12
Apr
2014
More From the “These Feds Are Almost as Bad as Mexicans!” Crew
Maybe the Fox clip in the last post was too subtle. Thank goodness we have Facebook, which is anything but:
And my comment, as well as some others (I blacked out the names):
Note how many Shares the top thing got–that is humongous.
Besides the underlying sentiment here being objectionable, it’s also stupid. The same government that has the power to build fences and surveillance to keep out all those pesky day laborers who don’t speak English very well (though much better than you speak Spanish), has the power to keep you in when they drop the hammer.
Well at this point I’m mad at just about everybody on this issue, so it’s time for bed.
Thus the basic risk of power and corruption as articulated by Lord Acton Acton.
People understand this, but they still want to be able to exert some influence over the priorities of their government and where tax dollars are spent. Government is a protection racket, and cows nibbling grass are low on the list of things people feel threatened by. Random border crossings are somewhat higher on that list, for what I think would be fairly obvious reasons.
I wonder if –oh the irony –Bob misses the irony here. This seems to be mostly a “WTF Are you people crazy, you spend this kind of money, cause this kind of turmoil over some chewed grass, when there’s loads you don’t do?” Kind of a thing. The fed response seems disproportionate, incompetent, and wasteful. A million bucks to round up the cows?
Exactly, it’s a priorities thing.
Of course we all expect government to be “disproportionate, incompetent, and wasteful” but quite a few people think the current regime are worse than average.
That’s like shopkeepers being extorted by the mafia complaining about the don’s wasteful turf war with another gang. Until they refuse to pay the protection money, they’ll have no say in the matter.
So what’s ironic about that?
Since when did government have profit motive. I will tell you right now, they don’t… This is precisely what makes government government.
No profit motive.
No consumer choice.
No competition.
No chance of bankruptcy.
Wala government.
What makes you think you have any control of how “your” tax dollars are spent?
The individuals calling themselves “the government” will act in their own interests. Maybe their interest coincide with yours, maybe they don’t.
Oh boy, you are one of them. ” Once we confiscate your money, it is ours. Shut up and get back in line sonny boy.”
“Well at this point I’m mad at just about everybody on this issue”
The eternal fate of the anarchist.
” Well I slurp hot goo daily”
The eternal fate of the statist.
The more Mexicans in the U.S the less chance a libertarian style party has of success. That’s just my prediction based on what we’ve seen so far.
Surely Bob needs to factor in the increased political depredations we can expect as well as the benefits immigrants bring?
There’s a price for absolutely preferring principle to pragmatism.
Namely, everything you believe in in practice.
It’s up to your friends to pull away your hand when you’re holding a gun to your head.
No.
There is no law that says they have to vote.
That is the liberals.
That tells you exactly where they’re at.
Sometimes being part of the right-wing is simply embarrassing. Anybody in a cowboy hat is a-okay.
This is just stupid. The Bundy guy grazes on public land, but refuses to pay even the way-below-market rates he owes to taxpayers who own the land.
Maybe the government should sell the land, that is another issue. Maybe we should sell the White House to highest bidder too, it would probably bring in $1 billion (oil paintings now sell for $150 million).
But you do not have the right to go into the White House and spend the night for free, just because you say so. That right sells for $250,000.
Freeloaaders be free loadin no matter system.
Even the guys who are “supposed” to be in the White house are free loadin as is the rancher…
The same government that has the power to build fences and surveillance to keep out all those pesky day laborers who don’t speak English very well (though much better than you speak Spanish), has the power to keep you in when they drop the hammer.
1. I recall understanding this essential principle back in 1973. I have never encountered a non-libertarian who could/would understand it or had the slightest interest in thinking about it.
2. This episode is similar to the retired government school teachers I know from A high school church group who are now avowed atheists and are lusting for blood from Hobby Lobby by forcing them to provide birth control to their employees. I tried pointing out that a government that can force you to provide birth control can also ban it and lock you away for using it. I don’t think I got through.
