseminated and fed antibiotics. Little birds have their beaks cut off so they don't peck each other as they wallow in their own shit and filth. Now, they spend their whole life in these conditions. This is the epitome of coersion. And why has it become like this? Because those farms which take these measures can sell meat and dairy for a lower price than the ones which don't. In the market, many people want the cheaper sausage, however it was made. So there is a growing demand for factory farm output. Not only that, but the farmers form organizations to boost demand for their products such as the National Dairy Checkoff. They do this without government. Remember those "Got Milk" commercials? How about "Got Milk from a cow that barely moves and is fed hormones"? OK, maybe you can make some ethical contortions by simply excluding animals from ethical considerations, saying only humans matter. Certainly then you can claim that it's immoral to use any type of force to prevent factory farms from operating. When Capitalism takes its course, people will often choose the cheaper milk / meat, e.g. at McDonalds or KFC. Capitalism doesn't care about morality. And by excluding animals from considerations, you don't have to, either. In Europe, factory farms are banned, but that is an act of government, i.e. force. There is no way to do it within Capitalism. If you buy up all the factory farms and liberate all the animals (like they did with slaves, let's say) someone else can just start another farm and sell meat cheaper than you. So you don't get rid of this through Capitalism, because it results in cheaper goods. The only way is to band together as a society and use force to ban it. Antiobiotic Resistance But of course, externalities aren't just limited to animals. The factory farms figured out that antibiotics can make animals fatter and bigger, therefore bring more money. Once again, Capitalism selects for those farms which do such a thing. And now, as a result, this has accelerated the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. So here's a Negative Externality that can affect MILLIONS OF PEOPLE on a scale not seen since antibiotics were invented. Thanks Factory Farms. Now are we going to somehow take them to court and extract some sort of reparations? By now it's a bit too late. Perhaps it was better to have banned this from the start, and use inspectors and force to make sure it's not done in the first place. And that wonderful State Capitalist system of government-granted Patents of the Pharma community has failed to produce antibiotics at a quick enough pace. Meanwhile, other branches of Science and Open Source Software where people freely contribute to a snowball of knowledge has eclipsed for-profit companies like Microsoft and Brittannica. Wikipedia has way more than Britannica. Linux runs even on toasters while Windows runs only on a particular architecture, because they owned the closed code and didn't need to make it for any other. Imagine if drugs were developed on an open source ecosystem instead of a for-profit patent-fueled Pharma one. Prisoners A similar dynamic appears with private prisons. The prison that spends the least on each inmate, and works them to the bone, would make more money. And instead of the National Dairy Checkoff, they simply pay local courts to send them more kids, or lobby for minimum sentencing laws. Again, these situations would only be worse if we had MORE private prisons, because more people will care about saving a buck than about the welfare of prisoners. In Everyday Commerce One can say that Anarcho-Capitalism are a Wolf and a Fox (or a Wolf and a Lamb) deciding that another Lamb is for dinner. When A and B make an agreement (e.g. that A will employ B), you can focus on their voluntary choice to make that agreement. But what you don't see is all the other people C who face the consequences (e.g. B is a manufacturer of a robot, and C was a local worker who used to be employed). So when C makes an agreement with D, they are coming from the situation that was created by all the transactions where C had to face the externality. Therefore, even on a grand scale, Anarcho-Capitalism can be quite coercive to many people. (And is one reason why societies have instituted Welfare schemes or Unconditional Basic Income). Working Class Families Capitalism works well to distribute money to people when employers value their employees. Your grandfather's generation worked at a Corporation for decades, and one breadwinner was able to support a whole suburban household, complete with cars, kids etc. Loyalty went both ways, and your grandfather even got a pension after retirement. Today, we are over 5x more productive per capita (inflation-adjusted GDP divided by number of people) and yet the Working Class hardly has the same earning power. Today, both parents have to work long hours just to pay the rent or mortgage for the exact same suburban house and car and kids. For a majority of the population, Jobs have become 2 year stints and are moving further to a gig economy where each worker is totally replaceable. Most manufacturing has been automated, so the demand for human labor in those sectors has gone down. That's why rent has become so much higher. Now look at the incentive structure for the family. The resource is time and attention to your spouse. The dad gets a nice offer to earn 90% of what the grandfather used to earn (in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars). He goes and trades his time for that money, leaving less of it for his kids and wife. Now the mom wants nicer things for her kids – or perhaps a career of her own in the new shiny office workplace (not your grandfather's workplace) – and goes to work as well. So, even less attention for the kids. The kids are sent to public school, and the grandparents are put into nursing homes. Who wins from this? The kids don't, the grandparents don't, unless you count "professionals" taking