posted
"*nod* Which is why pretending that the government is a person is so freakin' dangerous. Once you start extending the government itself any rights at all, you wind up restricting to it all of the rights that matter."
I of course disagree that property rights actually matter. I think those property rights and our attachment to them are what is really dangerous.
While I agree that the socialist perspective has problems, calling socialism "theft" isn't exactly a legitimate response to the philosophy.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
What I described is theft. If you can call it otherwise, it is because you are not the one who has been robbed.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:But if you're going to accuse him of stealing, do so on grounds other then capitalist vs socialist ideology.
Absolutely not. The fact that someone prettied up thievery with some fancy language doesn't change what it is. It's theft.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
"Absolutely not. The fact that someone prettied up thievery with some fancy language doesn't change what it is. It's theft."
Can we agree that if you come into my house, and take my stereo, when I take it back from you, its not theft?
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
My intuitions about private property and what constitutes theft, especially government theft, are muddled.
In the end, I don't think that anyone could steal anything that was properly mine to begin with. The crime of theft is like a "strike out" in baseball. That is, in order for the concept of a strike out to exist, we need accept the other rules of baseball. Similarly, a lot of the ways in which we employ the word "theft" requires one to buy into some rules or prevailing myth concerning private property.
I think that most Americans, for better or for worse, whether we know it or like it, have inherited Locke's conception or private property and entitlement. I think that's fine, as long as we understand that the foundation for our zealous defense of private property is controversial.
I'm not saying that theft doesn't exist. Sure it exists-- just like strike outs exist(ask Sammy Sosa)-- I simply believe that a non-negligible part of what constitues theft is historically conditioned on contingent factors. The contingent factors in this case being the sway of Locke on our founding fathers, and the abundance of property and resources for white America at this nation's inception.
Theft being historically conditioned isn't a bad thing, nor does it depreciate the awfulness of the crime. I just think that unless you are well-ensconced in a foundational myth concerning private property, determining what constitutes theft is tricky business.
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Absolutely not. The fact that someone prettied up thievery with some fancy language doesn't change what it is. It's theft."
Can we agree that if you come into my house, and take my stereo, when I take it back from you, its not theft?
Yes, assuming I had no claim of right to it. But I'm not going to grant that premise to the conversation at hand.
If a society operated from ground zero with the means of production being controlled by the government, I might buy this. But people who control the means of production now (and I disagree that those means are finite, but let's not go there yet) do so because they made decisions based on a particular set of rules. Serious decisions, which caused them serious detriment.
I can tell you from experience: a person starting a business works harder than his employees. (In general - I'm sure there are exceptions.) I could have made 100% of the income - possibly much more - working 50% of the time had I gone to work for someone else. I didn't, because I was building my business. I took the entire risk (with my partner) of the debt needed to start. I paid salaries when there was no work for those employees. I emptied my bank account to make payroll when needed.
And, dammit, if someone came up to me and took that, it would be theft. The reason I got to go to law school with no loans is because of that equity - equity that could have disappeared in the blink of an eye. One bad month of missed payroll, and I would have been bankrupt - zero net worth.
My employees would have kept their current savings and their 401ks (which we had matched heavily). At most they risked one pay period of salary.
So please, please, please don't tell me that if the government took my business the day before I sold, it wouldn't have been theft because I took someone's means of production. Our only assets were a computer per person and a reputation built over 11 years through 90 hour weeks and an absolute dedication to our customers.
Now let's look at it from an investor's point of view instead of someone who worked. Suppose I save my money instead of buying a new car. For 9 years after college, I put away as much as I can, sacrificing my standard of living. Then, a couple of people want to invest their own sweat equity into a business. I give them money to start their business. At that point, it's not money that I've put in. It's 9 years of a lower standard of living that I voluntarily accepted, knowing that I could later invest the proceeds.
Damn right it's theft if that's taken away from me.
Someone wants to nationalize industry, they can pay off the investors who relied on property rights.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
"Yes, assuming I had no claim of right to it. But I'm not going to grant that premise to the conversation at hand."
