The Mystery of Fascism. (A long but interesting read.)

Libertarian Alliance ^ | 20 Oct 03 | by David Ramsay Steele

[MitchellC]

Interesting. Instead of a continuum capped at both ends by collectivist philosophies, the only continuum that can begin to be coherent and all-inclusive is one with complete collectivism at the one end, while at the other end the exact opposite, the non-existence of the state.

[gd124]

You got it. The problem was the village commons (common land in the middle of the village) in England. Everybody could graze their sheep on it, so everybody used it as much as they could, and it was overgrazed. The British solved the problem with the Enclosures Act. The land was apportioned off to private ownership and fenced in. The owners looked after their piece of land and resisted the urge to overgraze because it was now against their own interest to do so.

That didn't really happen, because the land was restricted to local villagers and customs prevented overgrazing. In fact, enclosure resulted in a massive increase in the early welfare state.

[expatpat]

You are correct that the Enclosures Act caused a lot of hardship in the countryside. However, while in some villages there was pressure not to overgraze, there were major problems in other places.