care of them to be a step up from their own family. But the economy is booming and growing! The GDP is higher than it was before. Yet the time people spend with their kids and elderly is a negative externality. It's given up entirely organically through voluntary exchanges. And that affects how our society functions. Induced Demand Induced Demand is the phenomenon when more of a good being produced leads to greater consumption of that good. For example, constructing more lanes on a highway can actually make traffic worse, and vice versa. Malthus argued that as food becomes more available, people have more children, and pretty soon each person is right back to the same amount of food and material wealth as before. Since the 1950s it appears that we've been able to escape this "Malthusian Trap", but we may just have staved it off and are now living on a credit card. See below. In Capitalism, of course, the producer and the consumer both have incentives to keep increasing production until all the supply is exhausted. This can lead to really scary planet-wide effects for both us today and our children and grandchildren. Desertification As farmers use land to its maximum capacity, prices fall, and farmers acting in their own short-term self interest push harder, extracting as much as they can from the land, in order to keep making what they're making. The result is a total collapse of the land's ability to sustain food. Now crops barely grow and soil starts blowing away like dust. You could have seen this in the Dust Bowl preceding the Great Depression, and the Government paid farmers to NOT PLANT for a while, something that would not have happened if everyone just did what's in their own self interest. We know this because now the situation has been replicated all around the world. Now, far from reducing desertification, we have increased it at a rate beyond anything before. In China, for example, the Gobi desert is growing every year. In Africa, farmland that was once arable is now desert. In fact, the UN estimated back in 2006 that this will lead to a migration of 20 million people from Africa – and this was way before Angela Merkel's policies Collapse of Ecosystems Colony collapse disorder threatens wild bees. There are far less insects than before. Sure, it's nice that commercial beekeepers were able to keep the bees alive – this is one argument for private ownership of animals to prevent extinction. But, the extinction could very well have been a Negative Externality from unsustainable human activities. Certainly this can be said about overfishing or the extinction of species at an unprecedented rate. Is it a coincidence that this is the age of the most widespread Capitalism? It has certainly led to prosperity, but at the expense of consuming everything around it. Including finely tuned ecosystems. Fossil Fuels In the last 70 years, we are living in a time of the highest concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, in MILLIONS OF YEARS. The cause is obvious: humans have released a lot of the CO2 trapped far underground in oil, gas etc. through burning them in our machines. As with the animals, proponents of fossil fuels need to engage in constant public contortion to deny simple data observations as a conspiracy by government scientists. They point to all the good that has been achieved with fossil fuels. They say Earth has been warm in the past. That's true, Earth has had both Greenhouse and Icehouse periods where palm trees grew near the poles, although evidence seems to show that during the Greenhouse periods, the areas below, say, Chicago, were uninhabitable by warm-blooded animals, certainly by humans. Going outside would be like going into a 170 degree fahrenheit sauna, the same sauna that has a warning not to be there for more than a couple hours. So are all those people living at those latitudes (including many developing prices) just "collateral damage" and are we gonna pay for our Negative Externality by dumping a few air conditioners their way? Or if their cities get flooded, are there gonna be private court cases to finally trace the causation to the people who contributed to this 20 years ago ... is that really the best way to deal with these problems? But of course, the greenhouse effect isn't the only problem with pollution. The constant smog from 19th century London, or 20th century New York, looked like this. Human cognition starts to suffer in a stuffy room with poor ventilation because of a buildup of CO2 to 1000 ppm or more. Right now the global ambient concentrations are already around 400 ppm, nearly one half of that. In some areas, it's worse. Summary Let's sum up. Has Capitalism brought us unprecedented prosperity? Well, technological innovation did (one can argue it could have proceeded even faster with open source software, science, collaboration instead of competition etc.) But let's say it was pure Capitalism. At what cost? The competition has led to negative externalities which are really hard to remedy using Capitalism alone. More of the same will simply make MORE negative externalities. Capitalism is resilient and resistant to messing with making products cheaper and more available, by any purely Capitalism-based means. But don't be fooled, there are externalities everywhere: Billions of animals at Factory farms suffering so meat and milk can be cheaper and more plentiful Desertification of farmland Pollution of the air and oceans Overfishing, collapse of ecosystems like the rainforest or lake Baikal Working class works harder and longer for less money Capitalism is a good system for certain things, but it is not a panacea. Negative Externalities exist. Induced Demand exists. These need to be recognized and addressed on a societal level, and not praying to the invisible hand to somehow make sure we survive the consequences of our ever-increasing unsustainable consumption.

Why the 20th amendment? What in particular does it accomplish?