Ok, then I won't grant the premise that capitalism isn't institutionalized slavery I can make just as strong an argument for that as you can make that societal take-over of property is theft.
The thing is, dagonee, that there are thousands of factors that went into your ability to create that business, and most of those factors are beyond your control. They are the result of someone elses work, or the strength of the society we live in, or infrastructure that you didn't build.
"I can tell you from experience: a person starting a business works harder than his employees."
Depends on a lot of factors. This is the case when there's no reason for the employees to work as hard as the owner, and capitalism gives incentives to employees not to work as hard as the owner, so yes, in a capitalist society this is often true.
"And, dammit, if someone came up to me and took that, it would be theft."
As irami eloquently said, this is because of the rule book that you buy into.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Depends on a lot of factors. This is the case when there's no reason for the employees to work as hard as the owner, and capitalism gives incentives to employees not to work as hard as the owner, so yes, in a capitalist society this is often true.
Exactly. And it was in a capitalist society that the businesses were confiscated. Once the confiscation happened, it became socialist. But, up until that time, society had set up the rules that encouraged the owner to work harder.
quote:The thing is, dagonee, that there are thousands of factors that went into your ability to create that business, and most of those factors are beyond your control. They are the result of someone elses work, or the strength of the society we live in, or infrastructure that you didn't build.
I'm at a loss as to why that should matter. A large portion of that infrastructure exists because other people relied on these same rules and reaped the rewards. If, at the time I started the business, the government wanted to say "whoops! we can't allow business owners to reap rewards any more because it wouldn't be fair," then I could use that knowledge to make my decision.
Everyone else that ever worked for my company (except one receptionist and one bookkeeper) could have done the same thing. They didn't. Why? At least some of them didn't want to work that hard. Others didn't want to take the risk. At least two were incapable - they started their own and went under within 6 months because of stupid mistakes.
quote:As irami eloquently said, this is because of the rule book that you buy into.
I basically said that right at the beginning of my own post, in the second paragraph.
The rule book that was in play at the time of the theft is the one I am talking about.
Yes, there is only theft when there is private property. There was private property - right up until the moment of the theft.
You might want to say that the theft is justified, and that society will be better because of that theft. That's an entirely different discussion. However, as it stands now, taking my business would have been theft.
Oh, and thanks, airmanfour. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: Of course the government has all sorts of rights that individuals don't. I cannot seriously expect people to pay taxes to me, yet almost every government does.
I would argue that demanding taxes is not an inherent right of government.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I would argue that demanding taxes is not an inherent right of government.
Indeed. Unfortunately, in almost all cases taxation is necessary for the government to function. In this respect it is more a governmental duty than a right. It is also their duty to see to it that the taxes are spent on things that benefit the entire nation.
Posts: 993 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:I would argue that demanding taxes is not an inherent right of government.
Hmm.
Of what significance is this philosophy over governmental right going to be, in a world where every workable governmental model requires some form of mandatory economic support from its populace?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Nighthawk: ...and, if you pay attention, you can hear the gentle "clak-clak-clak" as the rollercoaster approaches the summit...
This thread's going to get fun. I can tell.
I want to take it down a significantly less inflammatory tangent and start idolizing Hitler
I mean, come on. Mao?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:The thing is, dagonee, that there are thousands of factors that went into your ability to create that business, and most of those factors are beyond your control. They are the result of someone elses work, or the strength of the society we live in, or infrastructure that you didn't build.
The government and the infrastructure didn't just appear one day, out of the skull of Zeus. It got there, in the United States at least, because a majority of people bought into its capitalist roots, believed in it, and contributed to it.
Those factors beyond one's control? Those things that other people do to make it possible? Those other people have the opportunity to benefit as well, and quite frequently do. It isn't as though all these good things are getting thrown into a garbage disposal or something, and it's certainly not 'institutionalized slavery', because, you know, people are paid. So no, you can't really argue that.
If you and I start playing a game of chess, with rules agreed upon before we begin, and halfway through the game I reach over and sweep your queen, your knights, and a few pawns from you, I don't just get to say, "Oh, those didn't belong to you to begin with, they weren't yours, so it's not cheating." Of course it's bloody cheating, unless, of course, you're able to make it stick and force me to call it something else.
