Comment by theoj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by theoj | Hacker News Reader

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"this does not change the fact that privatization is theft. The former owners of Soviet facilities - the Soviet people - were not adequately compensated for their loss."

There's also the original theft that enabled the existence of the Soviet state -- the theft of land and wealth from the former land holding class starting in 1917. The collectives were created from their lands, and they received no compensation -- in fact in many cases they were persecuted and murdered. Some excuse this breach of property rights by saying that the aristocracy was corrupt, evil, etc., just like today's elites are. It's only the communes and collectives who were "good" and whose property rights should be respected.

Should everyone be equal economically regardless of merit? The guy who does nothing all day long, and the guy who works hard to build a successful dairy firm -- they all should receive the same salary? It is this type of economic thinking that ruined the USSR - when there's no reward for doing good work, then there's no reason to do good work. Why should I work hard when I can rest and get my guaranteed salary?

EDIT: Please attack the arguments not the messenger. I've edited my comment to do the same.

you seem to believe that everyone should be equal economically regardless of merit.

Interesting implication. It says a fair bit about you, actually. That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels.

Not everyone is a character from a morality play. Please try to remember this. Not everyone is an uncritical defender or mindless opponent of this or that fashionable doctrine.

the guy who works hard to build a successful dairy firm

How about the guy who works others hard to build a successful dairy firm? And his grand-children? What should they receive? This is the real issue regarding the aristocrats of any nation.

According to some, the USSR began to perish (through widespread cynicism of its own foundational myths) when it finally built a fresh aristocracy of inherited privilege - the Brezhnevian "nomenclature."

"That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels."

Notice how you placed all the people on HN in a single mental box.

In the interest of fairness, can you tell me more about your outlook and why you believe privatization is theft?

My personality and political views won't fit into a HN comment box. And I dearly hope that yours wouldn't either.

Well then, why don't we just stick to your statement that privatization is theft. Bonus points if you can show me how your arguments do not fall in any existing ideology.

I'll give you a simple and real example that happened in Bulgaria that is not bound to any ideology or theory.

In 2004 the national state-owned telecommunication incumbent company was privatized for a sum which nearly exactly matched the net annual profit in the very same year. (~120 x 10^6 Eur net profit out of ~500 x 10^6 Eur gross revenues; we're not a very big country, btw).

So the actual effective acquiring cost was nothing - zero - for the buyers. There were public voices that said this was betrayal of the nation's interest but the then ruling party, full with 30-something MBA-suites from NY/London just babbled cheerfully in corporate-speak about the "free market", the "right price", and the "right timing" in the very same pointless way so much detested here in HN when it's about examples of corporate stupidity.

A curious thing - the former chief economist of the World Bank,and Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz was a star-guest in a popular TV talk show and advised not sell at all at the moment (when was asked to comment on the matter, I happened to watch the show). He wasn't listened to, eventually.

But the MBA-boys in a way weren't stupid at all - after around short 3 years the company was resold for ~1.1 x 10^9 Eur. Nothing that much changed, neither was invested in the company that really made some real difference in the market share or company's gross revenues. The deal was formally fully observing the legal regulations - there was nothing that could be pointed out as strictly illegal.

In the political aftermath this party was voted out of the parliament into oblivion by the people. But those guys just don't seem to care anymore for the political life - they've "made" the bucks... foreign companies, investors, and top world investment bank consultancies were instrumental in the whole exercise.

No doubt for me, similar scenarios on various scale have happened throughout the whole former Soviet block of countries.

If this is theft and corruption - foreign western players milked also greatly from it (even if not the most of it).

Many similar robberies happened in other Eastern European countries. It's not as simple as X paid Y to get Z. As your example alludes, it's much more subtle than this. Closer to you scratch my back, I'll scratch your friend's of friend's of a friend's later. There are sufficiently enough layers that a normal person's this-can't-be-right sensors go off or it's simply too complicated to piece together with a reasonable amount of effort. Add a pinch of corruption in the judicial system and you got yourself a fertile ground for highway robbery. And don't think the same thing doesn't happen in the US... maybe a bit more subtle, but less and less so from what we've seen in the last few years.

Try this example.

It is 2015, the US Federal Government is approaching true bankruptcy. The decision is made to denationalize the Yellowstone National Park. It is sold to Exxon Corp. for $300 million. They will prospect for oil there. You, one of 300 million eligible shareholders, are sent a stock certificate worth $1. You sell it for $0.50 to buy a stale loaf of bread from a local gang (your family has nothing else to eat.)

Did this story feature a theft?

Which traditional political ideology does it support?

> Did this story feature a theft?

It featured govt incompetence at a grand scale. No, not selling Yellowstone (or buying Yellowstone), but going bankrupt.

On the assumption that you think that Exxon did something wrong in your scenario, there are two cases - Exxon paid a "fair price" or it didn't.

In the "fair price" scenario, the problem is not Exxon. In fact, they're the good guys - presumably the US govt is better off making the sale, and no, Exxon has no obligation to subsidize govt incompetence.

In the "unfair price" scenario, Exxon can't buy a govt that isn't for sale.

> presumably the US govt is better off making the sale

This is a remarkably large assumption. The actually quite small group of people who together have the authority to make the sale are, presumably, better off making it (or they wouldn't). But there's no reason to think that they are even trying to maximize the benefit of "the US govt" as an institution, over time.

> In the "unfair price" scenario, Exxon can't buy a govt that isn't for sale.

So now you've defended Exxon from being the charge of thievery. Great, the government officials who made the sale were the "real" thieves, and Exxon was "only" their associate in crime.

> > presumably the US govt is better off making the sale

>This is a remarkably large assumption.

Not at all. If follows from the prerequisites for that case. If you don't agree with those prerequisites, you choose the other case.

