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Community Land Licensing


Traktion

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HOLA441

I've been pondering this concept for the last few months and I have mentioned it in a few threads recently, so I thought I would start a dedicated thread on it.

As you know, I'm pro free market anarchism and I try to adhere to the non-aggression principle (I think it is core to a civilised society). This not only puts me in opposition to the state, but also in opposition of any individual who uses violence to take or monopolise something (EDIT: without a sufficient claim on something, such as mixing labour/property with it).

While many suggest that a land value tax is 'the solution', I disagree. While I agree with many of the ideas of Georgism, a LVT does not seem to be the best way to deal with this problem. This is largely because:

1. It requires a centralised organisation which uses taxation to implement. Taxation is non-voluntary and as such requires aggression to implement, which I naturally reject.

2. It harms those who are not seeking rent at all, as well as those who are seeking rent. To be clear, the important element of Georgism is one of location monopoly - that is, violence is used to allow an exclusive monopoly of a space/location. I have no desire to 'socialise' the gains of productive people to those who surround them - I just see the need to compensate those who are displaced by said productive people.

Therefore, I believe we need a mechanism which allows communities to license local locations (read: land), while stipulating that and rent gained via this monopoly, but not from the utility of buildings etc added to the location, should be returned to said community.

In the same way as a GPL software licence is applied to software written by those in the open source community, land could be licensed by those in a physical community.

Equally, as anyone in the community can report GPL licence abuse in the open source software community, anyone could report land license abuses in a physical community.

When a land license is abused, the contract can be voided. This puts the license holder in a position where they could be without a claim to use the land. This is the incentive which encourages adherence, as without a valid claim to use the land, insurers, lenders and security firms are unlikely to provide services to the previous licensee. Without these services, it is difficult to reliably use the land and the community may attempt to reclaim it.

In this respect the service providers associated with land rights may only support the claim if the license was adhered to. This is important, as it allows the market to price land rights - you can either use force or you can negotiate. As the latter is almost certainly cheaper (providing your own insurance, credit, security services etc isn't cheap), there is a positive incentive to negotiate for a license instead. IMO, this is incredibly important.

There could be a clause in the license which insisted that any rent gained via this monopoly (again, excluding utility of buildings etc, in the spirit of LVT), must be distributed to the local community. Failure to do so, would result in a potentially void contract. [The details on how to distribute are up for debate, but decreasing rates from the centre to a defined radius around the location may be suitable.]

I define rent as either direct, regular rent requests and/or sale price of said land, relative to purchase price (inflation considered). That is, if the land has increased via HPI, this is still a form of rent seeking; it is just less obvious than a BTL.

You could have additional clauses dictating that the land should be returned to the original state after the license ceases and/or compensation should be given if this is impossible (such as when quarrying).

Land licenses could be bought on sold in a free market, just as land currently is. However, the license clauses would still apply after the trade. Instead of trading 'ownership' (which is an odd idea with land), people would be trading 'licenses' to have exclusive access to the land.

This would provide a distributed land right/usage system, which doesn't rely on central planning and encourages negotiation (with local communities) over violence. I think both of these are required to improve the current system.

There could be other changes, but I thought I'd run the concept by the clever bods on this forum.

[How to transition is another debate, but I would suggest that the state would replace land ownership rights with community licenses with, say, a 2 mile radius or some such. The infrastructure to help monitor/record the status could spring up around these, allowing the state to withdraw from managing land ownership rights. Ofc, it wouldn't want or do that... but we're talking hypothetically here! ;)]

P.S. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to get all of the core points in the OP, so the debate can flow from here. I'm sure people will find plenty of issues with the idea! :)

Edited by Traktion
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HOLA442
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HOLA443
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HOLA444

While this may work it would be hard to convince people without seeing a similar model of this working already. Mans natural instinct is to claim some land as their own and then defend it against others.

Has this sort of model ever worked anywhere with land before?

Edit: Also won't it also have the problem of the communities that define these licenses getting larger and larger and the few being able to hold monopoly over who is allowed to do what and where?

