Scott,
So this reverses the question to how it could be possible to decide WHO should be privileged to own from the state of relative non-ownership.
This is what I posted upthread...
henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:42 am
Scott,
I am my first, best, property, as you are your first, best, property.
Property is also what you fairly, voluntarily, transact for and with.
It's also the product of your labor.
I write the novel. The paper I freely transacted for, as I did the pencil, pen, typewriter, or processor. (or, as the fictional DeSade in
Quills, mebbe I
created my own
parchment,
ink, and
pen).
The whole chain of property is mine: the paper, the instrument, the creative work.
I grow apples: I bought the land, the tools,the saplings, mebbe even hired help. The land is mine, as are the tools, as are the trees, as is the produce (as is the debt should I fail to make produce). My hired hands are entitled to whatever mutually agreed upon compensation we've contracted for.
I reckon it has nuthin' to do with privilege and everything to do with effort and luck.
You asked yourself,
how (did) the Soviet Union reassert (or return) 'ownership' rights to its citizens after their collapse in the 1990s(?) That is, how did they 'distribute' ownership from a universal state of ownership to private ownership(?)
The question is only meaningful if one or another was somehow tryin' to lay claim to some State asset, like a tank or a jeep or a bazooka (I'd want the bazooka). Anatoly, happy to be out from under The Thumb & Boot, simply got on with it. Whatever he had was his; whatever he could trade or transact for was his; whatever he created or cobbled together was his (though, I'm bettin' he didn't turn that AK and associated ammo away, should they have crossed his path).
What I disagree with is to an uncapped, unrestricted power to own, such as that to which grants real existence to Billionaires
There is, I think, a natural cap on wealth: sated appetites and the simple inability to defend, beyond a certain point, possessions and properties and assets. The State (any version you care to name) circumvents this natural cap. In a state capitalism, wealth buys legislation which defends the state capitalist beyond what is his natural limit for such things. In the state socialsm, the wealthy man buys favor from the the party and is defended beyond his normal limits for such things. If The State is neutered, that legislation, that favor, is neutered as well. The fortune, once secured thru The Big Stick is now unmanageable and poorly protected. To preserve what he can defend, he'll have to divest himself of that which he can't, or learn to live with uncertanty.
But what of his ill-gotten gains? Well, we need to cleanly separate the two notions: it's simply not a given becuz legislation or favor was bought that the wealth was somehow arrived at immorally (stolen). A determination must be made as to the legitimacy of ownership. Who do you trust to do such a thing?
No, with The State neutered, I'm inclined to leave the billionaire be. As I say: with no legislation or favor to defend him that natural cap will assert itself.