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by simonh 33 days ago
All, or at least most property rights are monopoly rights anyway. I have a monopoly right over my house, and my car, my bank balance. That's just what ownership means.
1 comments

Those rights are very flimsy actually. The government can seize your house, your car, and your money anytime. Hardly a monopoly when a third party can break it at will.
That the state which grants you your right can take them away doesn't make them flimsy.

And it's certainly more than "hardly" a monopoly. If the government gives a certain company right to operate on train track infrastructure but denies the same to every other company, then does that first company hardly have a monopoly?

Large companies that have money lobby governments to ensure they do not threaten their monopolies. Individuals can't do that.
By that standard, nobody has any right to anything. I think it's pretty widely understood that rights range from aspirational descriptions of a just world to widely accepted legal consensus.
Sure. That’s how rights work. It’s why we need to keep on fighting for them when necessary.