Posted by Peter Ceresole on September 09, 2013 at 09:55:56 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Boathouse for sale posted by Peter Hyland on September 09, 2013 at 08:35:48:
I don't understand why you keep talking of "outsourcing" and "agencies".
It's a question of attitude and approach. The world and everything in it simply exists; the question for us humans is how to manage it to the best advantage, I would say for the general good. Ownership is a convention; ownership has in the past been basically a question of theft by main force, by individuals like kings and the nobility who derived power from them. This division of spoils has been perpetuated by inheritance, itself a convention. This is why the British Royal family is extremely wealthy, and so are noble families- the Council bought Windermere from the earl of Lonsdale, perpetuating, at general public expense, the wealth of a family that derived originally from violence and participation in a system of division of spoils which really was a zero-sum game. Their wealth really did deprive others of something which could have been theirs. It could be argued that this whole system is unjust and should be swept away- that revolution is the logical application of justice. I'd agree with this. However the chaos and violence associated with revolutions has inevitably, throughout history, resulted in impoverishment and exploitation of the general population by a new class of robber barons. So in practice, revolutions are a poor idea, to be avoided. The British have found their own solutions, involving inheritance taxes and slightly democratic institutions ('slightly' compared to other systems like the Swiss). However, these come with a grossly inefficient and unjust class system- which has however proved workable and stable enough to shape a fairly decent society.
Sorry to go on at this length; purely to explain why I think that ownership is not a 'natural' but a 'conventional' system, and why I find it curious in this case. 'Outsourcing' means just that- devolving the responsibilities for the management of Coniston water to an agency which is controlled at a remove by the regulations governing charities, rather than directly as in the case of Windermere.
And hence my reference to Evgenia's former boss, and to ice picks.