3. On a related topic, people who say stuff like this:
“the minimum wage should be seen as one of a set of PUBLIC POLICY TOOLS [emphasis added] aimed at improving the standard of living of the less well-off, and moderate increases in the minimum wage would likely aid low income individuals and families with acceptable costs to the nation”
are callous about abandoning the normal rules protecting person and property and unleashing the vicious insanity of the “criminal justice system” with its SWAT teams, cages, bullying cops, and prison guard unions. They do not seem to realize that if there are “public policy tools” like this, then there is nothing to stop the next regime from cranking up the minimum wage extremely high in order to expressly protect entrenched interests and harm the poor. And all to solve a problem that does not even exist.
I have never encountered a non-libertarian who could/would understand it or had the slightest interest in thinking about it.
I was in this place before, and I can help.
It’s not that we haven’t thought about it. We’re aware of Socialist countries that have done this.
It’s that we’re assuming that our representatives’ intentions, for the most part, are to obey the Constitution which, if done, would prevent such tyranny from occuring, so there’s no need to worry about it at this particular point.
We’re also assuming that most of the country understands the Constitution and values individual liberty, and that they will attempt to defend themselves from unconstitutional encroachments of power.
What we’re not aware of is that because of word games, the enemies of individual liberty have pretty much destroyed all of the checks and balances that were set up by our Founders, and our representatives pretty much do whatever the hell they want.
AND, of course, we don’t notice the theft that happens due to the printing of money. We are literally taking an active role in the destruction of our liberties by using that printed money; It is impossible to not do so.
Conservatives believe in individual liberty. In fact, we believe in it so much that when we believe that government is necessary to secure that liberty, we favor government interventions.
😀
But the good news is that if we were to ever believe that those government interventions solved a problem that a prior intervention caused, we’d want to get rid of the prior regulation.
Teach us Austrian Economics. I believe it’s the only way to reach us.
Bob writes:
“the normal rules protecting person and property”
You’re not actually talking about the ‘normal’ rules are you. You’re talking about the rules which exist in your imaginary alternative society based on rothbardian ideas.
In the real world, of course, the ‘normal’ rules protecting people and property are enforced by the criminal justice system, prisons, cops, swat teams and prison guards.
The “normal rules” are propagated by normal people who understand and respect private property. There is not enough government in the world to prevent total breakdown if everybody ignored Natural law… Rothbard was merely articulating the obvious, he invented NOTHING.
“The “normal rules” are propagated by normal people”
Bob wants to abolish the government and the law, and create a rothbardian ‘anarcho-capitalist’ society. Most people do not want to do that.
If most people are defined as “normal”, that makes Bob and his beliefs “abnormal”.
Actually, Bob wants to abolish the state and statute. I’m pretty sure he wants to keep government and law, every anarcho-libertarian I know is highly in favor of these things.
* the state and statute, i.e. monopoly of government and arbitrary law.
“I thought the law originally designed to protect and perpetuate an anarcho capitalist society”
Which law are you referring to?
Joseph,
“I’m pretty sure he wants to keep government and law”
what kind of ‘government’ do you mean?
And what kind of “law”. Not statute law, not common law, not Napoleonic law, not the code of Hamurabi.
A non-monopolistic one, one that does not create arbitrary law (as opposed to laws that are universalizable and non-contradictory).
I imagine that you conflate government with the state, which I think is incorrect. However, since I don’t feel like explaining things right now, instead I’ll just copy and paste a response I made to somebody else some time ago regarding this topic.
“That the state has served the role of the government of society is no implication upon the term “government” with regard to the term’s meaning. Since you’ve used the terms “state” and “government” synonymously, I must address this error.
If you have any sort of normative order, say, that of property rights itself (or more specifically, that of libertarian property rights), then that is a governing order, it’s a system of government that prevails in a society. The only difference is that these norms (or “ought” statements) are apodictic rather than simply dictated statements. Obviously, in the case of the state, this is entirely reversed, the laws that are dictated are merely statements–more specifically they are dictates (statutes) by the monopoly on governance; the state–but they are certainly not apodictically true, thus they do not meet the criteria of “laws” at all, they are arbitrary dictates.
