I have always been happy to admit you get things half right (for a wit) Wing Ah Hume.
“Poverty was the universal condition of everyone for many thousands of years...”
Geoffrey Blainey reported that in 1788, the aboriginals around Botany Bay had a much higher standard of living than the whitefellas. It only took a few hours a day to find enough food. Making rudimentary tools and weapons only took a little more. Most of the day was spent in what we would describe as 'recreational activity'.
“...until people learnt to understand the benefits of the division of labour...”
The immediate 'benefit' of division of labour was the introduction of slavery, and the class system. Guess where all the libertarians were.
“If the income re-distribution you have in mind is not to be done by force, then how is it to be done?”
I would suggest as a starter: “We only need to allow corporations to fail, and to deny them the legal privileges that are denied to everyone else.”
“Bravo, Grim. We’ll make a libertarian of you yet.” Not so long as libertarians believe the greatest liberty is the unfettered right to exploit others without scruple or mercy, or 'interference from bullying legislators and police'.

Continued:
“All consensual transaction that do not aggress against the person or property of others should be legal...”
When the dairy industry in NSW was deregulated, Coles and Woolworths immediately increased their profit margins, and told the farmers what they would pay at the farm gate. Would you describe this as a 'consensual transaction'?
When was the last time you went into a supermarket and said: “I don't want to pay $2.80 for that loaf of bread, give it to me for $2.00”.
Or what about saying “I can't afford to pay $300,000 for that house, give it to me for $200,000”.
Only rich people can afford 'consensual transactions'. As soon as they bid up the price, they “aggress” against everyone poorer than they are.
“Governments are the biggest, most monopolistic corporations of all.” Agreed. That's why I'm essentially an anarchist. I'm merely realistic enough to understand that anarchy can only work on very small scales.
“Their capital consumption is by far the biggest single cause of poverty.” Actually, secular governments have done far more to alleviate poverty through rule of law, welfare and progressive taxation than slave owners ever have, or would.
Sadly, the only answer to monstrous corporations is monstrous governments.

Grim
So you, and everyone else in Australia, would be materially better off, or now worse off, if living at the standard of the pre-1788 Australian Aborigines? Don't kid yourself.

Yes, in many ways traditional Aboriginal life was better, and they had more time for recreational activity. Their life was also physically hard, often violent, exposed to the elements, and chronically exposed to hunger– read the many first-hand accounts of first contact, not the second-hand summaries of an Order-of-Lenin communist academic historian indulging a Rousseauian fantasy of noble savages frolicking in pristine nature. One statistic alone puts paid to your grotesque anti-capitalist fantasy: 50 percent of their children died in the first year, and only half reached age 15. Think about it.

But if you persist in asserting that life without the division of labour is so good – why don’t you try it?

“The immediate 'benefit' of division of labour was the introduction of slavery, and the class system. Guess where all the libertarians were.”

Slavery is an aggression against the person and the property right of self-ownership. By definition it violates the tenets of libertarians, who abolished it.

The same classic liberals also repealed 80 percent of the laws of England – anything that bore against the liberty of the subject they abolished and replaced with nothing - a cleaning out the broom-cupboard of state that Australia needs.

Slavery was never in any country or age able to withstand competition from free labour, and was always only ever held in place by restricting freedom of contract. The arguments in favour of slavery are identical to those you use to justify “progressive” taxation; that those whose labour is to be expropriated are morally despicable and not entitled to the fruits of their labour. The same arguments, that "society" needs to restrict individual liberty so as to provide for the common good were used, for example, to provide the public utilities of ancient Rome, and the backbone of agriculture in the old South.

And now the welfare statists use essentially the same arguments as the pro-slavers: that the governmental elite know better what’s better for people, than people; that the political class have the moral right and duty to violate liberty and direct society from the top down; and that you are justified in coercively appropriating the labour and property of others because you claim to stand for a higher “social” value over and above individual liberty.

“When the dairy industry in NSW was deregulated, Coles and Woolworths immediately increased their profit margins, and told the farmers what they would pay at the farm gate.”

So why didn’t you enter the market, offer milk to consumers at a lesser price, and put the the supermarkets’ out of business at what you claim is the fair rate of profit?

If you assert that we can make the same quantity and quality of goods cheaper and more available by price restrictions, you are simply wrong, and trotting out a fallacy disproved a thousand times both in theory and in practice.

The flaw in your theory is that it consistently assumes that you know what’s better for everyone else in the world, than they do; and that if you don’t like what they’re doing, you have by that fact established a justification for coercive intervenion.

>As soon as they bid up the price, they “aggress” against everyone poorer than they are.

According to that theory, all competition whatsoever involve aggression and exploitation. And then you say we need more competition – provided by a biggest monopolist. Your theory is just a confused jumble.

>“Governments are the biggest, most monopolistic corporations of all.”
>>Agreed. That's why I'm essentially an anarchist.

An anarchist who believes in ‘monstrous government’. Not much of an advance on the original problem, is it?

The same classic liberals who abolished slavery also repealed 80 percent of the statute law of England since 1215. Anything that bore against the liberty of the subject, they repealed and replaced with nothing.

Australia is long overdue for a similar clean-out of the broom-cupboard of state.

Peter Hume, it is a little bit more nuanced than 'resources are scarce.' Our political, economic and social systems have developed during an era of unprecedented growth in the consumption of energy, resources and credit. My view is that we are entering a period where the availability of these core aspects of our civilisation will become progressively less and less and as a result how society is organised will change. This will likely result in a collapse to a lower level of complexity.

I think you have made a giant leap to suggest that I am proposing a socialist solution, or that I am implying that decision making is top down in a world that is essentially a self organising complex adaptive system. Far from it. I don't think anyone can predict exactly how things can and will unfold but I do believe that there are actions we can take that will make our future situation better (or worse). By failing to understand our current predicament, we are taking actions (both as individuals, businesses and governments) that are highly likely to make our situation worse.

Cameron Leckie

So many straw men. It just had to be Wing Ah Hume.
Firstly, a small problem of temporal dislocation. I compare blackfella culture to whitefella culture at a specific time, Hume comes back by comparing blackfella culture to modern culture.

“50 percent of their children died in the first year, and only half reached age 15. Think about it”
Today, out of 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion live in poverty. Think about it.

“But if you persist in asserting that life without the division of labour is so good – why don’t you try it?”
Now this is an interesting one. One of the major complaints of libertarians is the amount of tax they are 'forced' to pay. I have built my own houses, produced food, repaired and manufactured farm machinery and equipment, and in my home, if anyone makes a mess, they clean it up themselves. No servants.
How about you? Do you feed yourself, clothe yourself, house yourself, etc; or do you have to get others to do these things for you? If -like over 70% of the population- the answer is no, then I would suggest the greatest 'tax' on the time of people like me, is people like you.