Then it's still cheating, but just termed differently.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Of what significance is this philosophy over governmental right going to be, in a world where every workable governmental model requires some form of mandatory economic support from its populace?
I'm not sure the premise here is sound; I think many workable economic models could be built around voluntary economic support, for example. I'm not sure what you consider "workable" government, though, either, and I certainly agree that any large government has to leech off its people.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Countries near the US are often friendly with Castro specifically as a way to thumb their noses at and assert their independence from the US. They invite him to the opening ceremonies of their summits and whatnots, and then they immediately go back to being good little capitalists and try to make favorable trade arrangements with the US. It doesn't matter who Castro is or what he does, it matters that the US is big and powerful and the US (government) hates Castro.
It's pretty stupid and immature actually, but there you have it.
(This thought is not unique with me; plenty of other commentators have mentioned it, and I could probably dig some of the stuff I have read on it up.)
So your PM befriends a murderous dictator to show how much he is not under the thumb of the US, and you think it's a good idea for you to do the same. Way to think for yourself.
Has Castro set foot in Canada since 1959? Trudeau did visit Castro, and Chretien sent foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, but I don't see how your first paragraph applies directly to Blayne's examples of Trudeau and Chretien.
No, I think our trading with Cuba has a more straightforward explanation: it's a profitable enterprise. Here's a snippet from the Wikipedia page on Canadian-Carribean relations:
quote:As British companies pulled out of the region after decolonization, Canadians ones moved in. This was especially true in the banking and insurance sectors. Caribbean governments welcomed Canadian investment as a tool to prevent the total economic domination of the United States. This is perhaps most obvious in Cuba which pursued close economic ties with Canada after the Cuban Revolution.
In fact, Canada is the largest foreign investor in Cuba, and I don't think it's just because we're thumbing our collective nose at you -- for starters, as per the quoted paragraph above, our economic involvement in the Carribean as a whole predates Castro's takeover. There have certainly been times when we've snubbed you diplomatically, but I don't think trade with Cuba is a very good example of it; I think it's a much better example of a state pursuing its own economic interests, and at best, the fact that the U.S. considered it an insult might have been viewed as a bonus by Trudeau or Chretien. Similarly, we began trading with China well before you did. From Wikipedia's Canadian foreign relations page:
quote:One important difference between Canadian and American foreign policy has been in relations with communist states. Canada established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (October 13, 1970) long before the Americans did (January 1, 1979). It also has maintained trade and diplomatic relations with communist Cuba, despite pressures from the United States.
I'm not sure I'd call it "one of the most important differences," but I think both of these examples show that it has a lot more to do with money than diplomacy.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Fair enough. I wasn't discussing trade, which I have mixed feelings about, but "friendliness." Blayne asserted that your PM was "friendly" to Castro. I didn't research the veracity of this claim; I took it at face value.
You don't have to be friendly with someone or approve of their policies to find economic benefit in trading with them. China is a favored trading partner of the US, for better or worse.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Trudeau certainly was friendly with Castro, but again, I don't think the most obvious interpretation of that is that Trudeau was trying to stick it to the U.S. From the Wikipedia entry on Trudeau:
quote:Trudeau was interested in Marxist ideas in the late 1940s. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was a supporter of the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party — which became the New Democratic Party. During the 1950s, he was blacklisted by the United States and prevented from entering that country because of a visit to a conference in Moscow (where he was briefly arrested for throwing a snowball at a statue of Stalin) and because he subscribed to a number of leftist publications. Trudeau later appealed the ban, and it was rescinded.
An associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal from 1961 to 1965, Trudeau's views evolved towards a liberal position in favour of individual rights counter to the state and made him an opponent of Québec nationalism. In economic theory he was influenced by professors Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith while he was at Harvard.
For reference, he didn't become Prime Minister of Canada until 1968.
