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Comment by Grimm1 | Hacker News Reader

Getting rid of private land ownership is one of the many reasons I can never get on board with more collectivist ideologies that support that. The idea is flawed in itself and we've seen it doesn't lead to good things when it is tried.

Even the soviets came to that conclusion during their existence, starting with adopting leasing and then near the end full ownership for agriculture and then eventually for homes.

I still remember a friend from college telling me how his father had to retain his property after the fall of the USSR and new land rights were established in one of the now former satellite states, with a gun and an axe.

Not to create a false dichotomy but I'll take a stable slightly coercive economic system over a system that requires me to use violence to keep what is mine.

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Private property entirely depends on violence -- that's not hyperbole, there's ultimately no other compelling force to enforce societal norms and rules (see: police).

It's only our familiarity and compliance with the system that prevents us from encountering that violence.

Economic transactions are a mediation in place of violence.

Exactly. It is the worst system, except for all the others that have been tried.

“Business is war.”

That is very much a false dichotomy - and obviously so, because it simply means you have no idea of what Capitalism can cost you, and even less idea of what it has cost you already.

For example your axe and gun won't help you when your health insurance company decides that your pre-existing condition is too expensive to insure and your medical costs are now 100% your own responsibility - which is something that causes the bankruptcy of around 500,000 Americans every year.

Or when there's a major financial crash and a bank decides that it needs to steal your home from under you, whether or not you're underwater on your mortgage.

These are not hypotheticals. These are all things that have happened, are happening, and are likely to continue happening.

GDP is not the issue, but a political and economic system which increases personal selfishness at the expense of others is. You can argue that collectivist solutions have the same problem, and to an extent you'll be right. But it's a long way from there to pretending that this is the best of all possible worlds, because there are economies which prove that isn't true.

A hybrid capitalist system with social elements for healthcare and education and proper regulation is probably a better system. But those things are a far cry from talking about getting rid of private property and capitalism all together.

I believe evolving our current system and maintaining certain elements is better than getting rid of it all together. I see reactions like yours as throwing the baby out with the bathwater when there are more level headed approaches we can take like limiting lobbying to course correct.

Edit: This is my US centric view, I realized after the fact that we may not be in the same place since this is a global forum

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