Edited by Mr Jib Fingers
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HOLA445
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HOLA447

Land rights should be arranged by explicit contracts between individuals. That is, you have to actually sign a piece of paper to agree that you will allow someone exclusive rights to some piece of land.

Since it's difficult to arrange the many thousands of contracts this would require, you need an organisation to do it - the land registry.

Or actually several competing, privately owned, land registries.

People who want to use land get clearance to use the land from the land-registry, in return for a fee.

The land registry guarantees that the land is unused by paying people who aren't using land to sign on to their register.

No-one 'owns' the land. Anyone can do whatever they want anywhere, but they will then not be eligible for payments from the various land registries.

This is just a free-market for land and so it would work in an anarchy, but it doesn't require an anarchy. It could be implemented within a democratic state. The government would then still enforce laws on criminal damage to property (actual property) or assault, in addition to the land contracts people have signed.

The difference is that in a free market like this, all agreements are given explicitly - freely - and not enforced through threats as in our current feudal system.

Would it work? Well it's radical - less radical than anarchy, but more radical than a land-tax - but I don't think it outrageous. It mimics a land-tax exactly, but without the involvement of central government, and so I think it is at least plausible. However, for pragmatic reasons I prefer a LVT.

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HOLA448

Not sure who would sign these agreements?

Only the person who agrees to the license terms.

Once the land is released with a community license, it just continues to be. If I had a field and released it with a community license, it would then be attached to the land.

The license could be traded between different people though, ofc.

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HOLA449

While this may work it would be hard to convince people without seeing a similar model of this working already. Mans natural instinct is to claim some land as their own and then defend it against others.

Sure, but it is also man's instinct to get as much as possible, for as little as possible. As it is usually easier to cooperate with people in your community, rather than antagonise them, the path of least resistance is to negotiate.

Has this sort of model ever worked anywhere with land before?

Not that I know of. It's just my thoughts, based on other licenses and community agreements I have read about. I'm open to feedback!

Edit: Also won't it also have the problem of the communities that define these licenses getting larger and larger and the few being able

to hold monopoly over who is allowed to do what and where?

Everyone who moves into the community becomes part of the community. They would receive a share of the rent too.

You could put a clause in that would require a very high percentage to change anything too, such as 80% or some such. This would stop the license being changed unless it was very unsuccessful. Ofc, this could all be decided and put in the original license upon release of the land.

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HOLA4410

who assesses the fees payable? and initiates sanctions if you don't pay them?

If someone is suspected of excessive rent seeking, anyone could tip them off to the community. The community would probably agree on a (legal) representative to take the case to the license holder, perhaps?

If the license is deemed to have been breached, by a reputable arbiter, the license would then be void in the eyes of most service companies. That is, insurers would steer clear as there is no legitimate claim, as would banks, security firms and so forth.

Ofc, people could choose to hold the land anyway and use violence to do so, but this will be a path of high resistance. The path of least resistance is agreeing to the terms of the license.

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HOLA4412

Only the person who agrees to the license terms.

Once the land is released with a community license, it just continues to be. If I had a field and released it with a community license, it would then be attached to the land.

The license could be traded between different people though, ofc.

OK. Still having difficulty seeing how the system bootstraps up from nothing. The license would have to be bombproof before being released - how do you redact it to close a loophole?

Also concerned it might end up similar to the Collecting Societies that run music recording rights and performance rights. Theoretically optional but ends up being tyrannical.

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HOLA4413

OK. Still having difficulty seeing how the system bootstraps up from nothing. The license would have to be bombproof before being released - how do you redact it to close a loophole?

Also concerned it might end up similar to the Collecting Societies that run music recording rights and performance rights. Theoretically optional but ends up being tyrannical.

To bootstrap it, you just need people to sign over their land. Ofc, people are unlikely to do this, but it's a simple concept. However, the state could just stop enforcing land rights and set up such a system too, if it wished to.