Added:
Also, in my reading, I discovered that Castro has indeed been to Canada at least once since 1959: he attended Trudeau's funeral in 2000. Again from Wikipedia:
quote:About 3,000 people gathered at the basilica for the service, including His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, Duke of York (representing his mother, the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II), Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his wife, Aline, and other Canadian leaders, one of them, Joe Clark, and his wife, Maureen. MPs, senators, past and present, provincial premiers, two other former prime ministers and their spouses (John Turner and Geills, and Brian Mulroney and Mila; Kim Campbell was overseas and could not make it), and members of the general public also attended. Foreign dignitaries who were present included Cuban President Fidel Castro, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, and the Aga Khan, who were also among the pallbearers, together with the poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen and Trudeau's Cabinet colleague Marc Lalonde, all of them friends of Trudeau.
quote:I'm not sure the premise here is sound; I think many workable economic models could be built around voluntary economic support, for example. I'm not sure what you consider "workable" government, though, either, and I certainly agree that any large government has to leech off its people.
With workable, I'm talking stable, sustainable, and capable of defending itself from coerced integration or forcible assimilation into other entities. Negatory on moral judgement. I wouldn't complain over a demonstratably operable government without taxes, but I see reasons behind why they're a no-show in the modern sphere of sociopolitical entities.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm not sure the premise here is sound; I think many workable economic models could be built around voluntary economic support, for example. I'm not sure what you consider "workable" government, though, either, and I certainly agree that any large government has to leech off its people.
Tom, I have to admit I'm curious. Would you mind explaining your model of government to me a little?
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:I do not appreciate the totally undisguised condescension with which you are accustomed to treat anyone younger than yourself.
Age has nothing to do with it. You're projecting. If you learn how to tone down the obnoxious and supremely condescending ways you present your, ahem, beliefs you'll find the animosity towards you will drop right off. The disagreements with your beliefs won't, but that's because they're mostly based off of bad inferences and logical fallacies, and as unstable as a mansion built on popsicle sticks.
You and Blayne have the same problem; spouting off without stopping to think first, then overreacting when you're (inevitably) called on it. Your last post to Icarus was, by far, the best post of yours I've ever read (though, to be fair, I've been skipping your posts for months, so I may have missed some improvement in the recent past).
Summary -- attitude, not age, is the deciding factor in how you're treated. Ask any young Hatracker who doesn't go out of his/her way to start fights and then play the martyr card.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
It is certainly true that Trudeau visited Mr. Castro, but there seems little evidence to suggest that this was more than diplomacy. Trudeau, a moderate Liberal and a Roman Catholic, would be an unlikely bedfellow for Mr. Castro.
EI JT Spang— I am little prepared to answer your accusations, other than to say that there was little difference in tone between my first post here and the one which you so noncommittally praise, and to which Icarus responded in such anger.
Perhaps, were I older and wiser, or merely wiser, I would have avoided expressing even so moderate an opinion on such a charged topic.
I am not sure how my beliefs earned their interesting parenthetical, but I am relieved to know that you hold me in such high esteem as praise the supremacy of any aspect of my character.
It would, of course, be much easier for me to avoid any of the "serious" discussions here or to preface my every word with disclaimers as to my ignorance, as is the custom of many young Hatrackers, but, had I done so, I would not have merited your praise. Of course, I humbly believe even now that I fall so way short of your estimation of my personage, although I may yet achieve the august levels of personal reprobation and moral failing of which you are so kind in assigning to me.
Of course, I am able to achieve this only through thoughtlessness, as none who disagree with your exalted wisdom could possibly be reckoned a thinker by you.
And now, if I may borrow an interesting ending technique from yourself:—
Summary (of last point)— "All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest " Paul Simon, il miglior fabbro, a thinker whom I may never surpass in your view, much less my own.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:EI JT Spang— I am little prepared to answer your accusations, other than to say that there was little difference in tone between my first post here and the one which you so noncommittally praise, and to which Icarus responded in such anger.
If you truly believe that then you've hit on the crux of why you're received the way you are. You apparently lack the ability to see how your words come off to others.
And ask around -- I have never claimed to be a great thinker or in possession of 'exalted wisdom'. I can think of someone else who's applied several lofty and unearned titles to himself, though.
