: I a land owner charges a rent which makes it unprofitable for others to trade with him they wont. Another land owner would find it in his interest to compete for that rent business. Its possible that a land owner might lose his rationality and just 'try it on' and take a loss of custom. How long does he last?SDF: And when the tenants occupying my land refuse to pay my exorbitant rent, I hire an army composed of other tenants, to evict them, and government enters through the back door, as the necessary glue keeping the property system from disrupting social peace. Of course, a careful reading of the proceding post will reveal that I have extrapolated carefully from ongoing conflicts around property that exist TODAY between ordinary people who aren't corporations. A careful reading of the above post will also reveal that I am not discussing "human nature" here, but only specifically the system of property and money exchange, so Gee's previous criticism of it is invalid.
"Human nature," besides being a straw figure for unsupported pronouncements about how people behave, will appear to have changed, if at some point in the future, human society becomes collectivist.
: : What about the road owners?
: If they charge too much then other modes of tranport will become economically attractive. And it is possible to build (and unbuild) roads.
SDF: Perhaps then people will sprout wings and fly. The whole mode of proceeding of this fantasy is to ignore the material basis of roads, the material basis for why people have NO CHOICE but to use them in order to get from point A to point B, and assume an endless "commons" that the public can make endless use of, without any start-up resources whatsoever.
: : what is to stop the equally inevitable concentration of property into fewer and fewer hands
: Oh dear, the old static pot from which we steal view of wealth again. What happens when somoene in the village has bought all the tables, we make some more.
SDF: And when the people in the village have chopped down all the trees (like they've done in places such as Newfoundland), we will make tables out of round boulders, and use them just like we would the wooden tables. Again, the above answer presumes an endless "commons" that the public can make endless use of, without any start-up resources whatsoever.
