: I'd really like to think that people like Gee (where is Gee anyway?) where sincerely libertarian enough to acknowledge these factors and the possibility that the rule of the rich and elites (a conservative dream incidentially, authority transcending the democratic mechanism that can challenge elitism) could be as despotic as any government.There is the assumption that AC would automatically result in freedom for all. I imagine a group might acquire arms, soldiers and force sufficien to do allsorts of nasty things - not unlike small nation states. There's a point. Not possibly as large as a nation state like USA or old USSR - your local gangster is never as powerful as an institutionalised government.
Ofcourse there is the precise same danger in socislism. There is no more to stop people seeking power than under any other system. The idea that there will be such abundance that no one will seek to have material power or power over others is a flight of fantasy - dare I say - possiblism.
Lark, we wont be free of the potential threat of an oppressive 'elite' regardless of which system we find ourselves in hence the idea that liberty requires 'eternal vigilance'
