To:
it was replied:
Well, in that case any association including corporations, firms with more then one owner, companies etc. are “collectvist to the core”. Thanks for clearing that up. More on legal persons.
I was just treating the state like any other organisation or association as a legal person or entity.
The anarchists are just going to have to find an island somewhere that they can all be in complete agreement on the property lines and distribution of resources for their one-mile square autarchic plots. They won’t have families (“Inter-generational tyranny!”) and they won’t form business entities or purchase insurance (“Collectivism!”), so eventually they’ll die off on their 100% purely homesteaded land.
Then Exxon will come along and find a bunch of oil under it and make a killing.
That doesn’t resolve the situation where the murdered has no heir and there is no rightful owner. The true victim is dead. A person would have serious leeway if they were acting on behalf of a murdered person. Even if an heir did turn up, the dispossesser would only be a criminal if they refused to recongize the heir’s claim to the land.
As an aside, if a person dies without an heir, I don’t see why the land should default to the closest relative. If no heir has been chosen and no close relative exists, then the land should be considered abandoned.
A person may die without a will, but not without an heir. There will be multiple claims to inheritance that will be challenged in court, and custom will be involved to find who the legitimate heir is.
The reason the dead’s property should not be labelled abandoned is that it will result in people fighting over it, and the whole point of law is to avoid that.
Worst strawman evar.
Of course it is possible for people to voluntarily form “collective” ownership of property through common title. But unless one realizes that it is the individuals within that body who own those things, and not the artifice itself, one is engaging in fallacy. The state pretends to exist as an individual entity, and makes claims on property, and exercises effective ownership over it as if it were an individual entity. But none of those things are true - in fact it is individuals committing amoral acts under the protection of a fictional “state”.
Corporations are similar entities, being created by the state and having legal “rights” conferred upon them by the same (the individuals within those bodies are shielded from responsibility from any illegitimate acts they perform in the name of the corporate artifice, for example). That is what makes a corporation a collectivist fiction, whereas a voluntary association of individuals, acting as individuals, being individually responsible for their actions, is not.
ding ding ding
You have it right.
Like most of these discussions they take place in some theoretical fantasy world. If you believe that the state is justified and a legitimate actor then it doesn’t matter what you think because the state will do whatever it wants and you have accepted this by definition as legitimate.
If you do not accept the state as legitimate and argue that in the absence of the state there will be no rules then you are equally wrong. A free society like the Liberty Colony will still have Private Defense Agencies and they will have rules for their members regarding land ownership and the passing of title.
One last word about corporations and the nonsense that corporations or similar structures won’t exist in the absence of governement. It is normal for people to form groups for economic activity and it is normal that people will want to limit their liability equal to their investment in the group activity. Free societies will have corporations and they will be widely accepted and will have limited liability.
That’s right. In fact there are some examples of private held companies that acted in a realm, where there no state or government in the present sense existed. One example is the VEREENIGDE OOSTINDISCHE COMPAGNIE which i.e. founded the city of Cape Town.
http://www.colonialvoyage.com/vocd.html
Of course they also had rules, punishment, enforcement structures and the like.
For the millionth time, you corporate hacks and monarchists in anarchist clothing fail to distinguish between a legal privilege (which is what corporate personhood is) and mere joint propietorship in an of itself. Limited liability, as it has existed from the beginning up to the present, is entirely the product of state interferance. So it makes no sense to propose that it’s the inevitable result of a stateless society. In a truly stateless ociey, your precious corporations (which you tend to fallaciously defend in the name of a non-existant free market) are more likely to be taken over by the workers than they to become sustainable limited liability monopolists. They most certainly are not sustainable as corporations qua corporations without the massive government intervention and patronage that they rely on.
What from the armchair anarchist’s point of view is the problem with this? In a free society people would also be free to form associations and organisations of all kind. And yes one also may call them corporations, firms, companies, clubs and the like. These organisations could declare themselves legal persons and hence enter into contracts. The contracts could include assuming title or rights over land, intellectual property or movable property as well. Employment contracts. leases and the like would also be thinkable as well.
That many corporations “enjoy” state priviledges as well or that they used to dodge liabilities is meaningless for the subject. The initial question was by the way if the state could hold property titles or rights, which I answerde positively with yes, since one could view this institution as a legal person. Alternatively one could see that as a trust as well and trusts can hold titles, rights and properties as well.
The difference between the state being considered the same as private associations is the voluntary nature of the private association and the coercion of the state. The state by definition is using coercion to establish it’s position.
Brainpolice is in complete fantasy land that free societies will not have limited liability groups for commercial activities. Limited liability is not a creation of the state as such and people in a free society will create contracts that limit liability.
But you’re not a Marxist. Right.
I am going through all of Max’s posts as a research project, and I saw this. I can’t believe I missed it before, but you’re dead on.
This will probably prompt another angry YouTube video about red baiting, but I don’t care. Damn YouTube, and Damn the bandwidth the video will eat up! [:)]
Limited liability can be part of a contract and is in order as long as this is clear right from the beginning. It’s a risk that other stakeholders may have to bear.