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This guy Will Wilkinson is, to my mind, 100% correct. Who ever would've thought such insights as these could come out of the Cato Institute?
quote: These libertarians are also notoriously guilty of pretending that their favorite kinds of coercion aren’t. Threatening force to deny another person use of one’s land, or one’s house, is coercion. A system of private property is a system of coercion. It may be justified coercion. It is justified coercion. But then the question is: What justifies it?
...
If libertarianism is the view that coercion is never social or emotional, and that coercive limits to liberty are justified only in defense of private property, or in the enforcement of contracts, then libertarianism is false, and I am not a libertarian. If libertarianism is the view that human well-being is best promoted by ensuring “that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man,” then I am a libertarian.
There is hope for the soul of American conservatism.
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Libertarianism is about working against government coercion, not social or emotional coercion.
Using legal coercion to stop social or emotional coercion is is the opposite of libertarianism. Using social or emotional coercion to fight social or emotional coercion is fine.
To sum up: People have a right to be jerks. Other people have a right to be jerks to people who are being jerks.
Is this guy sure he's a libertarian?
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I'm proud to be a libertarian, given that it's the closest current political stance equivalent to classical liberalism.
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Libertarianism, as its been advertised, is a group who's sole concern is stopping the evil of Government taxation. All other evils are fine, or at most only secondary in fear of the big evil of GOVERNMENT TAXATION.
All crimes, sins, and faults can only be measured in terms of what they may lead to. Homicide is bad, and effects one's property value, and ultimately will require the government to ask for taxes to pay to solve the crime, prosecute the villain, and execute the prisoner. While it is important that we protect property rights, and ones life is one's main property, it seems that the cost of protecting that property is the real pain Libertarians have with homicide.
While some taxation may be necessary, its mostly just necessary to create an army to protect the state from invasion by any group that would allow GOVERNMENT TAXATION.
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DM: If that's all you've gotten out of what I've said here over the past 7 years then I've totally failed.
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The problem with Libertarianism is that it's an excercise in extremism.
A Libertarian presidential cabinet will "get rid of the IRS", "Legalise all drugs", "make prostitution and gambling legal everywhere".
Just like a socialist candidate will "spread the wealth", "put us all on an equal footing", etc.
But the Republicans and Democrats work in the real world. They say, "Well, we believe that we should work on decreasing the size of goverment" or "we should be working on healthcare and helping the poor".
The Libertarian party and the Socialists are pushing are pure ideal. But that isn't marketable. We have to take steps toward change, but that process isn't fast. And our nation will never embrace a pure ideal --- nor would one ever be attainable.
If the Libertarian party was smart, they would talk more about reducing the size of government, giving broader access to medication and foreign generic drugs, getting rid of restrictive insurance regulations so that you can buy insurance overseas, etc.
That would make them seem a lot less kooky, at the very least.
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I'd appreciate it if everyone here noted when they were talking about the Libertarian Party vs. libertarianism. To equate the two is to equate the Democratic Party with democracy.
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Pixiest, what do you think about the comment concerning private property being coercion (I'd say government coercion)? I've had similar thoughts, in that there is an apparent underlying hypocrisy to the "argument against coercion" that libertarians often champion in this regard.
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Is this guy sure he's a libertarian?
He makes it pretty clear in the last sentence that he's not sure. Of course, 'libertarianism' is just a word, and how we define it is up to us. Whether it provides a good system of justice, on the other hand, is for the facts to determine. What Wilkinson is trying to point out is that, according to your definition, libertarianism fails as a system of justice.
Coercion is harmful, period, whether it's the government or someone else who does the deed. The best system of justice is the one that minimizes all coercion, not just government coercion.
quote:To sum up: People have a right to be jerks. Other people have a right to be jerks to people who are being jerks.
This is a deceptive way of putting it, since the relevant notion of "being a jerk" often involves people dying. Also, on your view, other people have just as much of a right to support the jerks instead of opposing them.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Libertarianism, as its been advertised, is a group who's sole concern is stopping the evil of Government taxation. All other evils are fine, or at most only secondary in fear of the big evil of GOVERNMENT TAXATION.
All crimes, sins, and faults can only be measured in terms of what they may lead to. Homicide is bad, and effects one's property value, and ultimately will require the government to ask for taxes to pay to solve the crime, prosecute the villain, and execute the prisoner. While it is important that we protect property rights, and ones life is one's main property, it seems that the cost of protecting that property is the real pain Libertarians have with homicide.