The same dynamic also finds itself present in the realm of positive statements, such as that of economics. Economics itself relies upon certain laws and understandings, that of which is always grounded in positive or *is* statements. Certainly the *laws* of economics govern (steer/guide) the actions of men in a world of scarce resources, this is necessarily the case because such laws are apodictically true. Economics is nothing other than the study of the government of humans acting in a world of scarcity, and indeed, one cannot violate the laws of economics: It’s literally impossible to do so. But one could certainly say that the laws of economics comprise a government of human affairs (that these laws govern the reality of man vs nature, that they are apodictically true laws, one cannot contradict them in action).
One must ultimately understand the etymology of words, as well as the evolution of language, in order to find meaning in the same. In the case of the term “govern”, it is a verb that simply means to steer or guide people or things. At it’s root, it is formed from the idea that certain laws prevail or are true in reality. For instance, it would not be too bold to say that the law of supply and demand governs prices, or that the law of gravity governs the attractive relationship of bodies. This is obviously true. However, for some reason, the verb “govern” takes a twisted turn in many people’s mind once you modify it with the suffix “-ment” to become a noun.
It is this noun-character (as well as the reality of the state) that often leads people to conflate “government” with the “state”. They are both nouns, after all, and certainly the state has undertaken the government of society throughout a great part of human history. But it takes one of more astute care and attention to realize what is going on here.
The “state” is an actual entity (at least it is linguistically referred to as an entity), so it is a concrete noun, whereas “government” is an abstract noun, which is a concept. It takes a great understanding of the grammatical rules that “govern” the English language to understand how verbs, adjectives, and nouns interact with one another when it comes to their modifications, especially those of suffixes.
Probably the best words to use as analogues to the word “govern” are those of the words “excite” and “entice”. These are transitive verbs, just like that of the word “govern”, and they require a certain *object* (or objects) in order for reference to them. One simply cannot use a transitive verb without referring to some *thing*. So let’s modify them into abstract nouns!
In order to stay consistent, I will modify all of these transitive verbs into abstract nouns by the usage of the modifying suffix “-ment” (which is defined as, “forming nouns expressing the result or means of action”). Since English grammar is the governing structure that gives meaning to the words of English, the point should be quite clear.
The transitive verbs “excite” and “entice” are modified into the abstract nouns “excitement” and “enticement”. Clearly, we could not conflate these abstract nouns with common or proper nouns, such that we could call the “state” the “excitement” or the “enticement”, rather we are left with resorting to using the preposition “of” to combine the two. So it is perfectly acceptable to say something like “the excitement/enticement of the state”, but it is not acceptable to refer to the state as “the excitement/enticement”. The same is true of the word “government”, it cannot be used as a synonym for an entity because of its grammatical nature (i.e. abstract nouns vs common/proper nouns).”
I fell into it myself, so let me rephrase. The non-monopolistic sort, the sort that does not create arbitrary law.
To understand what libertarians mean when they talk about law, check this article:
http://freenation.org/a/f42l1.html
I thought the law originally designed to protect and perpetuate an anarcho capitalist society as this the closest to natural law?
I thought law was created in the image of nature?
“I thought law was created in the image of nature?”
Have you ever looked at nature? It generally involves things trying to kill and consume other things, without any notion of consent or ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’.
You are missing the point, where in nature is the central planner with a monopoly of force?
I’m missing your point.
Is your point that ‘in nature’ there is no central authority with a monopoly of force, therefore there shouldn’t be one in human societies either?
Turn on the television.
Find the channel where they are talking about the government having trouble enforcing the statute because it is misalignment with the ‘law.’
the statute can be found to be misaligned with the Constitution, which is the “supreme law” of the US.
Or how bout just the rules before the blm put themselves on this disastrous destiny where the rules are what they can manage to enforce.
May those are the “normal rules” and not the imaginary ones in Philips imagination.
Bob you are falling for the greatest trick of all time, MORE CENTRALIZATION.
The BLM is not immigration, border patrol, ice, etc.
Federal government is highly compartmentalized, thank goodness.
