"We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." Voltaire
Hong Kong and the USA were started at the same time and the same people with the same weltanshauung, Scotsmen who were heir to laissez-faire French philosophes who took what the Spanish scholastics had picked up from Islam before they were tossed from Iberia.
Both HK & USA have dubious beginnings and whimsical borders with curious anomalies within any given borders at any time, but one difference is like Canada, Hong Kong remained loyal to the British Crown, an office occupied by whatever hapless German upon which the Anglos placed a funny hat.
Property rights are created when you mix your labor with either homesteaded real estate or property otherwise consensually acquired. We think of land when we say property, but the land itself needs to be developed to bear any fruit.
Our history with the natives is spotty, but it became horrendous after the USA Civil War. As Sheridan noted, the only good Indian was a dead Indian, given the challenges of property rights and development on land already occupied.
In spite of a Papal ban on disrespecting natives rights (which neither Catholic let alone protestant obeyed) owning the land was deemed existentially fundamental, so began the Indian long trail of sorrows which continues to this day.
In Hong Kong, the British Crown already owned all land (except for the Anglican Cathedral in time) and so at no time could anyone own any. As Hong Kong territory expanded, it did so by taking leases form the Chinese, hence the 99 year lease time -up for most of Hong Kong in 1997. Without most of Hong Kong, the UK arranged, for consideration, to give up Kowloon & Hong Kong Island as well, which had been deeded into perpetuity. And now the ChiComs own the land, and the USA is funding destabilization of a comity in Chinese-owned territory against an agreement settled in law in which the ChiComs are in no way violating. Why not? All of our other efforts are working out so well around the world. (I hope the Hong Kong students are making note of the fate of the Kurds, the beneficiaries du jour of USA assistance.)
But I vent, so to return - with no one allowed to own land as long as Hong Kong has been, and to this day, Hong Kong has managed to grow from a pirates' watering hole to a city-state superior in all categories to any capitalist regime. And where the USA hides behind the "too many minorities" keep our averages down, Hong Kong is a polyglot of refugees and expats from the world over, and by all accounts overpopulated, but few want out and countless want in.
It is a model of anarchy, for free markets, and that is real estate may not be owned. Why should it? With 99 years leases (to whom?) we have a valid experiment in peace and prosperity, and that is Hong Kong, one even the ChiComs can appreciate (and communism by design expects its apotheosis in anarchy).
Sure, under such a regime cutting leases with a Nakota Chief to lay down tracks with the understanding the buffalo may roam might have taken time, but time is only more expensive, not too expensive. In any case, one must not claim to have the best system or a just system when there is clearly something better and with patience more just.
It's one thing to lay tracks, it is another to frack. I've conversed with a petroleum engineer of global reputation who told me "of course fracking can be done cleanly, but it is not.... of course you can burn coal cleanly, but we do not." And why, because once you can "own land" then you can do what you will with it, because it is yours. And in time, courts can be bought off to allow pollution on others property, a process explicit traced in USA jurispridence by Morton Horvitz, a fine Marxist historian laboring at Harvard, who book is necessary if you wish to ever be considered educated about the USA.
The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Studies in Legal History)
States are cracking up, splitting up, and it is the 1750s all over again. We are the "me" generation in the formula "apres moi, le deluge...". I do so hope we see a few examples of the happy accident of Hong Kong, where people figure out you can have peace and prosperity without actual ownership of the dirt beneath the ground. It may cost more, but not too much, it may take more time, but not too much time.
Strong men will emerge to lead us. In anarchy, you are the strong man you've been waiting for. Lead yourself.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Hong Kong and the USA were started at the same time and the same people with the same weltanshauung, Scotsmen who were heir to laissez-faire French philosophes who took what the Spanish scholastics had picked up from Islam before they were tossed from Iberia.
Both HK & USA have dubious beginnings and whimsical borders with curious anomalies within any given borders at any time, but one difference is like Canada, Hong Kong remained loyal to the British Crown, an office occupied by whatever hapless German upon which the Anglos placed a funny hat.
Property rights are created when you mix your labor with either homesteaded real estate or property otherwise consensually acquired. We think of land when we say property, but the land itself needs to be developed to bear any fruit.
Our history with the natives is spotty, but it became horrendous after the USA Civil War. As Sheridan noted, the only good Indian was a dead Indian, given the challenges of property rights and development on land already occupied.
In spite of a Papal ban on disrespecting natives rights (which neither Catholic let alone protestant obeyed) owning the land was deemed existentially fundamental, so began the Indian long trail of sorrows which continues to this day.
In Hong Kong, the British Crown already owned all land (except for the Anglican Cathedral in time) and so at no time could anyone own any. As Hong Kong territory expanded, it did so by taking leases form the Chinese, hence the 99 year lease time -up for most of Hong Kong in 1997. Without most of Hong Kong, the UK arranged, for consideration, to give up Kowloon & Hong Kong Island as well, which had been deeded into perpetuity. And now the ChiComs own the land, and the USA is funding destabilization of a comity in Chinese-owned territory against an agreement settled in law in which the ChiComs are in no way violating. Why not? All of our other efforts are working out so well around the world. (I hope the Hong Kong students are making note of the fate of the Kurds, the beneficiaries du jour of USA assistance.)
But I vent, so to return - with no one allowed to own land as long as Hong Kong has been, and to this day, Hong Kong has managed to grow from a pirates' watering hole to a city-state superior in all categories to any capitalist regime. And where the USA hides behind the "too many minorities" keep our averages down, Hong Kong is a polyglot of refugees and expats from the world over, and by all accounts overpopulated, but few want out and countless want in.
It is a model of anarchy, for free markets, and that is real estate may not be owned. Why should it? With 99 years leases (to whom?) we have a valid experiment in peace and prosperity, and that is Hong Kong, one even the ChiComs can appreciate (and communism by design expects its apotheosis in anarchy).
Sure, under such a regime cutting leases with a Nakota Chief to lay down tracks with the understanding the buffalo may roam might have taken time, but time is only more expensive, not too expensive. In any case, one must not claim to have the best system or a just system when there is clearly something better and with patience more just.
It's one thing to lay tracks, it is another to frack. I've conversed with a petroleum engineer of global reputation who told me "of course fracking can be done cleanly, but it is not.... of course you can burn coal cleanly, but we do not." And why, because once you can "own land" then you can do what you will with it, because it is yours. And in time, courts can be bought off to allow pollution on others property, a process explicit traced in USA jurispridence by Morton Horvitz, a fine Marxist historian laboring at Harvard, who book is necessary if you wish to ever be considered educated about the USA.
The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Studies in Legal History)
States are cracking up, splitting up, and it is the 1750s all over again. We are the "me" generation in the formula "apres moi, le deluge...". I do so hope we see a few examples of the happy accident of Hong Kong, where people figure out you can have peace and prosperity without actual ownership of the dirt beneath the ground. It may cost more, but not too much, it may take more time, but not too much time.
Strong men will emerge to lead us. In anarchy, you are the strong man you've been waiting for. Lead yourself.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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