> > In the "unfair price" scenario, Exxon can't buy a govt that isn't for sale.

> So now you've defended Exxon from being the charge of thievery.

Since they're not guilty of thievery (in this case), why are you offended by them being defended from the charge? Would you have the same reaction if it was "Happy Puppy Company"?

> Great, the government officials who made the sale were the "real" thieves,

Yes (and in more ways that one).

> and Exxon was "only" their associate in crime.

Not at all.

We're assuming that govt officials have the relevant authority. If they exercise it poorly ....

I'll assume that you think that govt "lets" Exxon do bad things. Let me point out that the fault for that is entirely govt.

To be fair, a govt that does certain things is highly likely to do bad things as well. If doing those bad things bothers you, perhaps you might want to stop govt from doing the precursors.

Not

>> > presumably the US govt is better off making the sale >>This is a remarkably large assumption. >Not at all. If follows from the prerequisites for that case. If you don't agree with those prerequisites, you choose the other case.

The good of the people, the government, and the politicians/cronies brokering the deal are all unrelated. Almost always the insiders profit, often the government (this party, not that - or this system, not that) does, but only rarely does this percolate down to the people.

>> So now you've defended Exxon from being the charge of thievery. > Since they're not guilty of thievery (in this case), why are you offended by them being defended from the charge?

They are guilty though. If I buy a TV from someone's home-care nurse, knowing the nurse doesn't have their patient's consent to sell it, I'd be a thief. Legally and more importantly, ethically.

If (the hypothetical) Exxon knew this $300M value was far below an honest evaluation or that the sale was achieved by kickbacks they'd know the public didn't actually consent, and thus they couldn't legitimately take ownership. But hypothetically they did, and it's theft.

> We're assuming that govt officials have the relevant authority. If they exercise it poorly ....

What a dumb idea that is. What precedent have you ever seen for that?

Seriously, a vote isn't a sign-off on anything a government does, it's a last-ditch effort to keep things from going really badly. Nobody I know has ever given consent to be governed, including abdicating their right to chose a better political system first. I know people who have changed their citizenship and who theoretically have agreed to the rules of their new country, but only because there were no other ways to have some say in the government that was already taxing them and claiming to act in their name.

Assuming anything, let alone something as monumental as a mandate to rule, from such minor and infrequent actions, is ridiculous.

Remember, if you buy a stolen TV it's not yours, and if you knew or should have known that it's stolen, you're a thief too. It's not just common sense, it's the law.

> They are guilty though. If I buy a TV from someone's home-care nurse, knowing the nurse doesn't have their patient's consent to sell it, I'd be a thief. Legally and more importantly, ethically.

While true, that's not the case here.

>> We're assuming that govt officials have the relevant authority. If they exercise it poorly ....

>What a dumb idea that is. What precedent have you ever seen for that?

It's almost always the case, so assuming otherwise is silly.

You're confusing "it would be bad for govt do to {something}" with "govt has no authority to do {something}".

If you don't want govt to do {bad thing}, you shouldn't give it the power to do {bad thing}, even if that authority is necessary to do {good thing}.

> Seriously, a vote isn't a sign-off on anything a government does, it's a last-ditch effort to keep things from going really badly.

Between that and not changing govt, you have consented. You may not like what you've consented to, but until you effect change, it's yours.

> If you don't want govt to do {bad thing}, you shouldn't give it the power to do {bad thing}, even if that authority is necessary to do {good thing}.

I didn't. I've never said "Yes, take this power", only "that power you've claimed, please don't use it like that".

> Between [voting] and not changing govt, you have consented.

Pft. Silence is not consent. And 'changing governments' means leaving the place I was born. That's not a valid choice.

> You're confusing "it would be bad for govt do to {something}" with "govt has no authority to do {something}".

Not at all. I'm claiming that because it'd be bad, and obviously so, that no competent person would have given them that power. And even if some people did that doesn't reasonably substitute for consent from the rest.

> [That the government has valid authority is] almost always the case, so assuming otherwise is silly.

No, that the government claims valid authority is almost always the case. That says nothing for their actual legitimacy by any objective and useful standard.

> While true [that knowingly buying stolen property is theft], that's not the case here.

Yes, it is. If something is sold without the consent of its owner, that is theft.

As long as a government claims to rule by a mandate from the people (unlike North Korea for instance) they can't very well act for people do don't consent to their rules.

That many (most? all?) governments do this simply means we haven't yet seen many (any?) legitimate governments.

"Did this story feature a theft?"

No. If the government had the right to sell the damn park and had done so transparently, then that was not a theft no matter how you spin your scenario.

In fact, as a person whose family is ostensibly in such bad straits that they would undersell promising stock in Exxon-Mobile by 50% for food I'm probably not all that interested in whether Yellowstone national park remains open.

The problem with how you look at it is that you consider transparency a possibility. It's not incompetence, it's corruption. If you believe such a deal would go through without a lot of money directly or indirectly exchanging hands behind the scenes then you're blindly idealistic.

How nicely said - I was literally struggling exactly with this, both as space limitation (something beyond me) and best possible achievable clarity as thoughts<->words choices (something depending only on me).

And from where did the land-owning class obtain the land appropriated from them in 1917, pray tell?

From the prior inhabitants through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms...

The Russian state first started with a small group of Viking princes in the area of Kiev and expanded to rule an area that used to be home to a wide variety of empires, states, kingdoms, and tribes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_russia#Kievan_Rus.27

through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms...

And that's exactly how the Communists, in turn, came to own it.

Is there an argument here? Care to expand?

Land "ownership" is (like debt) an arbitrary system enforced by threat of violence. Hunter gatherers may have been territorial, but nowhere to the extent that agricultural societies are.

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