As for redacting something, the license would have to be good to start with ideally. You could say that the local community who is affected by it could my changes with a sufficiently high majority though.

Finally, it can always be ignored. If there becomes less resistance to just ignore the license and go it alone, that would happen. Essentially, a bad license would ultimately be unenforceable.

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HOLA4414

To bootstrap it, you just need people to sign over their land. Ofc, people are unlikely to do this, but it's a simple concept. However, the state could just stop enforcing land rights and set up such a system too, if it wished to.

As for redacting something, the license would have to be good to start with ideally. You could say that the local community who is affected by it could my changes with a sufficiently high majority though.

Finally, it can always be ignored. If there becomes less resistance to just ignore the license and go it alone, that would happen. Essentially, a bad license would ultimately be unenforceable.

OK so like CC then - I have released stuff on CC partly because it is still "mine" unlike releasing it to public domain (using mainstream copyright law as some kind of safe backup)

So the licenses need drafted like CC ones...

and people need to start offering land (e.g. a field) on one of these licenses to see what happens?

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HOLA4415

I've been pondering this concept for the last few months and I have mentioned it in a few threads recently, so I thought I would start a dedicated thread on it.

...

1. The current land market is already a market for government land licenses, that's what land 'ownership' always means (in fact, all intellectual property is like this, and land is just intellectual property).

2. These already include license clauses proscribing various uses of the land (known, due to the usual obfuscation, as planning law, when they are implemented by central government and covenants when implemented by the landlord).

3. Of course, being fundamentally no different to the way land is allocated now, means your system isn't that difficult to implement.

The only difference is that the land be owned - and covenants applied - by 'communities'. Who are these 'communities'? In practice, they will be local government of some form or another.

So you are really suggesting that local government sell housing with restrictions that it not be used for certain purposes - particularly the collection of rent. I think that's a reasonable policy for local government to pursue.

4. This is all very similar to the provision of council housing. Housing tenancies can't be sold on, but they are restricted land rights handed out by the local community. So your idea isn't much more than a suggestion to allocate much more land to council housing.

This of course, is a fantastic idea (or rather, not doing this is bloody stupid).

Council housing is a good thing, the privatisation of council housing was a significant cause of the mess we are in now, and the only reason we don't build more is the few feudalists who are benefiting from the many's misery.

5. So, in summary, I think these are good, practical ideas but not, if done on a large enough scale to make a difference, as practical as a land-value tax.

Nor is it as radical as an actual 'free-market for land'.

Edited by (Blizzard)
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HOLA4416

The problem with most land justice ideas, is they require you to somehow obtain a huge amount of land without having to pay off the existing owner.

No one with land would join these schemes because they already have the land and don't need these schemes.

It's the landless that need these schemes.

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HOLA4417

The problem with most land justice ideas, is they require you to somehow obtain a huge amount of land without having to pay off the existing owner.

No one with land would join these schemes because they already have the land and don't need these schemes.

It's the landless that need these schemes.

Traktion's scheme presumably requires the land to be bought by the community, although they could be allowed to build on land without planning permission, if the government wanted to help out. As I said, this has been done before, it is called council housing.

What I described was a free land market, which means no-one has to do anything, including signing up to any kind of scheme.

It is in their own interests for everyone to do that, but they don't have to.

Of course it isn't in the interests of landowners to vote for any of these proposals, but then it wasn't in the interests of slave owners to support abolition.

Edited by (Blizzard)
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HOLA4418

Of course it isn't in the interests of landowners to vote for any of these proposals, but then it wasn't in the interests of slave owners to support abolition.

Ironically, slavery was abolished because the slave owners were better off freeing the slaves then paying them as employees and charging them rent for accommodation.

You see when they were slaves, the owners had to feed them, house them, provide medical care, regardless of it they were fit enough to work.

Slaves were legally classed similar to livestock, in that if your slaves caused damage to someone else's property, you were liable. Same with if they stole something. Once slaves got too old to work they had negative value.