This does go to show you how many BLM agents are just sitting around with nothing more important to do. Maybe a few dozen should be let go…
Hey look over here at my right hand ( cowboys and Indians) not over here at my left hand ( WW3)
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/12/america-sends-missile-destroying-warship-into-russ.aspx
Bob wrote:
“Besides the underlying sentiment here being objectionable, it’s also stupid. The same government that has the power to build fences and surveillance to keep out all those pesky day laborers… has the power to keep you in when they drop the hammer.”
How does that make the ‘underlying sentiment’ stupid?
Most people want a government to exist, and they want it to maintain law and order. That doesn’t mean they necessarily agree with everything it does. They also recognize that if they personally break the law, they too could go to prison, or be denied exit from the country. There’s nothing stupid about that in itself.
“Most people want a government to exist.”
No, most people think that a government MUST exist. The average person doesn’t go searching for governments like he searches for food or housing.
Do you think people go searching for water because they want water, or because they think that they MUST have water?
People are capable of imagining a world without what we call ‘a government’. They tend to think it would be messed up. Or that a de facto government would emerge in the form of warlords and gangs.
You guys say no, it could be fine. But essentially the de facto government in your imaginary world is just corporations and plutocrats.
In a market all dollars are equal. In our system we hive off, imperfectly to be sure, some concerns and try to make persons equal instead. Trials for instance. We go so far as to make paying jurors a crime.
The rothbardians want to make unrestricted markets the mechanism for everything.
In our system we hive off, imperfectly to be sure, some concerns and try to make persons equal instead.
Equal in treatment by the government was the goal, not making people equal to each other:
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
…
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. … The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
…
The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.
…
Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government [a pure democracy], have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
…
A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
The Federalist No. 10
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
Sorry.
“In a market all dollars are equal”
What about people who are excluded for reasons such as race, sexuality, or for just being an ‘outsider’?
You don’t get to force people to do business with you.
“You don’t get to force people to do business with you”
You are not forced to operate a business within the US, but you are required to abide by certain rules if you choose to do so.
… but you are required to abide by certain rules if you choose to do so.
Required by whom? And by what authority does he claim the right to do so?
Are you asking that about contracts guest? Because it seems a good question for Rothbardians.
“Required by whom?”
The law.
“And by what authority does he claim the right to do so?”
By the authority of finders keepers losers weepers.
he he, that sounds like something someone on ‘lord of the flies’ island would say.
Which is also known as the doctrine of Total War.
No prisoners, no surrender, use all available tactics regardless of consequences, give no quarter, make no truce, and any truce you do make is to be broken when convenient anyways.
Thanks for being honest with us.
oh you didn’t get that I was joking.
finders keepers losers weepers is the basis of rothbardian ideology. Find a bit of land, stick a fence around it, and then you are morally justified in violently attacking anyone who tries to use it without your permission.
The law.
Non-persons cannot be owed anything.
By the authority of finders keepers losers weepers.
I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re not, here, admitting that your view is that it is OK to initiate violence; but rather your intention is to make the claim that this is my view.
My view is that it is wrong to initiate violence, so no, that is not my view.
finders keepers losers weepers is the basis of rothbardian ideology.
No, that is not the basis.
Find a bit of land, stick a fence around it, and then you are morally justified in violently attacking anyone who tries to use it without your permission.
The alternative is absurd: Someone transforms something, but someone else gets to tell him what to do with the result.
That’s slavery.
“My view is that it is wrong to initiate violence”
Your view is that it’s ok to threaten and violently attack people if you have unilaterally declared a piece of land to be your property and done something like stick a fence around it, and they then come on to that land without your permission.
“Someone transforms something, but someone else gets to tell him what to do with the result. That’s slavery”
In this case no one forced the person to transform something. The person is not owned as property by someone else. So no, it does not fit any of the definitions of slavery.
But our current government is warlords and gangs.
Oh, right. Deep.
Just look.
People want water because they are thirsty or dirty and therefore crave water. IT is basically instinctual.
On the other had, I can honestly say I have never ever craved government. Not once.
When have you been without it?
Without what? What is the it you refer? Water, government, sanity what?
Maybe, in so far as people view water as a “necessary evil”.
Jeez Bob…it looks like the Feds decided to resolve the issue peacefully by backing down…thus ending your narrative….its been fun huh?