By this argument, welfare recipients and women shouldn't have the right to vote because they lead society down a path to leftism, which is bad and kills people etc. Or something. That's the argument Peter Thiel actually made, as a libertarian in a piece published by Cato: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian

I would be very glad to go on Stefan's show (Stefan do you read these posts?) and discuss all this with the man himself. But also I am happy to respond to all comments in my thread as well as I can without building an unreasonably large wall of text (and making y'all pay for it . > Bankruptcy protection is not capitalism, it is state intervention, it is awarding privileges to certain groups with political influence. Well, as I said in the thing you're replying to, it's not anarcho-capitalism, but it has certainly helped a lot of entrepreneurs start businesses and take risks they would not otherwise be able to. In Europe, there are far more protections for employees and business owners are personally liable if things go wrong. A lot of people would say the USA system is much more conducive to free enterprise and entrepreneurship, and indeed has produced far more startups (Silicon Valley is just one example) than all of Europe has in that same time. Many people would therefore call the system with bankruptcy protection and limited liability for companies (because that is what it is) more capitalist than the system which does not have it. However, it is not more anarcho-capitalist. Please don't confuse anarcho-capitalism as being the only type of capitalism or capitalist thought there can be. As for me, I personally think that limited liability is a great thing. It allows companies to face unlimited market discipline and competition and go bankrupt if they don't make what people want, while the people running these companies get to take risks. As usual in Capitalism without a daddy government, it's buyer beware, and each company is responsible for itself. I am all for keeping companies separate from human beings. That's the point of limited liability protection and even in an anarcho-capitalist society, the courts might have such rules. It's just violates methodological individualism, but not every Capitalist believes in methodological individualism. See my other post about people forming organizations and believing they do in fact own things, etc. > And what about the crisis 2008, when taxpayer money was used to prevent the banksters from going bankrupt? Not really innovative, rather theft. You are confusing bankruptcy protection (and limited liability of company owners) with bailouts. The latter prevent bankruptcy, they are very clearly not the same thing. Bailouts of "too big to fail" institutions happen when too many people come to rely on them. This is a result of centralization of power, and is not necessarily a good thing. It's like Twitter or Facebook being bailed out because too many people depend on them, and they are a single point of failure. Centralization of power, as we know, has its own pluses and minuses. The key, in my opinion, is continually figuring out how to use technology to keep the pluses and avoiding the minuses while decentralizing. This is what I am personally involved in. >> Well then, what is private property? I think it's fair to define it as a monopoly right to exclude others from the use of some resource. > Shure. My car, my house. Don´t you exclude others from the use of yours? Well those are the easy cases. Easy cases are always... easy. How about if you owned an entire forest, or a lake? Or if you owned ideas? Who gets to tell everyone "stay away from this man's forest/lake/ideas ... or ELSE FORCE WILL BE USED"? Anyway we both agree that private property requires force to be used, to enFORCE it. When the resource is large enough, I can complain that I don't agree with your property right. Just like you don't complain about a house having rules, but you complain about a city or state having rules. When the scale gets large enough, you complain about the institution of government while others can complain about the institution of private property. In the case of entire privately owned cities, like Disney World, the complains turn out to be one and the same thing. The anarcho-capitalists presumably start to sound like "statists" because hey, if you don't like Disney World's rules, just don't go there. That's what I would tell you about cities which are democratically run as well. No one owes you a city that runs exactly according to how you want it (provided you even have a consistent position on every single policy a city should do). >> Other an-caps say no, you can't own ideas. But now we are stuck. Some people believe you own the idea and I infringed on it. Some believe I didn't. Now you use force, and we're stuck: did you initiative force, or not? > Interesting question. I would say, let reality decide: One anarcho group can set up laws that legally allow to own ideas, patents and so on. > Another group does not. So everybody is free to join whatever he prefers. Then we will see what works better. I would assume, that in the long run the group who protects ideas will make the better movies. Bingo. This is the heart of the matter. Once you get down to the brass tacks, the solution you described is exactly what people have today. Different jurisdictions have different laws. If you don't like a particular city, you can move to another city. Some countries have more Intellectual Property protections than others. Maybe they produce better movies. What you've just done is describe a consequentialist (outcome: better movies) statist (don't like it, move) position. That's fine! That's reality, as you said. > First, anarchy does in no way imply do depart from laws and a legal system. It only departs from state power. As an aside: other ancaps would disagree with you. They want polycentric law systems only. But if we assume – as you and I do – that in any given area there must be one consistent set of laws operating, then we support the concept of jurisdictions. And in that case, states are just large organizations which have jurisdiction within the state. Cities are also organizations (in the