@@innonimatu
But what
individual rights are these?
The right to make my own decisions, my own life, and deal with those consequences done by my decisions. It is my right to control my life, rather then letting the world decide for me what I shall be.
If you absolutely mean that last phrase, then you cannot settle for anything less than anarchy. If you only want choice, well... there are always choices.
The right to hold property? But that's a social right, it depends on the existence of a society that accepts and enforces private property.
It is this right that gives rise to the motivation to improve one's property, to care for one's property. Renters do not treat their dwelling with the same care as those who own their dwelling, on average.
That can easily be because they are specifically excluded from "ownership" of their dwellings - because those are someone else's property! In the absence of private property everyone would "own" their own (notice how common language can still point out the natural order of things) dwellings, and rent would cease to exist. Therefore, and according to your logic, all dwellings would be better treated, leading to improved social welfare.
[/B]That's just a fact. It is this right to private property that has created the massive amount of wealth that has gone a long way to improving life on this rock. Before private property, there wasn't a middle class.[/B]
There weren't any classes, actually. It's interesting to see the rise and fall of private property in the past: the fall of the Roman Empire, for example, was a time when private property was almost abolished in many regions where it had once been a rule.
But I can and will now argue that I dislike having the choice to freely use any piece of "property" taken away. Property can be seen as an enabler of choice, or as a limitation on choice. There you go: property can indeed be theft, depending on people's expectations. Either system takes away choices.
If property can be transacted, it is not theft. Put to myself, my body is my own. That I do not allow you to take my kidney without compensation is not theft from you. That you to take from me without compensation is theft from me.
"Communism" as it became understood proposed to use government control as a "temporary" (and no one ever explained how that would be ended) measure to remove several other constraints over people's lives. Unfortunately for the people who lived under that particular incarnation of socialism government control turned out to be neither temporary nor, perhaps, "lighter" than what it claimed to replace.
Perhaps that tells you something about the human ability to live without constraint. Or that, communism as a governing system is prone to corroption to a larger scale than democratic forms.
Tyranny is, with that I agree. And bolshevik/soviet style communist failed, among other motives, because of that. But I am not convinced that there aren't better systems yet to be found, or to be tried. Current constraints can be reduced, I hope.
Unfortunately money tends to be hard to come by for the average individual.
Not in the developed world.
Care to lend me some? Oh, forget it, some big banks seem to be in a much direr need of "funds", try lending to them instead. 
And once the principle of private ownership is enshrined (as economists supportive of the "Coase theorem" defend it should) and the trade economy established everyone must obey the rules of money (actually, those of
property). Those tend to be dictated by the people who hold most of it - they will be another form of constraint on people.
Property exchanges hands, if not put to product use falls in value, allowing those who can produce with it the ability to purchase it. If the acquisition fo property was the sole determinant of wealth, 25% of wealthy families would not decline in class status within a generation.
Yes, there is individual competition. But regardless of that, the rules tend to remain the same, and the people who rise tend to be of the same mind, guaranteeing the prevalence of the same ideas (and economic system) over the whole of society. Individual competition does nothing to promote the change of a society.
Tyrannies depend on the character of the people in power, and even if they start with "good principles", they can more easily betray them.
Tyrannies never end with good principles
No social system even ends with anything good, if they're ending it's because they somehow failed. That doesn't mean they had to have been bad all the time.
One thing the communists apparently did get right was their conclusion that breaking away from the "bourgois" system could only be done by taking over the state and imposing a new system, by violent means whenever necessary.
And yet, what happened when those took power and control from that state? They reverted back to a controlling state.
Indeed, that tends to be the case.
Can democracy lead to a similar shift? Perhaps, some experiences that were cut short by coups and other violent reactions might have led to it. But the existence of those coups in fact seems to prove the communist's conclusion that violence would be necessary...
Absolutely not. Reduce the cost of life's necessities (food, shelter, clothing, care) would probably start the steps towards a shift. But that means we must also work to eliminate the finiteness of our wants
Humanity is cursed with wanting always more, if not us then the next generation. Well, perhaps it's a blessing, it at least guarantees that history will keep on moving, and people will keep having their "interesting times", whether they like them or not.
The one thing I am sure off is that we're not anywhere near some "definitive system". I can only think about what the "next system" can be. And I was just commenting that the current system (social order) seems unlikely to fall peacefully. War or a deep crisis will mark any future change. I'm not advocating it, just stating what I believe more likely to happen.
An interesting proposal, especially coming as it does during the fight over whether "intellectual property" should or should not be allowed.
And really, your collectivist systems had a profit element somewhere . But it should be a choice whether to give something of yours to the rest, or to not.
When it comes to "intellectual property" you have that choice: if you don't want to share an idea, you don't tell anyone! You're free to do that. But attempting to restrict other from building upon your idea (once shared), or simply sharing it further, is imposing constraints on what others can do, seeking to limit their choices.
Which only shows, once again, that property is anything but natural: it is a product of laws, ultimately enforced by the state.
The state of nature, is nasty, brutish, and short. If property is not natural, then well, if that's what we must have to not have nasty, brutish, and short lives, so be it.
But if property is not natural, then it is a social construct, and fair game for political discussion. You'll concede that, I'm sure. some others don't, and my comment was aimed at those.
Also, I do believe using quotes on future answers might be a good idea. There's still the underlined text, of course, or the colors that some other posters fancy when they want to post discreet answers.