While some taxation may be necessary, its mostly just necessary to create an army to protect the state from invasion by any group that would allow GOVERNMENT TAXATION.
Wow. Is it just easier for you to make up something for you to disagree with than to take time to understand and address an actual philosophy that someone actually believes?
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: I'd appreciate it if everyone here noted when they were talking about the Libertarian Party vs. libertarianism. To equate the two is to equate the Democratic Party with democracy.
I agree. Bob Barr may be a "Libertarian," but he's no libertarian.
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Bok: Private property is the fruit of your labour. You have the negative right not to have someone take the fruit of your labour.
To say otherwise is to say that it's coercion to not let someone murder you. You have the negative right not to be murdered too.
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My general impression of libertarians is that they have no cohesiveness and they end up being represented by the loudest, 'kookiest' demagogues on the internet. The nature of "true libertarianism" morphs wildly.
The most frequent schizophrenic break I see in modern american libertarianism is that most of the libertarians are looking at libertarianism as a movement to cull the size of government down to what is maximally productive for the defense of Constitutional liberties, but the most extreme and 'pure' demagogues of libertarianism essentially consider the Constitution irrelevant to their own moral system and intend to disregard it, essentially, and replace it with ideals that are more Ayn Rand than Founding Fathers.
Ideals which are notable only for their complete unworkability and the fact that we're never going to see a nation operate successfully on those principles. We're vastly unlikely to see them ever even tried.
Pure Libertarianism principles seem interesting in the same way pure Communism principles do: as an intellectual exercise completely divorced from how people actually behave.
Generally it's a philosophical refuge. But it's also surprisingly fissiparous. Libertarians cannot agree amongst themselves whether or not it is insane to try to run a country with NO taxation, whether or not it is insane to get rid of ALL social services including schools and the military and police. But the people who will never ever yield to any 'infringement' or 'taxation' as anything other than a wrong that must be disposed of, continue to try to define the movement popularly.
This is not helped by the LP's chronic inability to have realistic and even potentially — dare I say it — electable candidates pass its primaries.
There will always be certain subjects that galvanize the libertarian mindset (eminent domain abuses, for one) but it's never going to go anywhere as long as it is controlled or otherwise represented by people who desire impossible policy and demand unyielding adherence to principles that only a fraction of Americans actually, in any way, desire.
No, we're not going to privatize everything, no, we're not going to repeal taxation, no, we're not going to shut down schools and police departments, no, we're not going to let you sell meth just 'cuz it's your land, etc.
All of this is a wearisome burden on the average person who describes themselves as a libertarian, because they're contending with fanatics who define libertarianism in a popular sense. I have a lot of buds who have to issue disclaimers with every mention that they are libertarian, as in "Yes, I'm a libertarian, but don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those privatize-the-sidewalks taxation-is-theft ones .."
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Samprimary, that's why, when asked as to my political leanings, I tend to go with "socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative", "independent", or "classic liberal". "Libertarian" as a label tends to muddy the waters.
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For as long as any brand of libertarianism would allow the privatization of say fire departments to the point one would need to pay the fire dept to keep ones house from burning down then said brand is horrible and must be opposed.
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bok: Fundamental rights are self evident, I'm afraid. There comes a point in any theorem when you're left with naught but postulates.
And I think that, generally, most people can agree that we hold these truths to be self evident that all people have the rights to life, liberty and property.(*)
Pix
(*) Before someone corrects me with "Pursuit of Happiness," the original Locke read "Property."
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quote:bok: Fundamental rights are self evident, I'm afraid. There comes a point in any theorem when you're left with naught but postulates.
And I think that, generally, most people can agree that we hold these truths to be self evident that all people have the rights to life, liberty and property.
Does this mean you've given up on "preventing coercion" as the basis for our fundamental rights?
I thought life, liberty and property were supposed to be respected because anything else would be coercion. Bok (and Wilkinson, in his article) is trying to point out that coercion happens all the time, even when we're defending ourselves, so the problem must be how to determine when it's justified or not.
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Dest: I don't know how much more simply I can put it. You have the right to be left alone with the fruits of your labour. Someone who tries to take another's life or labour is the one initiating force, not the one defending themselves from it.