And yes…probably every white person who was there defending that rancher would have been happy to turn those same federal resources against those scummy illegals….or just shoot them themselves.
If you want to have a society that is both prosperous and politically unique from your neighbors, you are inevitably going to have to exclude people. Since the overwhelming majority of people do not have a functional theory of political economy, Foreign immigrants, whether Mexican, African, or European, [with rare exceptions] carry their political baggage with them. Demographic shifts in a democratic society will ultimately trump every other form of political change. If you advocate open borders, you must also accept that these newcomers can and very likely will vote all of your freedoms away.
The reason the federal government went so far to stop this rancher is largely the same reason it spends so little effort dealing with illegals, or the undocumented, or whatever you wish to call them. The former represents an opportunity by the bureaucracy to exercise it’s power over citizens. The latter represents an opportunity for America’s inner party to increase it’s political capital. There is no contradiction.
Ultimately unless all elections are abolished for good, which is very unlikely, there can be no open borders libertarians.
Yes!
All the Canadians I know will tell you they aren’t not enforcing immigration restrictions.
just finished reading the first part of ‘chaos theory’.
it’s kinda funny I guess. But quite sad too.
I noticed this oddity on page 30:
“Regular people understand the waste and senselessness of conflict; they will go to great lengths and make great compromises to achieve consensus. For example, despite the lack of a formal government, newly arriving miners during the California gold rushes respected the claims of earlier settlers.”
… apart from the claims of earlier settlers with brown skins (indians), who they robbed, killed and enslaved.
From a govt shill website, the University of California, some photo shopped pictures of the era.
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_collections/subtopic1a.html
Even they have to admit though that some men were “rescued from authority.”
Hey, Philippe, maybe you should show some bit of humility when discussing these issues considering you either don’t have a theory on how to determine the rightful owner of property, or you don’t believe it is possible to determine a rightful owner of any property.
Not to mention that I didn’t ridicule you when you explained that your view is simply that whoever happens to be in possession of a piece of property is the owner unless someone else is able to take it from them. Kind of a “might makes ownership, but we can’t determine whether it’s right or not” theory.
you don’t know whether someone is the ‘rightful owner’ of something or not, you just have a theory. You may believe in your particular theory but plenty of others don’t. You guys even disagree amongst yourselves on the subject. Maybe there is no such thing as a ‘rightful owner’ of something. You don’t actually know.
I noticed this on page 30:
“Some readers may wonder how I can propose a replacement for the State’s “justice” system when I haven’t first offered a rational theory of the source and nature of legitimate property rights. The answer is simple: I don’t have such a theory. nonetheless, I can still say that a market system of private law would work far more effectively than the state alternative, and that the standard objections to anarchy are unfounded.”
Does Murphy not have a “theory of the source and nature of legitimate property rights”?
regarding the Bundy affair, I was mistaken in thinking that he claimed the land in question was his property. In fact he has made no such claim. He claims that the land belongs to the state of Nevada, not the federal government.
More pertinently, he claims he had a deal.
It was fine for both cow and turtle.
Then they changed the deal in order to put him out of business with arbitrary rule changes.
So, he chose to stop paying them money to pay them for putting him out of business.
There are many such theories. What’s yours?
Spoken like a true antipropertyanarchist commy..
that’s funny because I’m neither an anarchist, a commie, nor anti-property – though I don’t believe that property claims are absolute moral categories. I generally disagree with rothbardian and other extreme-right-wing so-called libertarian ideologies.
Philippe, please clarify. Is Dan’s characterization of your view on owenership accurate? Do you believe possession is ownership and might makes right? Because I suspect your words are getting the usual Dan treatment here.
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/04/feds-may-move-against-nevada-rancher-this-weekend.html#comment-414875
Ken, one of the many differences between me and you is I have more important shit to do than troll some guy I don’t know on the Internet.
I don’t believe that might makes right.
You’ve been Danned.
The word will appear in the next version of Websters.
