People who don't want to live in an RBE

This personal choice argument comes up a lot. People set up the spectre that they would be forced to participate using violence. PJ is more positive than this, and I agree with him.

Let's look at the person in my last post who didn't want to give away (share) his car. In an RBE, we'd be saying his car was an underused resource, so we'd be looking to persuade him to let it be used when he wasn't using it. In an environment of scarcity he'd be given money, with which he could get his hands on scarce things, but if we've reduced or eradicated scarcity, what would we give him in exchange for us using something that he's not using but doesn't want us to use? We couldn't give him anything that's abundant, unless we chose to keep it from him in the first place - ie create scarcity for him.

So - we would have to collude to create scarcity for him in order to coerce him into parting with the excess of abundance he has. He can't argue against it. He's saying what's mine is mine, and so are we, except that we are pooling our resources. This is the thing. If I own things, I have to stop other people using them, but they will reciprocate, so I don't benefit from the pooled resources, only from what I own.

If people don't want to live in an RBE because they don't want to share their stuff, I hope we RBE-ers would still be generous enough to share our stuff anyway, and eventually win over the non sharers.