Even the gentleman in the article concedes that property rights are justified, he just doesn't understand how.
Do I need to explain it yet again?
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quote:And I think that, generally, most people can agree that we hold these truths to be self evident that all people have the rights to life, liberty and property.(*)
Generally, most people can agree that all of these rights are rights within reason and with limitation. There are plenty of realistic limitations to the 'right to liberty,' land use and zoning restrictions infringe on your 'right to property,' etc.
Then of course that all got turned into life-liberty-pursuitofhappiness in the declaration of independence which still is not, I believe, a legal document in any sense that guarantees any rights, so.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Dest: I don't know how much more simply I can put it. You have the right to be left alone with the fruits of your labour. Someone who tries to take another's life or labour is the one initiating force, not the one defending themselves from it.
Even the gentleman in the article concedes that property rights are justified, he just doesn't understand how.
Do I need to explain it yet again?
Pix, if you read Wilkinson further, you'll find that he has an excellent understanding of how property rights are justified. I subscribe to his blog in part because he has an excellent understanding of philosophy (he has a masters in it, I think), as well as economics. He's one of my favorite bloggers.
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OK, I am actually in the middle of reading Locke's "The Second Treatise on Civil Government" so I've been thinking about this sort of thing recently. I was inspired to read it and a few other philosophy books after a discussion with a proponent of Ayn Rand, who says much the same things that Libertarians do. (Or at least, so I've been led to believe. "The Fountainhead" is on my nightstand right now.)
Anyway...the trouble I have with the right to property and the "fruit of a man's labor" is that in a complex economy these are difficult concepts. I was completely with Locke as he described an apple belonging to a man who had picked it from a tree as he had mixed his own labor with the common store and thus made it his own. That a man could take from the common store that which was useful to him. It would be wrong to pick more apples than he could use and let them rot. But then we get to money...something that has value because by common consent, we agree that it does.
Moving away from Locke, let me put it this way: We are no longer a society of hunters and gatherers. If I were to pick an apple from a tree and eat it, I'd probably be stealing it as I don't have an apple tree on my property.
The question is this: What are the fruits of my labor in an economy built on the manufacture of luxury rather than mere necessity?
Anyway, this is the question I've been trying to answer as I'm reading through some of these philosophy texts. Feel free to weigh in with an answer though I suspect it will be some time before I reach my own conclusion.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Dest: I don't know how much more simply I can put it. You have the right to be left alone with the fruits of your labour. Someone who tries to take another's life or labour is the one initiating force, not the one defending themselves from it.
Even the gentleman in the article concedes that property rights are justified, he just doesn't understand how.
Do I need to explain it yet again?
So these are simply defined as first principles then. Essentially fiat.
quote:Originally posted by Christine: OK, I am actually in the middle of reading Locke's "The Second Treatise on Civil Government" so I've been thinking about this sort of thing recently. I was inspired to read it and a few other philosophy books after a discussion with a proponent of Ayn Rand, who says much the same things that Libertarians do. (Or at least, so I've been led to believe. "The Fountainhead" is on my nightstand right now.)
Anyway...the trouble I have with the right to property and the "fruit of a man's labor" is that in a complex economy these are difficult concepts. I was completely with Locke as he described an apple belonging to a man who had picked it from a tree as he had mixed his own labor with the common store and thus made it his own. That a man could take from the common store that which was useful to him. It would be wrong to pick more apples than he could use and let them rot. But then we get to money...something that has value because by common consent, we agree that it does.
Moving away from Locke, let me put it this way: We are no longer a society of hunters and gatherers. If I were to pick an apple from a tree and eat it, I'd probably be stealing it as I don't have an apple tree on my property.
The question is this: What are the fruits of my labor in an economy built on the manufacture of luxury rather than mere necessity?
Anyway, this is the question I've been trying to answer as I'm reading through some of these philosophy texts. Feel free to weigh in with an answer though I suspect it will be some time before I reach my own conclusion.
It just so happens that I'm reading Locke's second treatise again, and I just started it today before your post. What a fun coincidence.
Anyway, as I understand it, Locke based the right of property as a subset of one's right to life. In order to live, you will need to find different things to sustain you. Therefor, self-preservation requires you to own certain things. To own the things required to stay alive, you should provide labor for them.