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HOLA4419

Ironically, slavery was abolished because the slave owners were better off freeing the slaves then paying them as employees and charging them rent for accommodation.

You see when they were slaves, the owners had to feed them, house them, provide medical care, regardless of it they were fit enough to work.

Slaves were legally classed similar to livestock, in that if your slaves caused damage to someone else's property, you were liable. Same with if they stole something. Once slaves got too old to work they had negative value.

Doesn't surprise me. I can't see an equivalent trade-off for landlords.

Edited by (Blizzard)
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HOLA4420

1. The current land market is already a market for government land licenses, that's what land 'ownership' always means (in fact, all intellectual property is like this, and land is just intellectual property).

2. These already include license clauses proscribing various uses of the land (known, due to the usual obfuscation, as planning law, when they are implemented by central government and covenants when implemented by the landlord).

3. Of course, being fundamentally no different to the way land is allocated now, means your system isn't that difficult to implement.

The only difference is that the land be owned - and covenants applied - by 'communities'. Who are these 'communities'? In practice, they will be local government of some form or another.

So you are really suggesting that local government sell housing with restrictions that it not be used for certain purposes - particularly the collection of rent. I think that's a reasonable policy for local government to pursue.

4. This is all very similar to the provision of council housing. Housing tenancies can't be sold on, but they are restricted land rights handed out by the local community. So your idea isn't much more than a suggestion to allocate much more land to council housing.

This of course, is a fantastic idea (or rather, not doing this is bloody stupid).

Council housing is a good thing, the privatisation of council housing was a significant cause of the mess we are in now, and the only reason we don't build more is the few feudalists who are benefiting from the many's misery.

5. So, in summary, I think these are good, practical ideas but not, if done on a large enough scale to make a difference, as practical as a land-value tax.

Nor is it as radical as an actual 'free-market for land'.

Thanks for the good feedback, Blizzard.

1. Agreed, the state does claim ownership and then licenses land usage, even if people think that they 'own' the land themselves. However, state ownership is quite different from community ownership, which is a key difference.

2. Agreed again, but I intentionally left the planning question outside of the scope of the OP. If such a system was to live along side the state system, I suspect the state planning laws would always override any such license, as the license issuer wouldn't have the authority to declare otherwise

However, if the state was to withdraw from planning, you could define some restrictions on usage in the license. There could be a clause that allowed building unless it resulted in polluting other land etc, which would be more akin to the UK before the 1940s (ie. there was little in the way of planning, other than you couldn't build too close to others, pollute other people's land etc).

3. Indeed, it is largely about who creates the licenses and how they are policed and traded.

A community license leans on contract arbitration/legal systems. It doesn't need a fixed agency (central or local) to implement, as it is relatively easy to monitor and any whistle blowers can highlight contract abuses.

You could have multiple agencies recording who owns what and what the last sale price was, for instance. This could even be a distributed database, in the flavour of Bitcoin (indeed, Namecoin does something similar for distributed DNS/name server registrations).

In contrast to the state system, it requires a central agency to be involved, as the state issues and controls all licenses. If there was a LVT - which we can observe there is not currently - then must also enforced centrally, as the money is taken and re-distributed from a central source.

Currently, you also have no choice but to adhere to the terms of the state license. While you could choose to ignore the terms, as the state has massive security resources, funded via coercion, it is pretty much their way or the highway. A community license, in contrast, will only be adhered to if it is the interest of the parties involved, so unreasonable terms would be unlikely to persist. This is a very important point, IMO.

4. Agreed, there are similarities to council housing to a degree. However, the location is what is being licensed, not the buildings upon it. Therefore, it is more akin to state land licensing, than council house licensing, IMO.

5. A LVT requires state management and enforcement and must be applied within state borders. Community licenses need no such restrictions.

Additionally, LVT even takes from those who are not seeking rent, which is a fundamental difference to community land licenses. The latter only claims a right to take unearned income, which can include sale time of property or location monopolisation.

