"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" could be replaced with "From each according to the ARIN fee schedule, to each according to our impossible to decipher allocation templates". Marx would be proud! Centrally managed economic systems seem so wonderful on paper - that's why so many otherwise very smart people have championed the idea. Real world experience, on the other hand, has shown that capitalism is
the
worst possible method for distributing resources - except for all the other methods, which are even worse.
Your tirade is a typical example of Marxist rhetoric. It may sound good on paper but it does not work in the real world. For an authentic example of such intellectual argument, read this http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm by a famous German intellectual whose tomb is in London's Highgate cemetery. It's only the 1st of 4 chapters, but if you stick to it, not only will you begin to understand why theoretical arguments can be pointless, you will also discover the origin of one of the most well known quotes in the sphere of economics.
And, if people have noticed, the Internet is what we use to make money, these days - at least, the folks on this list.
The fact that the Internet is what we use to make money is the main reason why most of us do not want to make any major changes to the infrastructure that enables the Internet such as ARIN itself. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My opinion is that ARIN should use some of its not inconsiderable warchest and hire some economists to do some real work on modalities for address distribution (i.e. give some grants). Aside from the practical utility, some real science around this topic would be of great intellectual benefit.
As I said, a meaningless intellectual exercise... --Michael Dillon