I couldnt fit the entire comic in here. Click Here to read the rest
I can not help but notice Rothbard wasn’t hit in the face with Chekhov’s brandy bottle and I must say this feels like a bait and switch
I was so confused before I noticed your note! Here is the rest.
Tap for accessible transcription
Page 1
Panel 1
A sailing ship named “ROBESPIERRE” at sea.Panel 2
Rosa Luxemburg is at the ship’s wheel, yelling at Karl Marx who is slumped on the deck.Rosa: We’ve hit a reef Marx! Weren’t you supposed to be steering? We are going down!
Marx: What?Panel 3
The ship is sinking.Rosa: ABANDON SHIP—
Marx: (interrupting) SAVE THE BRANDY!Panel 4
The wrecked ship, mast sticking out of the water near a desert island.Panel 5
Marx and Rosa washed up on the beach. Marx is holding the brandy bottle.Rosa: Whew, we survived.
Marx: And more importantly, we saved the brandy.Panel 6
Two strangers approach them on the beach.Stranger: Hello! Welcome to Liberty Island.
Panel 7
Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard introduce themselves.Rand: I’m Ayn Rand, and this is Murray Rothbard. We shipwrecked here fifteen years ago, and we’ve used that chance to build a society that is completely free.
Panel 8
Rosa: Oh, uh…that’s good I guess. I’m Rosa Luxemburg, and this is Karl Marx. What do you guys do for food?
Rothbard: There are two sources of food on the island: coconuts and fish.
Page 2
Panel 1
Marx: Well, coconuts go better with rum than brandy, but let’s give it a try.
Rosa: Right…so, we’d thought we’d freely go get some coconuts.
Rothbard: Whoa whoa, not so fast there. Don’t you remember, this is LIBERTY island, that means you are free to do whatever you want.Panel 2
Rand: Don’t you know anything about freedom? We mean that you can do whatever you want with your property.
Rothbard: Those coconut trees belong to me.Panel 3
Rosa: Oh, I guess it is fishing then.
Rothbard: Actually the ocean belongs to me.Panel 4
Rosa: THE OCEAN?!
Panel 5
Rothbard: All ocean within five miles of the island. We came to an agreement to divide it up that way fifteen years ago. With freedom.
Panel 6
Rothbard: Everything that happens on the island is from voluntary transactions, and free market capitalism.
Rand: So, while you can’t steal our coconuts or fish, we can certainly offer you a job.Panel 7
Rand: You climb the trees and gather coconuts, and you get to keep twenty percent of them, the other eighty percent goes to me.
Rosa: Twenty percent? That’s outrageous!
Rand: Well, those are the conditions that the free market bears, I don’t know what to tell you.
Page 3
Panel 1
Rothbard: But hold on! If you want to fish for Rothbard’s Fishing Depot I will give you a much more generous twenty two percent of all the fish that you catch.
Panel 2
Rosa: And if we don’t want to do either of those things?
Rand: See, this is the beauty of the free market, competition ensures the best result for everyone.Panel 3
Rand: Well, seeing as you don’t have any property, you are free to starve if you want. Again, this is Liberty Island, so there are no restrictions on your actions.
Panel 4
Rosa: Okay, I guess we’ll be fishermen.
Rothbard: Oh great. Since Rand owns all the wood on the island, you’ll have to buy your fishing spears from her.
Rand: Since the only thing you have is Brandy, I’ll trade for that.Panel 5
Rosa: Actually, I think we will harvest coconuts.
Rothbard: Okay, but you’ll need a rope to climb the trees, and Rothbard owns all the rope.
Rand: I, also, am willing to trade for the brandy.Panel 6
Marx raises his fist dramatically.Marx: COMMUNIST REVOLUTION!
Panel 7
Rand: What?
Marx: We are doing a communist revolution. It means the private property is publicly owned, so we all have access to the coconuts and fish.Panel 8
Marx puts his arm around Rothbard, still holding the brandy bottle.Rothbard: And what about the brandy? Is that public too?
Marx: Rothbard, allow me to explain the difference between personal property, and private property…
I laughed out loud at how simple the communist revolution was. Also at the very easy difference of personal and private property.
Thank you very much for posting these and for transcribing.
Thanks.
I love how it all ends up being capitalism.
The third source of food is eating the people who keep you from fishing.
Is “personal property” a thing for Carl? Or is it just a joke for the strip?
Yes. Marxists have a distinction between personal property (your toothbrush, your desk and pens) and private property (a factory or an auto dealership full of cars or a supermarket).
It’s definitely a common concept in leftist ideas of property although I don’t think it originated with Marx. Could be wrong though as I’m not a Marxist.
Originated? No. But he did use those terms in his work.
Second this, i definitely recognize a difference but its the first time i hear it as potentially relating to marx.
Your necklace given to you by your grandmother is not to be redistributed. space where you live and sleep is yours to protect.
The factory enterprise you bought on paper and visited exactly once before installing a manager to organize below, the workers produce that you stocked up in a hangar. The by government maintained old forest that is technically considered part of your land. That is where ownership is a problem.
Plus the problem of who decides what is personal vs private ownership.
It can get blurry if you look for it but generally the things you use almost every day and the place you sleep and store the items you use almost everyday day are hard to argue against.
Almost all the reform that needs to happen is on a scale where things are very obvious. Corporate property should be owned by the workers. One tech company buying an entire game studio where the same workers work should be too absurd to mean something.
After this we could discuss common ethics like what is a good reason for a person to own a personal yacht or plane? If that is a live in yacht and that is part of their life style sure. Owning 4 and a castle… that should need More restrictions.
And someone lives in a historic castle there family has lived in for generations thats ok. But owning a portfolio of historical building they exploit economically, not so much.
There should not be a centralised authority to decide on smaller stuff that common sense cant handle. You don’t call something non personal that you don’t want anyone else to take either. The closer we build towards a fairer world the more people will have access to fill their needs the less they have a reason to become jealous of others.
I won’t pretended to have a solution on how to get this done in practice but its a direction to move in at least.
I agree with you, some things are common sense.
I just see the issues with the power invested in the institution or persons who decides the non-obvious issues.
In our current economic system, there is a clear distinction between business and private property. You have to register a business with the government and you pay different taxes on your business. Also, a business generates revenue and can employ other people.
Registered business=private property Private house that generates no income because you don’t rent it=personal property.
Maybe in your economic system, here in sweden my house is a registred business because it has 4 hectares of swamp land, my neighbours house is registred business because it has 10 hectares of woods (enskild firma, gårdsfastighet and skogsfastighet respectively). Another person in the village got an AB (aktiebolag, registred stock business) which he uses for his one person welding business.
If you make revenue from your house, it is a business.
There is a possibility to make revenue, I "just "need to cut down the vegetation and dike around everything plus preparing the clay soil so I can grow things. In that way Im like a capitalist with unrealized profits bound in my land. The ROI would be measured in decades at best but there is potential.
My neighbours land is too small to get value of a harvester but if he didnt value his time he would profit by harvesting the trees and replant, or remake the land into fields for food.
All Im saying is that there will always be problems by letting someone (either person or entity) decide what is private vs personal property. Id rather that all land in the village become communal, and being used by someone who actually work the land. The centralization inherent in communism is problematic since the local village community risk the land becoming state property with relocation as only option
It’s always fucking coconut Island
deleted by creator
