Reason Foundation Co-Founder Bob Poole on Ayn Rand

Ron Paul inspired me to become a libertarian!

I wanted to clarify something. When I said whatever someone can produce in their time is theirs, I mean the value added they bring- not the materiels they're working on. e.g. someone building cars doesn't own the car; they own the value they add to it, and choose to sell that value to the company that owns the facilities, materiels, distribution network, etc. Both parties come out ahead compared to individuals trying to run entire car companies, assembly to sales floor.

That is categorically false, as I have worked in India in 6 separate cities. The difference between the "self reliant" days of Post Colonial India and today are staggering. Yes, tremendous poverty still exists, partially from bad governing, partially from cultural stigmas. They need more capitalism, not less. Hence why comparatively free Bangalore, not communist controlled Calcutta is a technological Mecca and is vastly better than most other Indian Cities.

You make it sound like the market ought to be some kind of wish-granting engine; it isn't. All markets regardless of how they are managed must eventually yield to practicality. Your Hydrogen fuel economy might be YOUR dream, but not everyone elses. But that aside, if socialized planning worked, we should expect the most controlled economies to innovate the most; but they don't. The freest markets produce the greatest and most widely available Technology.

Pardon, did you say Russia had "less" to work with? The Soviet Union had every natural and human resource any nation could ever want. Besides that, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong with virtually no natural resources flourish while resource rich nations like Mexico, D.R. Congo, India and so on are largely impoverished? Prosperity has more to do with the freedoms afforded to common people, not central planning and not socializing institutions.

I wouldn't even say that was limited government. You can see dramatic over reachings of the state as early as John Adam's administration.

In a serfdom the serfs are barely above slaves. They are attached to property, and have few rights to what little property they are 'allowed' to own.

In a capitalist system they have the same property rights. If they don't it isn't a capitalist system, though it certainly can masquerade as one.

Rand I think was pretty disdainful of those who were born into wealth but were untalented and/or lazy. She advocated that the hardest and most talented workers should be rewarded with capita.

The question here is how did he come into possession of that lake? Did he inherit it? Did he buy it? If he bought it did he do so with money he came by through inheritance? Or through his own hard work and labor, perhaps utilizing that lake?

Lastly, what happens when fisherman (labourers) have their catches from that lake bought by a capitalist? Are they or are they not being rewarded for their labour by that capitalist?

I have to work for a boss?

Who says? The beauty of capitalism is that I can be self employed. In a serfdom or a socialist system I have a boss or I starve, that boss is the nobility or the state.

If I do not own property... then I don't own my home? The land it is built upon? By this do I forfeit my right to privacy? Since I do not own my home other people may intrude in it as they wish and my trying to bar them from doing so would be a violation of their rights? Just some curiosities.

If I spend a year growing an nurturing an apple tree, weeding and killing pests, other people who did none of the work in caring for it can simply walk up and take an apple? How am I not a slave there?