James A.. Donald[SMTP:jamesd@echeque.com] wrote: At 12:30 PM 9/28/2000 +0300, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:

...

Oh but it is quite possible to put people in similar trouble if we grant that the right to property is absolute - if somebody owns on a sufficiently wide scale the basic commodities one needs to survive in the modern world (like fresh water, farming land, employment opportunities), others are born right in the middle of the proverbial desert.

But in a free market this never happens. It only happens when the government intervenes. Thus, for example, we only see homelessness where there is rent control, we only see hunger where there is rationing and collectivized farming, and so on and so forth.

--digsig James A. Donald

I haven't been following this debate closely, so I don't know which side you're on, Jim, but I assume (hope!) that you are merely being sarcastic. Peter Trei