For anybody who doesn’t realize how Ken is just a dull-witted troll, and doesn’t feel like verifying my claim from the link, I’ll help clarify the matter. First, I specifically pointed out that Philippe doesn’t believe that might makes right, because he doesn’t have a theory for determining a rightful owner, or possibly doesn’t believe you can even determine whether someone is the rightful owner. I claimed that Philippe believed that simply whoever happens to be in possession of a piece of property is the owner unless someone else is able to take it from them. But I don’t blame Ken for missing that distinction considering his excruciatingly awful reading comprehension ability combined with his never ending desire to troll everyone he comes across.
So, does Philippe believe that an owner is whoever happens to be in physical possession of a piece of property unless someone is able to take it from them? Here is what he said,
“How they resolve their disagreement ends up determining who actually owns or doesn’t own that thing in reality.
For example, an anarcho-capitalist man ‘homesteads’ a patch of land he thinks is empty. Then a tribe of men come along and tell him to get off their ancestral lands. He tells them to leave him alone or he’ll shoot. They proceed to knock over his fence and his tomatoes and move towards him with knives drawn, and he shoots them dead. He now claims the property as his own.”
I tried to get him to clarify his position, so that I wouldn’t be misinterpreting what he meant to say by asking,
“if Cliven Bundy is able to use violence or other means to get the State to back down and leave that land, then Bundy would be the owner of the land in reality, correct?”
Philippe’s response,
I hesitate to say yes, because I can’t see any means by which he would be able to establish it as a fact through violence. If he were able to defend his claim in the courts and defeat the government that way, then he would be the owner in fact.
Me trying to get further clarification,
“Then I’m a little confused. In the example you have with the anarchist vs the tribe, the anarchist owned the land because he was able to physically defend it from the tribe, according to you.
I gave an example where Bundy was analogous to the anarchist and the US government is analogous to the tribe. But when Clive fights off the US government he isn’t the owner, and he won’t be the owner until they decide he is.
Why wouldn’t the anarchist have to get permission from the tribe, through their court system, but Bundy has to get permission from the US government? Or asked another way, why does the anarchist become the owner by physically defending the land, but Bundy doesn’t become the owner if he can physically defend the land?”
Philippe’s response,
“in my example both the anarcho-capitalist and the tribe believe that the land belongs to them, and the anarcho-capitalist’s use of force effectively settles the matter by killing (or, alternatively, scaring off) the opposition. He believes he is acting in self defence, whilst they believe he is aggressing against them.”
I tried again to get further clarification,
“OK, so the anarchist owns the land in your example because he thinks he owns it and was able to fight off the tribe.
So, if Clive thinks he owns the land, and is able to fight off the government (it doesn’t matter how likely this is. I’m simply presenting a hypothetical to better understand your position) then that means he is the owner as far as your concerned, right? I mean, my scenario is analogous to the one you presented so I’m not sure why you wouldn’t agree.”
Philippe’s response,
“Hypothetically, yes. But it’s not realistic. Does he establish his patch as the independent territory of Bundystan, spend his entire life there, somehow repelling every intrusion by the various forces of the United States? How does he survive in this situation? The answer is it doesn’t happen. Instead he just finds himself in jail, or worse.”
Now, you’ll notice that even though Philippe’s first response was very clear on what he believed made someone an owner, I thought I should give him an opportunity to clarify his position, and see if I was missing any nuance. And if Philippe wants to modify his position, then that’s cool with me, but I can’t see how I’m possibly misinterpreting the words he wrote in our discussion. So when Ken says he got the Dan treatment, I agree in that I tried to understand his position and then moved on without feeling the need to get in an argument even though I disagreed very strongly with his view. This is a difficult concept for Ken for some reason.
Philippe did not say rightful owner. He said owner.
He did not thereby imply might makes right. He was noting that ownership is not always a matter of right. Not a hard idea to grasp when the discussion is about how you decide competing claims.
I asked him. He replied. You were wrong.
Man you are really slow. I never said he said might makes right. I specifically pointed out that he didn’t in both our discussion and on this thread twice. Learn how to read. I claimed that Philippe believed that simply whoever happens to be in possession of a piece of property is the owner unless someone else is able to take it from them.
my basic point, as I said above, is that your theory of property is a theory. You don’t know whether it is correct because you can’t actually know that. You might believe that it is correct or feel that it is true, or think that it is logical and coherent, but this is different to knowing whether it is certainly true (beyond doubt).
if two people claim to own something and each person has a theory as to why it belongs to them, how do you resolve that? How do you decide who is the ‘real’ owner, or the legitimate owner, or if there even is a legitimate owner?
