Greetings,
There is a long history of personal property acquisition by governing
bodies for various reasons. The notion of "Eminent Domain" is written in
laws in the US; I'm not familiar with other countries. Of course the
criteria for the grab can vary from road building to reservoir
construction to national security...Compensation is usually sub-market
value when/if it occurs. What was formerly predominantly 'material' or
'real property', now includes such things as encoding schemes and
scientific formulas.
Jeff Gates book _The Ownership Solution_ proposes ESOPS (Employee Stock
Ownership Plans) & CSOPS (C= consumer/customer) as ways of broadening
capital ownership. He sidesteps the question of credits/tokens versus
Daly's "Natural Capital" and the 'Cornupian Fallacy', but stresses the
import of wider BUT PRIVATE ownership. At least the benefits knowledge
would be shared more widely.
As to John C.s dualism of subject-object (finder not keeper) and Ray's
plea for more 'well rounded' valuation of creative arts and sciences, I
have little to add. In my opinion, John is being overly idealistic and
vastly underplaying the extent of our hard-wiring. Ray desires somewhat
more modest value changes by humans - recognition that social harmony is
infinitely complex and multidimensional, and that some roles formerly
valued historically are at risk of disappearing.
Steve
