[pp.int.general] where is the manifesto?
Richard M Stallman
rms at gnu.org
Mon Dec 29 11:23:10 CET 2008
The essence is that in a (decent) society the government should protect
(transferable) object that represent a monetary value - otherwise trade
would be impossible.
Some kinds of trade should be impossible, and should be discouraged
forcefully.
For instance, when private interests lobby a government to privatize
part of the commons, so they can "invest" in buying some of them,
justice demands punishment for them. If a court could rule that this
was a corrupt privatization, and the result were to renationalize the
privatized assets with no compensation, that would effectively
discourage this extremely dangerous kind of "investment".
On the logic of you reasoning: property rights become property rights
because of their properties (characteristics), not because legislators
explicitly decide to do so. So it would not help if legislators simply say
"this is not a property right". The essence is that one can not take away a
right from someone that represents a (monetary) value
This "principle" is strangling democracy. The megacorporations need
only corrupt one government, getting it to privitize something or
grant them a monopoly, to set up a form of oppression that no one can
undo. Even if the public gets angry and elects a government inclined
to undo the damage, this "principle" makes that impossible.
Since this "principle" becomes evil when extended to cover such cases,
we the people must trim it back. The people do not owe compensation
to their oppressor for ending the oppression.
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