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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (8187)	3/12/2001 3:40:52 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

Is not confiscation of income and assets by the government "collective ownership of property"? Is this the question you want me to answer? If by confiscation of income you mean income tax, I'd say that's definitely not collective ownership. I'm not sure what you mean by confiscation of assets. The examples that come to mind are eminent domain and RICO. RICO isn't collective ownership, it's just a variety of fine. Eminent domain is collective ownership of property, but that's not what the definition was addressing. The definition said "a theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property." Eminent domain doesn't characterize our economic system. It's just one pragmatic element. We restrict use of property and we own our National Parks collectively. But neither of those passes the "characterized" test either. What the definition means is nationalizing businesses and farms and your house and mine. In the grand scheme of things, we couldn't be much farther away from that. We may bleed citizens and businesses to support what our representatives choose to spend money on, but we're not about to give up private property. That's just silly. What is so amusing about capitalists on SI? There might be a few social democrats here and there, but I think what you're seeing as socialists and communists are just capitalists who are more willing than some might be to bleed the economic system to achieve certain societal ends. They're still capitalists, maybe not laissez faire capitalists, but capitalists. They're not about to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, at least not intentionally. There's room for debate about how much bleeding is destructive to the goose, but they wouldn't intentionally kill it. Seems you'd rather focus on the side issue of whether someone uses hyperbole. That may be a side issue to you, but it was the reason I got into the discussion between you and X. I think it's more important that we on SI be clear in our meanings and respectful in our discussions than whether or not income taxes are collective ownership. Karen