past they had walls, etc.) that have jurisdictions. If you committed a crime in a city and then ran to another city, they could use long arm agreements between them to extradite you back to the city where you committed the crime, and try you according to that city's laws. This is basic practical and legal stuff that's been around throughout all of human history. It's just that anarcho-capitalists have singled out this term the state which is supposed to single out some specific institution, which in fact just describes large organizations being run in various ways, in practical reality. There is no the state, or the government. There are organizations, and each one has its own policies and government. You are born in a city or a state, and/or you move to one. You can move to others. That's all. Therefore, this distinction anarcho-capitalists make is a false dichotomy. That's what I talk about in part 2. In here, however, I talk about the NAP being incoherent. > Second, in the west there is plenty of experience regarding what force is proportional, and what fine is appropriate. I think compensation is a good idea - if one pees in my forest, well, I would say thats for free. If one pees in my house, he would have to pay for a new carpet or work for it. It's not about what you say, though. It's about what the organization which is actually enforcing the laws protecting your property thinks. For example, in New York State, there are at-will employment laws which nullify any contracts that force a person to stay at a job, and even many non-compete agreements. Certain interest rates are considered unconscionable and not enforced even if written into the contract. Age of consent is 16 or something. Meanwhile in other states, there may be other laws. It's not up to the individual and contracts are only written documents, ultimately it's up to the organizations which are enforcing the laws. And that's what I mean. Anarcho-capitalists think there's just one, well defined idea of "property", and it's absolute. But there isn't. There are all kinds of property ownership, from fee simple to alloidal title and all have a long legal history. These property laws are subject to caveats such as adverse possession and easements and escheat all of which have legal history in actual cities and states. That's reality, and it's a lot more complicated than anarcho-capitalists seem to think with the NAP. Given all these rules, in one area, me using an easement may not tresspass on your property, in another it may tresspass. The NAP by itself is useless for figuring out both who initiated the force, as well as what retaliatory measures or relief you are entitled to. The decision rests with the courts in the jurisdiction you live in, i.e. the organizations which enforce the laws. And your other rights are protected in much the same way. In the jungle no one protects them. So this dream of getting rid of "the state" is a bit silly because "the state" is just a large organization and jurisdiction. > I acknowledge your point that is possible to influence a persons mind without them being aware of it to deleterious effects, through the unconscious (imo), I know I have heard Stefan say that he believes in the John Locke (Tabula Rasa mind) similar to Ayn Rand. I'm not sure I made that point. But certainly you'd support a jurisdiction nullifying a contract where a child agreed to enter into indentured servitude for 20 years in exchange for a week's worth of lollipops. Right? As far as the names... I am not much for Argument from Authority, just pointing out that the same guy who actually popularized the word "homesteading" said that you shouldn't own too much. Just like Darwin's actual work is called "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" but the latter is almost never mentioned. > You seem to be taking these concepts such as property and force as sort of laws or policies. They are not. In fact, in anarcho-capitalist society, such concepts and their definitions will be rarely sought. Well Goldenages up there agrees with me. Someone's got to enforce the property rights otherwise what's the point? If you say you own a lake, but can't stop anyone from using it, then in what sense do you own it? I can say I own the air, so what? LOL > In an anarcho-capitalist society, individuals adhere to reality, not to some concepts they make up. Whenever some conflict arises, the questions are not who owns what according to what definition. The questions asked are based in reality; who was responsible for what, how can I gain, what are the consequences of this, how are these things causally linked, etc. I agree. People adhere to reality even now, in regular "statist" society. The questions are asked now also, and if they can't resolve them, they go to a court. And consequences are considered. It was ever like this in civilized societies. What is the difference? > In the case of Johnny Appleseed, perhaps someone will seize those trees. So what? Well it depends if Johnny Appleseed is able to defend "his property". If he is able to enlist the help of an organization (or recruit his own militia etc.) to protect a large swath of land, guess what, that organization becomes the new "men with guns" enforcing whatever it is that Johnny wants. And instead of a tyranny, it happens that many people organize together and publicly publish laws, and have courts refer to public laws (not secret ones like FISA), and that's considered far better than just chaos and "might makes right". > In a rational society, those trees will be distributed in an efficient and moral manner according to the self-interests of individuals. They may be distributed efficiently, or they may not be. Maybe the rich will get far more than they can eat, and be constantly throwing away food, while others starve. Who knows. Under today's systems, things are distributed too. Maybe they could be distributed more efficiently, maybe not. How do you evaluate what is moral and what is not? You've already admitted that someone can just seize those trees. So they may violate the NAP. And what are you going to do about it? What people normally do is they band together and make organizations that enforce laws. And that is "the state".