So, I'll try to answer your question, but remember that it's from my perspective and I'm not nearly as well 'edumacated' as most here. (I also recognize I could be wrong on what Locke meant, hence my re-read.)
I believe Locke's idea of the inalienable right to property extended to things necessary for survival. If you have worked in your life, and you have earned things, you should be able to keep them without question, so long as it is necessary for you to live your life. I think the reasoning to this comes from unjust taxation wherein people were being taxed to the point they didn't have enough to provide for themselves or their family.
In a modern context, I think that it's safe to say that our requirements for life have changed since the early 1700s. In order for us to live in modern society we require more to function at an acceptable level. (Acceptable is up for debate, but let's leave that for another time.) So I think that people can claim an inalienable right on much of their property. I agree that the government shouldn't be able to take away from you what you've worked for and earned that's necessary for survival. But I disagree with people who say that all property is guaranteed to us, considering there comes a point where property is not a necessity, but a luxury. And when there are those who are being denied the property necessary for life, I think that there should be a reallocation such that those who have enough property for a life of luxury, can give just enough so that people can live.
If the maintenance of your property denies someone else their right to life, I think its justified to take some away. That's not to say I support a redistribution of wealth to the point that all are equal. That's silly. There was a quote from a magazine I read some time ago, and I can't remember the author, but it said something along the lines of "It's not that I'm against rich people, it's just that I would like there to be more rich people."
I agree with that concept. I think it's perfectly fine if there is a wealthy class. They should be able to enjoy that wealth as they see fit. But I think that if there are people struggling just to make ends meet, then there is a sort of noblesse oblige that I think should be arbitrated by the government.
I don't know if what I said helps answer your question, and I hope it doesn't. I hope it just helps you formulate your own opinion on the matter.
I reserve the right to edit my post as I re-read it and see how tired and nonsensical I am.
EDIT: And to further push my idea that there are reasoned exceptions to Locke's inalienable rights, Locke himself advocated the death penalty as a form of punishment. That's to take someone's right to life, so wouldn't it make sense to say that there are exceptions to the rights of liberty and property? What those exceptions are could and I expect would be a heated debate. But I think exceptions do exist, I believe the libertarian 'purists' who claim that because they earned the property, they have an inalienable claim to it are wrong.
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Vadon: I already suspect that I will need to read this one twice. The language is tricky at times and while I think I am getting the gist of it, I am pretty sure I am missing the finer points. I did note that in his description of property, he mentioned that excess was only all right insofar as everyone had what they needed and it didn't go to waste. So your interpretation may be accurate.
At any rate, I was toying the libertarian view a while back...for a long while actually...and I'm beginning to change my mind on the matter. Philosophy aside, it does not seem that such a system works in real life. As far as our "rights" to life, liberty, and property -- those have always been subject to interpretation.
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quote: And when there are those who are being denied the property necessary for life, I think that there should be a reallocation such that those who have enough property for a life of luxury, can give just enough so that people can live.
Who, if I may ask, would you consider to fall under this categorization in America?
quote: "It's not that I'm against rich people, it's just that I would like there to be more rich people."
quote: In a modern context, I think that it's safe to say that our requirements for life have changed since the early 1700s. In order for us to live in modern society we require more to function at an acceptable level. (Acceptable is up for debate, but let's leave that for another time.)
Whether or not "acceptable" is debatable, would you agree that the requirements for that would probably rise if a significantly larger class of wealthy people was created?
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quote:Originally posted by Bokonon: So these are simply defined as first principles then. Essentially fiat.
Not that I disagree with these rights, mind you.
-Bok
Libertarianism postulates the maximum number of Fundamental Negative rights (the right to be left alone) with ZERO Fundamental Positive Rights.
That is, any Positive rights we have (ie: the right to a fair trial) is derived from a negative right (The right not to be imprisoned unjustly.)
Aspectre: Your assertion only holds if you agree with the idea that capitalism is stealing. And obviously, as I am not a socialist, I disagree. Further, the term is "hanged," not "hung."
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I can't wait until the Libertarians really get started, I'm going to be some sort of baron: robber, oil, railroad, whatever. Fewer governmental protections and tax-funded necessities means more opportunity for the masses to be put upon by those who step in to fill the void.
All that money you're not paying in taxes can be spent on various protection monies and usage fees for my privatized services.
