My name is Lib, and I'm new here

[Berzerker]

Ramo -

Supply and demand, for instance. Undoubtedly, some of the smartest people in the country are grad students and post-docs in the "hard sciences" today, for instance. Yet, because there are so many of them, they make rather small amounts of money compared to, say, lawyers or doctors (which I consider significant steps down in the intellectual ladder).

But intelligence also includes judging which markets will be growth industries in the future so judging supply and demand is not an exercise for the "dummies". And many people are willing to sacrifice earning power to do the kind of work they like. But all the people/occupations you named in your post have better than average intelligence.

Well, there are things like tying the peasants to the land and sending them off to get killed to increase their power...

And prior to the volunteer army, this was different in more modern times? I didn't say feudalism was perfect, I said the people back then had far fewer laws to contend with and were largely left alone as long as they came up with the taxes.

Except we have the Bill of Rights, for instance, to prevent the state from abusing its power too significantly. For instance, it wouldn't have been easy for a serf to openly say "feudalism sucks."

Maybe not to the King, but our "Bill of Rights" has become a joke. I can show how each and every one of those "rights" have been abridged.

None. By both ways, I was referring to definitions of "redress," which could also mean the state trying to financially compensate the poor for the wealth disparity

That did not begin until much later. The redresses to the rich using the state to abuse others required restraining the state where it had assumed powers not in the Constitution. It was not until the average Joe started using the state to acquire some semblance of "equality" that the state exploded.

I pointed to various systems where this is not true. The Catalonian system I referred to ended its coercion after land reform.

You've already acknowledged their system started out using violence or the threat thereof. The cause - the desire of some people to take what belongs to others - will always exist regardless of the system.

There are certain aspects that I don't mind at all; for instance, land reform with respect to the aristocracy (or others who have used the state to significantly to steal from the people). And much of the land reform was voluntary

Neither you nor I really know what went on when these "land reforms" occured.

What specifics are you looking for? I pointed out the coorelation between the size of the gov't and the level of wealth disparity. What more are you looking for?

You pointed to anti-capitalist practices.

On the contrary it's extremely accurate. The state arose during the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society. It became a mechanism for the powerful to increase and maintain their power. Even today, we have a military budget (most of which I consider corporate welfare) eclipsing federal social welfare programs.

I thought we were talking US history. Now you're jumping all the way back to the stone age? Capitalism existed way back then in the form of the marketplace, but governments thousands of years ago
became dictatorships with capitalism only emerging again in very recent centuries. The rich were not responsible for the largest leaps in government in this country. They were partly responsible for the Civil War, but the periods of greatest government growth were in the 1930's and 1960's (and on).

Because DF pointed to the New Deal and Great Society. When asked for legislation in favor of the rich, that's exactly what I provided

The New Deal and the Great Society are periods characterized by legislation favoring the rich?

Not at all; they're two sides of the same coin. If you have a significant portion of the "pie," the natural tendency is to prevent anyone else from taking a "bite" (through non-coercive means; i.e. competition) out of your piece.

And how will this natural tendency disappear in your system?

But capitalism leads to such a desire through wealth disparities.

You just called the desire a "natural tendency"! You even said it is a natural tendency for people who already have significant portions of the pie. Since when did capitalism invent envy?

Yes, and the desire is amplified at the extremes. And these extreme disparities lead to "interests" banding together to steal.

No it isn't, the desire to steal exists in some people and doesn't exist in others regardless of wealth.

But I certainly do not condone coercion in stealing small land owners' and businesses' property, which, unfortunately, did happen.

Just "small" land owners? I would have been fighting to overthrow these Catalonians. Strange you call the people who did overthrow them, "tyrants" when the Catalonians were themselves, tyrants.

My concern isn't necessarily wealth disparities, but significant wealth disparities. And these kind of disparities should not exist where the workers own the means of production

Wealth disparities will always exist unless you outlaw freedom. I'm not concerned with wealth disparities at all. I prefer a system based on freedom which I also happen to believe will create for poorer people the best opportunity to increase their wealth in the long run by creating a bigger pie.

Which was due to the need to steal from farmers, Northern and Southern

To also steal from the southern aristocracy.

True, they didn't use the state that often, but they did definitely use the state

And those occasional uses of the state did not lead to the vast expansion of government.

Actually, I wrote the slave owner need the state "[t]o not prosecute this wanton theft." In other words, the slave owners needed the state to selectively prosecute theft; making white theft from blacks exclusively legal.

Do you have proof of this outside of slavery and the rare mistakes when free blacks were enslaved? That sounds more like Jim Crow - prior to which was a different system in which Indians and blacks also had slaves.

By vote. You're missing the important distinction that these workers have authority only on what they produce. They don't have authority over what others' produce, as if the state were involved.

What if they don't all agree? It means the minority (assuming the vote is democratic in nature) will be told what to do by the majority. How is that different than being told what to do by an owner/manager?
Remember, this is what you said to distinguish your system from the state:

A state is a mechanism to give some people authority over other people. The situation is not analagous

Unless the worker owned business is going to break up every time there is a vote with the losers starting their own business, some people will be using a mechanism to decide what others do. That is analagous to the state...

Again, the connotation of libertarianism in the US is being a capitalist. So I choose not to call myself a libertarian

And you're not a capitalist? You've already endorsed free enterprise, the marketplace, and the freedom of people to own businesses.

Absolutely.

Any recent examples (non-stone age cultures)?

Not at all. The financial supremacy of the capitalists on the East coast came about through government theft; by condoning anti-competitive behavior, it killed socialism.

There you go again blaming capitalism for anti-capitalistic behavior. If your system won't prevent people from becoming rich, then your system will fall victim to whatever evils rich people wrought upon a capitalist system.

Yep, by banding together with your fellow workers...

And what about the non-workers?

[Libertarian]

Whew. Glad that's done.