A LVT on the other hand, socialises the gains made by key members of society and redistributes it to others. Even if the key members bringing wealth/productivity to the region do not seek rent, they are still taxed by a LVT.

Additionally, LVT doesn't take into account rent seeking via increased sale price, relative to purchase price. Instead, it just concentrates on potential rent, taken regularly.

I think there are not only substantial flaws in centralised state land licensing, but also in LVT proposals. I wanted to tackle both of these, which I think a community land license may accomplish. Please keep the feedback coming though as I'm still thinking this stuff through!

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HOLA4421

Thanks for the good feedback, Blizzard.

...

I think there are not only substantial flaws in centralised state land licensing, but also in LVT proposals. I wanted to tackle both of these, which I think a community land license may accomplish. Please keep the feedback coming though as I'm still thinking this stuff through!

I think it's very interesting to consider alternative ways of allocating land, not least because they illuminate the way we have chosen (in particular that we have not chosen to operate a free-market, despite all propaganda to the contrary).

Also, trying to reduce your idea to things we already have is not about disparaging it, but about figuring out how practical it is, or at least how far away we are from actually implementing it. We are so far from my suggestion (a free-market for land), that it's hard to see whether or not it could ever actually work. It relies on a lot of faith in the ideas of free-markets and the invisible hand.

I'll deal with the easiest point first.

5. A LVT requires state management and enforcement and must be applied within state borders. Community licenses need no such restrictions.

Additionally, LVT even takes from those who are not seeking rent, which is a fundamental difference to community land licenses. The latter only claims a right to take unearned income, which can include sale time of property or location monopolisation.

A LVT on the other hand, socialises the gains made by key members of society and redistributes it to others. Even if the key members bringing wealth/productivity to the region do not seek rent, they are still taxed by a LVT.

Additionally, LVT doesn't take into account rent seeking via increased sale price, relative to purchase price. Instead, it just concentrates on potential rent, taken regularly.

LVT replaces the undemocratic part of the state, landlords, with the the democratic part, central government. It is, I think, 'the minimum effective improvement'. Practical, workable and effective, but not idealistic.

It suffers many of the same problems of rent collection, taxes are rents, but the gains are spent by a democratically accountable body. Not very democratic, I agree, but better than the feudal landlord.

Historically, this is a continuation of a long process of transferring power from feudal institutions to democratic institutions, the power to collect rent being pretty much the last power left.

You make one mistake though - it does include price increases. Price is the net present value of the rent, tax the rent and you effectively tax the price rises as well.

2. Agreed again, but I intentionally left the planning question outside of the scope of the OP. If such a system was to live along side the state system, I suspect the state planning laws would always override any such license, as the license issuer wouldn't have the authority to declare otherwise

However, if the state was to withdraw from planning, you could define some restrictions on usage in the license. There could be a clause that allowed building unless it resulted in polluting other land etc, which would be more akin to the UK before the 1940s (ie. there was little in the way of planning, other than you couldn't build too close to others, pollute other people's land etc).

Here I was just trying to show that your proposed system isn't so different from what we do now. We have licenses, with license conditions - not just planning, but also covenants - so nothing you propose really involves a huge leap of faith. That's a good thing, radical ideas are usually terrible.

3. Indeed, it is largely about who creates the licenses and how they are policed and traded.

A community license leans on contract arbitration/legal systems. It doesn't need a fixed agency (central or local) to implement, as it is relatively easy to monitor and any whistle blowers can highlight contract abuses.

You could have multiple agencies recording who owns what and what the last sale price was, for instance. This could even be a distributed database, in the flavour of Bitcoin (indeed, Namecoin does something similar for distributed DNS/name server registrations).

In contrast to the state system, it requires a central agency to be involved, as the state issues and controls all licenses. If there was a LVT - which we can observe there is not currently - then must also enforced centrally, as the money is taken and re-distributed from a central source.

Currently, you also have no choice but to adhere to the terms of the state license. While you could choose to ignore the terms, as the state has massive security resources, funded via coercion, it is pretty much their way or the highway. A community license, in contrast, will only be adhered to if it is the interest of the parties involved, so unreasonable terms would be unlikely to persist. This is a very important point, IMO.