If you're as smart as you think you are, you'll take my words at face value. I'm not trying to show you up, and I'm not trying to score points off of you to make me look better. Honestly, I can think of dozens of ways to better spend my time. I'm doing it because I think there's a tiny glimmer of something valuable lurking under all that pomposity. I'm no saint, though, so you can bet when you respond the way I'm almost certain you will I'll go right back to ignoring you.
Aside: "noncommittal praise" is an oxymoron. Continually misusing big words is much less impressive than correctly using small ones. Plus it makes you look much less pretentious.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: It is certainly true that Trudeau visited Mr. Castro, but there seems little evidence to suggest that this was more than diplomacy. Trudeau, a moderate Liberal and a Roman Catholic, would be an unlikely bedfellow for Mr. Castro.
That's what I would have thought as well, but the fact that Castro was one of the pallbearers at Trudeau's funeral is interesting to say the least.
Full disclosure: I have something of a soft spot for Pierre Trudeau, because his government gave us the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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And writers in the English language never use oxymorons to make points.
"I can think of someone else who's applied several lofty and unearned titles to himself, though."
Yeah, I'm not a big Idi Amin fan myself.
"If you're as smart as you think you are, you'll take my words at face value."
Whereas if I were as smart as you think I am I would mostly just drool.
"I'm no saint, though, so you can bet when you respond the way I'm almost certain you will I'll go right back to ignoring you."
You have, I am sorry to say, seldom given me reason to regret your silence. I do not dislike you, as I suspect you dislike me. You have rarely, if ever, shown me that you are, in any way, desirous of my friendship. The number of people with whom I am not friends is vastly grater than the number of my friends, but I have learned to accept this.
I have never been comfortable in an I-it relationship (I find ordering food at restraints to be somewhat stressful) and, as you have never given any sign of the respect of an I-thou relationship, I cannot regret the termination on your part of any relationship that currently existed.
I do not bear you any ill-will, but it is clear that, if you truly wish to ignore me, the damage to me, you and this community will be minimal.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mig: Ronald Reagan, his leadership and vision led to the dismantling of the USSR, the greatest threat to, and violator of, human rights and personal liberty in the 20th Century.
Provide evidence to support this hypothesis.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Many political analysts feel the USSR collapsed on it's own, with Reagan policies perhaps slightly hastening it.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:We're certainly not going to hash that out here.
Why not?
quote:Ronald Reagan, his leadership and vision led to the dismantling of the USSR, the greatest threat to, and violator of, human rights and personal liberty in the 20th Century.
I get the sense that in terms of human rights, the Russia of Gorbachev was different than the Russia of Brezhnev which was different than the Russia of Stalin, and that your statement about Russia being the greatest threat to, and violator of, human rights and personal liberty(two very muddled notions) is more or less true depending on which Russia you are talking about.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: EI JT Spang— I am little prepared to answer your accusations, other than to say that there was little difference in tone between my first post here and the one which you so noncommittally praise, and to which Icarus responded in such anger.
What the crap are you talking about? Did you even read my post?!
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Icarus, my post was aimed at EI JT Spang, but I am surprised that you do not feel your first post addressed to me on this thread was angry.
I think we have overcome most of our differences, but, in the post in question you begin by saying that
"You [that is to say I, Pelegius] seriously don't know what the hell you [me again] are talking about. "
move onto say
"Whichever teacher told you otherwise doesn't know jack."
Which is particularly insulting seeing as no teacher has ever told me any such thing. Indeed it was your claim that I was not capable of forming my own ideas that was most insulting.
Finally, you accuse me of " pontificating."
I am very sorry to bring this up again, because I think, as I have stated, that our argument has ended and on a fairly friendly note, but I would like to remind you that we were, unfortunately, not always on such good terms.
"Enjoy life alone, Pel."
Peace be with you as well, my friend, may your life be better without me and your heart more charitably disposed when you have forgotten your anger at me.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
You two stop fighting and go back to bashing me already this si getting boring,
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posted
The sentence I quoted seemed to indicate that I responded in anger to the post that JT praised. I see now that that's not what you meant.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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