I thought Dinotopia is a neat concept. Basically, think huge island where humans and sentient dinosaurs coexist peacefully. But what about Capitalism Dinotopia, where there is money, and free trade? Why did the author base it on Communism? Why is there a government? Would this even work in practice?
I thought these quotes were relevant to discussions on liberterianism:
"
**S**urvival of all or none.
**O**ne raindrop raises the sea.
**W**eapons are enemies, even to their owners.
**G**ive more, take less.
**O**thers first, self last.
**O**bserve, listen and learn.
**D**o one thing at a time.
**S**ing every day.
**E**xercise imagination.
**E**at to live, don't live to eat.
**D**on't put out the light."
-Code of Dinotopia
"Both halves of the society share responsibility equally and live under a common set of laws known as the Code of Dinotopia. The society is highly communal, lacking a monetary system or even a concrete concept of ownership. Individuals are educated from youth to be compassionate, co-operative, and generally conscious of others' needs. For example, food on the island is provided at no cost, but citizens take only what they need and leave the rest for others." -From Wikipedia
The libertarian approach to utopia is neither capitalist nor anything else pre-defined; but grounded in pure voluntarism. Utopia is whichever society you are willing to live in with like-minded individuals on a free associative basis; ie, the structure of the society, its rules, etc., will depend on the unanimous agreement of all involved parties.
This being said, capitalism (or, at least, free-market) is most likely to be adopted as an economic system because of its reliance on voluntary and decentralised mechanisms and its lack of coercion.
Except that nobody would buy it. And the critics would label it a cutthroat dystopia.
People are selfish, speculative and aggressive in getting what they want, yet they dream of a communist post-state utopia. Probably in dinotopia they are reading Rothbard and sighing with dreamy eyes.
They don’t suffer, in fact, the conditions on the island are so great, there is abundance for all. Would a free market still be good in times of abundance?
Such situation cannot exist because of natural reason. Yet for a short time, if a situation occurs when everything needed for a quality life is in Abundance, then that would be a perfect ground for Free Market based on voluntarism without any sort of resistance from anyone.
Yet, there will be a need for the first handers to lead the progress.
In a world of super-abundance, a market would still be needed to allocate the scarcity which still exists in that state, namely, property rights in and use of the bodies of the individuals inhabiting this land, as well as allocation of the standing room occupied by each individual. As such, economics and markets will still be needed. Communism indicates that a person and his actions are owned collectively, as such, no allocation can logically occur without a violation of the principles of collective ownership. For how can one give one’s assent to the actions of another if one is not free to give this assent without the prior assent of every other inhabitant. Communism eventually breaks down to oligarchic rule and resorts to the principle that it is O.K. for some people to control others. To gain a greater understanding of the flaws in these political systems, please familiarize yourself with Rothbard’s, “Ethics of Liberty” and, or Hoppe’s “Economics and Ethics of Private Property.” I am not sure if the latter is available in pdf (I have the very nice dead tree version).