4. Agreed, there are similarities to council housing to a degree. However, the location is what is being licensed, not the buildings upon it. Therefore, it is more akin to state land licensing, than council house licensing, IMO.

I agree. On the one hand, I like the idea of local government doing this now. Forget any deep arguments - local government should allocate more council housing, and perhaps even empty land. It worked before, it would work now.

If you want to consider more radical ideas, then you want to move away from local government. Your agencies might still act like local governments, to some extent, but I don't think that's a problem. There are two paths to anarchy, and most people focus on the first - a collapse of central government that will quickly degenerate to some sort of feudal or fascist state. The second is better - anarchy as the ultimate limit of pluralism. Increase the power of other institutions until they can stand up for themselves, and mutually assured destruction will keep order. Central government might remain a player, or not.

In that case, have competing community land owners, might be a step along this path, and therefore no bad thing as far as I am concerned.

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HOLA4422

The problem with most land justice ideas, is they require you to somehow obtain a huge amount of land without having to pay off the existing owner.

No one with land would join these schemes because they already have the land and don't need these schemes.

It's the landless that need these schemes.

Firstly, anyone can donate land into a community land license. Ofc, they would probably rather collect rent, but it isn't unheard of for people to donate their land to the commons (unfortunately, this usually means 'The Crown', rather than communities themselves).

Secondly, people don't really own 'their' land currently, but instead license it from the state, the state could choose to change the terms of this agreement. Implementing a LVT is a change in the state license, for instance.

If the state wished, it could give its land licenses to communities instead. I suppose it would be a bit like spinning of public services as cooperative organisations, in many respects.

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HOLA4423

Traktion's scheme presumably requires the land to be bought by the community, although they could be allowed to build on land without planning permission, if the government wanted to help out. As I said, this has been done before, it is called council housing.

What I described was a free land market, which means no-one has to do anything, including signing up to any kind of scheme.

It is in their own interests for everyone to do that, but they don't have to.

Of course it isn't in the interests of landowners to vote for any of these proposals, but then it wasn't in the interests of slave owners to support abolition.

That could be the case too. Money could be raised by the community and then released with a community land license.

This way, if rent seeking occurs in the future, it should be diverted back to the community, rather than going to the private land lord.

Ofc, you could argue that the community could retain (not release) the land and run it as a direct, democratic, cooperative. While this is another option, it implies that land can be owned, which I would suggest it shouldn't be - you can't have a free market for locations (read: land), when they can only be arbitrarily outlined and enforced with violence.

Arguably, the state is already a nationwide cooperative, with non-voluntary membership, for land licensing too. Perhaps it would be better if it was broken down to many organisations at the community level* (with membership dictated by proximity to the location or some such), but I'm not convinced that would be the best solution either; you would still have NIMBYs, land 'owners' too and it may not offer stability for those using said land either.

EDIT: * I suppose that sort of system would be rather similar to councils managing the land too, which is too close to the existing mechanism of land licensing, IMO.

Edited by Traktion
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HOLA4424

If you want to consider more radical ideas, then you want to move away from local government. Your agencies might still act like local governments, to some extent, but I don't think that's a problem. There are two paths to anarchy, and most people focus on the first - a collapse of central government that will quickly degenerate to some sort of feudal or fascist state. The second is better - anarchy as the ultimate limit of pluralism. Increase the power of other institutions until they can stand up for themselves, and mutually assured destruction will keep order. Central government might remain a player, or not.

In that case, have competing community land owners, might be a step along this path, and therefore no bad thing as far as I am concerned.

BTW, I completely agree with this. Hoping for state collapse will just leave a vacuum of power, which will be filled by the next tyrant.

People and their communities have to find ways to replace what the state provides, until the state just withers away. It's only when free trade and association is realised as the only civilised and preferable way to live, that violence and coercion will be shunned by society, IMO.

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