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Pix: with what negative right do you support the taking that would be required to fund the minimal public programs you've expressed support for (fire, defense)?
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Libertarianism postulates the maximum number of Fundamental Negative rights (the right to be left alone) with ZERO Fundamental Positive Rights.
That is, any Positive rights we have (ie: the right to a fair trial) is derived from a negative right (The right not to be imprisoned unjustly.)
I've never really understood a fundamental right. What makes a right fundamental? Who determines these rights?
quote: Aspectre: Your assertion only holds if you agree with the idea that capitalism is stealing. And obviously, as I am not a socialist, I disagree. Further, the term is "hanged," not "hung."
Why would socialists think that capitalists are stealing anything? Communists might think so. I often hear people interchange socialism and communism but they are not the same things. Socialism does not favor equal distribution of wealth. It simply favors government control and ownership of businesses. Communism is the one that says "from each according to his ability to each according to his need." This would suggest that we are each due an equal piece of the pie and that the uneven distribution of wealth might be stealing.
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christine: a fundemental right is one that is postulated. The libertarian philosophy holds that only negative rights are fundmental. If you have a different philosophy, you will have different fundmental rights.
I initially put "Communist" in my post but I thought aspectre might object to being called a communist.
fugu: the same reason you can't shoot your own fire arm in random directions on your own property. If there was a magical shield around your property that kept the bullets (or the fire) only on your own property, you could do that. However, your neighbors have a right not to be shot and they have a right not to have their house burned down because of you. If you lived out in the boonies with no one around, you COULD fire your gun randomly and you COULD get along without fire protection.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I can't wait until the Libertarians really get started, I'm going to be some sort of baron: robber, oil, railroad, whatever. Fewer governmental protections and tax-funded necessities means more opportunity for the masses to be put upon by those who step in to fill the void.
Actually, the robber barons couldn't have succeeded without government assistance. The railroads, for instance, were created with eminent domain abuses combined with gigantic land grants. Then again, many of our finer institutions of higher learning were founded by "robber barons" so, you know, they're really evil people I guess.
It's a sad statement that the principle of liberty is an object of mockery these days.
quote: All that money you're not paying in taxes can be spent on various protection monies and usage fees for my privatized services.
There would still be police, courts, etc... You're conflating libertarianism with anarchy. But don't worry. That's a very common authoritarian mistake.
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quote: And when there are those who are being denied the property necessary for life, I think that there should be a reallocation such that those who have enough property for a life of luxury, can give just enough so that people can live.
Who, if I may ask, would you consider to fall under this categorization in America?
quote: "It's not that I'm against rich people, it's just that I would like there to be more rich people."
quote: In a modern context, I think that it's safe to say that our requirements for life have changed since the early 1700s. In order for us to live in modern society we require more to function at an acceptable level. (Acceptable is up for debate, but let's leave that for another time.)
Whether or not "acceptable" is debatable, would you agree that the requirements for that would probably rise if a significantly larger class of wealthy people was created?
Those are difficult questions because it is debatable how much people need for self-preservation. People in a wealthier class have a life-style that requires more than someone who lives modestly. But to answer your question, and remember this is my opinion as to what's necessary for life, I think that people who are forced to choose between paying a mortgage and paying for health care are being denied a right to life. I personally see health care as a right, because I think it would fall under the right to life and liberty in a modern context. If you can't stay healthy, how are you expected to practice your other rights?
I also think that single fathers or mothers who work two or more minimum wage jobs to pay for food and shelter but no time to actually be there with their family are being denied a right to their family, a part of life in my mind (and up for debate.)
I suppose a clarification that's necessary is that I think there is a difference between people being denied their rights to what's necessary, and them throwing them away. If a person chooses to invest all of their money in a gambling spree, abusive substances, and a life beyond their means, they chose that life for themselves. What I'm talking about are people who do put forth a great amount of labor, more so than many workers in America, but receive very little fruit in return.
Your second question is a tough one, and I want to lean no, I don't think it would be. But that's not a definitive answer. I consider the basic needs for life in today's society being things like access to good education, basic shelter for you and your family, a job that can pay for these things, affordable health care, food, access to things like the internet, and a means of viable transportation.
