[justonceokay]

Where is that happening? Unless you are talking about taxes, which are only yours if you believe that you made that (government-supplied!) money by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights…

[hn_throwaway_99]

Just look at corporations. Nearly everyone who has gotten insanely wealthy in the US in the last 100 years or so has done so through a corporation, or some other liability-protection business structure. These business formations are nothing more than government-provided, and government-enforced, fictions.

[justonceokay]

True. Without the understanding of the judicial system that a corporation is more than the sum of its parts it would be much easier to directly litigate against company execs.

[LudwigNagasena]

> government-supplied

Government-imposed.

> government

Also known as a mere bunch of people who enforce their decisions using monopoly on violence.

> by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights…

Surely a government cannot do it by itself either? Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else? Oh, right, it was decided using the infrastructure and processes imposed by the government.

The only realistic alternative to “it’s not truly yours” is not global horizontal fair decision-making, it is a bunch of bureaucrats making decisions on behalf of (ie instead of) other people. That’s a road to serfdom paved by well intentioned naïve people.

[sprucevoid]

> Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else?

The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate. Property rights is a legal construct, created by the state. A technology if you will. Part of the rules of that construct is that property can be taxed for public provision purposes.

[LudwigNagasena]

> The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate.

“The process of democracy” is hand waving. There is a complex web of institutions and traditions that reinforce themselves. What country would be more “democratic”: the one where people can vote for one of several handpicked candidates or the one where they can impose their will through community organizing and strikes? The one where billionaires own media and put forward their agenda or the one where the media landscape is dominated by self-sustained media co-ops?

> Property rights is a legal construct

That’s the main issue I have with your view. Property rights are a construct as much as the legal system is a construct, democracy is a construct, the state is a construct and “the rules” you appeal to are a construct. There is no any primacy of the state and the government.

[justonceokay]

A lot of what you say is true, but in my opinion you are romanticizing right-libertarianism. I’m pretty happy to not have to continually and physically defend my possessions from my will-to-power neighbors. To me the life you describe sounds like The Road by Cormack McCarthy (spoiler: it isn’t fun)

[richardanaya]

You didn't answer my question.