I don't think a lot more rich people would be generated from guaranteeing those to people who provide their labor. I think it would just give a lot more people the opportunity to get farther in life. And even if there were a lot more wealthy people, I don't see how society would change enough for the basic needs I outlined to change. I mean, I don't see a gold plated and diamond studded bathtub becoming necessary any time soon. =P
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quote:There would still be police, courts, etc... You're conflating libertarianism with anarchy. But don't worry. That's a very common authoritarian mistake.
Under your whole negative rights thing, you can't tax people to provide these police and courts because it's unquestionably immoral in that scheme.
Which means they would not really be effective courts, their capacities fully neutered and their judgments predisposed to essentially favor the highest voluntary providers.
And if you're taxing to keep a few social services funded by the populace as a public necessity, you are compromising the inviolability of the moral premise and admitting that positive rights should be provided by the government.
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quote:All that money you're not paying in taxes can be spent on various protection monies and usage fees for my privatized services.
There would still be police, courts, etc... You're conflating libertarianism with anarchy. But don't worry. That's a very common authoritarian mistake.
I've never understood just how far libertarians want to go. or perhaps that's unfair to lump them all in the same category. For I have *definitely* run into a couple of libertarians whose suggests basically did amount to anarchy. I think most are more reasonable and yet, it is still a fair question: How do we fund the public services that are required for the maintenance of government (ie police)? What is a fair system of taxation and how much is an acceptable level of tax?
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: [QUOTE] And if you're taxing to keep a few social services funded by the populace as a public necessity, you are compromising the inviolability of the moral premise and admitting that positive rights should be provided by the government.
This is pretty much the reason I've never really been able to digest libertarianism. There seems to be an inherent contradiction. They want the maximization of negative rights with the minimization of positive rights. But the problem I have is that the protection of your negative rights requires you to accept some positive rights. A non-privatized police force and fire department are supposed to be services given to people to help protect them. Even if your rights to property are inalienable, you would want some protection of your property right? That's a fire department's purpose.
But when you accept that there should be some positive rights, it opens a whole new can of worms that ask us "Which positive rights are guaranteed?"
I think its this debate that is harming the Libertarian party most of all. There are some who say that there should be no positive rights at all, that all things should go to a market competition and it should be survival of the fittest. Then there are some who compromise through a maximization and minimization within reason. There isn't a coherent philosophy and I think that's hindering the party and the ideology itself from expanding at a greater pace.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: There would still be police, courts, etc... You're conflating libertarianism with anarchy. But don't worry. That's a very common authoritarian mistake.
There is a world of wiggle room in that "etc..."
What you really mean to say is that I don't know just how far you personally think the government is allowed to tax people to provide services. Don't worry, that's a very common mistake made by people who think their position is self-evident when it actually drowns in minutiae.
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quote:This is pretty much the reason I've never really been able to digest libertarianism.
Some extremist libertarians do not have this internal contradiction, though they end up arguing against the bulk of libertarians, who opt in these contradictions to make the ideology more realistically feasable. The extreme libs just say that taxation is wrong, therefore there should be none, and when asked who will enforce these absolute laws against 'forces and frauds' they claim that it can and will be maintained by a voluntary system pretty much without a public police force. If you ask how the courts work, they will claim that the governmental courts will be provided for only through acceptable, voluntary funding.
It would basically be like Washington D.C. where the lobbyists decide the government's budget for them: anybody who thinks that this would result in better or fairer protection of all people's individual rights is just out to lunch on the issue.
The bonus is that as long as they're eXtreeme enough to stick 100% to the negative rights issue, there's no internal contradiction. The downside is that this theory is less realistically plausible than communism, which is another ideological extreme that will never work off of paper because it completely disregards the human element.
Just like communists, they'll tell you that 'once you change the system, you change the way people act' (the power word is that they become 'rational' when they exist in a 'rational' system) and that makes the system work where before it did/would not. An argument common to many failed ideologies, such as political Anarchism. You are not likely to find a balder premise.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Bok: Private property is the fruit of your labour. You have the negative right not to have someone take the fruit of your labour.
I have intentionally been avoiding this thread since I know from many past experiences that certain individuals here will respond to my ideas with unrestrained hated.
If the underlying argument for a natural right to private property is that property is the fruit of your labour, then this arguement is bot irrational and indefensible.
Consider as an example of private property, land. The claim the land is "the fruit of ones labors" is on the face of it patently absurd. Land can not be created by labor. But I suppose the essence of the argument is that you traded labor to the previous land owner, which makes the land effectively the fruit of your labor. But this only raises the question of how the previous land owner gained the right to sell the land. In most cases, the previous owner would also have purchased the land with his labor, as did the person from whom he purchased the land and so on. But if you trace this line back far enough, you will eventually come to a land owner who either took the land from someone else by force or who just happened to by there first, which has all the moral force of "I dibsed it first" So at its origins, all ownership of land originates from an illegal or illegimate act. And if you disallow the legitimacy of land ownership, then you have also disallowed the legitimacy of owning anything that arises from the land or requires land to make. Which means pretty much eliminates the right to own anything material.
The only way out of this conundrum, is to claim that it doesn't matter how the original owner got the "good", if the current property owner obtained the good by exchanging his or her labor for it, then they have a moral right to the property. The problem with this argument, is that it creates a moral right to own slaves as property as long as you bought them using the fruits of your labor. And if you think this is some sort of reducto ad absurbum that can be dismissed, then you are not familiar with history because this argument not only could hypothetically be used as an argument for the right to own slaves, but it has been used in exactly that way. In fact, when the British empire abolished slavery in its colonies, it provide compensation to the slave owners for the loss of their property.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
The problem with your argument Rabbit, is that it forces an historical perspective to a political situtation. Politics is about the here and future. Often political positions are created because of experiences in the past. The only way to use history to explore politics is to explain why something will or won't work.
I see what you are saying. I reject it because going back in time (except to take from it the best ideas) is not my goal. Now, I am not a libertarian, but a conservative. My problem with libertarianism is that there is a liberal strain and a conservative strain that are fighting for the same label. The liberatarian movement is the republican and democratic parties in miniature. Although it hasn't practically happened, I would love to see a conservative libertarian and liberal liberterain get together. I'll bet that would be a spicey discussion.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: The problem with this argument, is that it creates a moral right to own slaves as property as long as you bought them using the fruits of your labor.
Only if one ignores the actual principle at issue here. Slavery cannot exist in a society that actually follows the principle "a person is entitled to the fruits of his labor." If slavery does exist in a society, then that society does not follow the principle.
Someone buying a slave - that is attempting to exchange the fruits of his labor to own someone else and the fruits of their labor - is attempting to violate that right in the most fundamental and basic way. In the same way "a person is entitled to the the fruits of his labor" would not justify keeping the fruits of your labor when that labor was taking away someone else's goods without permission.
The fact that the principle was used to justify slavery doesn't mean it actually follows from that principle, any more than society forcing people to work in particular roles regardless of their desires follows from the principle "a person ought to act for the good of society."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I agree that the argument would not logically be used to argue for slavery (not that logic always has anything to do with an argument).
I will go ahead and accept, for simplicity's sake, that we do have a right to buy and sell land and other types of property based on current legal structures. (Note: But I do believe that this concept only makes sense as the laws of the land prescribe.)
The place where I get hung up on the question of property at the "fruits of my labor" part. The trouble is that we've wandered rather far from a hunter/gather society and at the moment. labor's fruits are an abstraction that are completely controlled by mankind. We've given artificial value to certain types of work while devaluing other types. One person could work 3 jobs and barely have the money to eat while another could inherit a trust fund and never work a day in his life. We prize charisma and cleverness (not always entirely moral cleverness, as evidenced by the romanticism of the confidence artists). We devalue manual labor (ironically, that which often gets us closer to the earth's actual fruits). Money, our abstract "fruit" given value only because we agree that it does, tends to go to those closest to it, not necessarily to those whose efforts are most largely responsible for creating it. A good salesman can make a ton of money whereas a good inventor, if he lacks the business skills, will make a moderate living but largely get used by those who actually make the money off of his creations.
I'm not suggesting that any of this is wrong. I am suggesting that, just as money is abstract, so is our determination of who deserves what quantity of the money (ie the fruits of our labor). These terms are defined, not through nature, but through civilization. Therefore, it is within the scope of civilization that we define these terms in a way that is useful to us.
This being the case, I am more likely to be swayed by an argument that a certain system is the most useful, rather than that it is the most "just" (a matter of opinion) or that it is "rational" (based on assumptions I may or may not share so also a matter of opinion).
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