Right-Libertarians say “the one who first homesteaded it (i.e. did something like stick a fence around it) is the legitimate owner”
OK, but not everyone agrees with that theory. Someone might argue, for example, that unilaterally deciding to put a fence around a bit of land doesn’t give you the right to exclude other people from it for the rest of time. Or someone might argue that the land is theirs but they chose to leave it in a state of nature (the tribe in my example).
So you have a basic conflict of ideas here which can’t be resolved by logic because the basic beliefs are different.
So how do you resolve the disagreement?
You could compromise and make a deal. Half each, for example. In that case the de facto owner(s) would be determined by that compromise – not by one particular theory of property rights.
Or one of the parties, or both, might resort to the use of force, in which case the de facto owner would be determined by the use of force and not by an individual theory of property rights.
In reality, this is how ownership has been determined through history. People with different beliefs about ownership (or lack thereof) come into conflict and the conflict can’t be resolved through recourse to a particular theory because the fundamental beliefs of the parties involved are different. So de facto ownership is determined instead by compromise, which could be political in nature, or by force. This has happened over and over again throughout history.
What do you think Dan?
Philippe, I understand that is your position. I don’t agree with it, but I doubt we’ll ever see eye to eye on property rights. I was simply making sure people knew that Ken was doing his typical trolling with his BS comments.
He was noting that ownership is not always a matter of right.
Ownership and possession are two different things. This distinction is why we have the concept of “theft”.
Ownership IS a matter of right.
Your view is that Philippe was talking about mere possession.
But I think we would all agree on how to determine who has possession of something.
Or someone might argue that the land is theirs but they chose to leave it in a state of nature (the tribe in my example).
Unless they use it for recreation, they haven’t mixed their labor with it.
So what do you do if someone else comes along and claims the same land as their property?
You could compromise and make a deal. Half each, for example. In that case the de facto owner(s) would be determined by that compromise – not by one particular theory of property rights.
Except that what you are proposing is ITSELF “one particular theory”.
It is a compromise between two particular theories, to be sure; But it is also a third theory.
Why does a compromise determine ownership? Which of them has the authority over the land such that he has a right to even offer a compromise.
It’s like the joke about someone selling the Golden Gate Bridge. Unless you own something, you can’t sell it OR offer a compromise over its use.
“But it is also a third theory”
not really, it’s a way to avoid conflict between people with different views.
“Why does a compromise determine ownership?”
so as to avoid conflict.
“Which of them has the authority over the land”
That’s the point, both claim authority for different reasons.
not really, it’s a way to avoid conflict between people with different views.
But people can have different views about compromise positions, as well.
So yes it is a third view.
Dan,
why do you disagree exactly?
Gene Callahan made a similar argument here:
http://gene-callahan.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/confessions-of-recovering-ideologue.html
I disagree because I believe you can determine who is the rightful owner of property and I believe that Bob Murphy’s Chaos Theory spells out a much better system than the State alternative. You can check out that link I recommended for Keshav in that other post to get a better understanding of what I believe is the proper way to determine who is the rightful owner of property.
Philippe,
If we told you that the vast majority of the problems you think you have with the free market are actually the result of government interventions, would you be interested in exploring that idea further?
If so, I would suggest the following:
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Lecture 8 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Myths and Facts About Big Business
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGeA1Sbd4XM
It’s all audio, unfortunately, so I’ll understand if that doesn’t sound like something that would interest you.
I can think of others, if that’s the case, but I really like the arguments in this one.
An outstanding post by Gene, really first rate. Thanks for the link Philippe.
Dan, I looked at the links in the first note of the Kinsella article, and it looks like the only justification given is a justification through argumentation ethics, and I find argumentation ethics thoroughly unconvincing. I’m skeptical of the use of performative contradictions in praxeology, but their use in argumentation ethics seems ridiculous to me.
Hoppe, for instance, argues that by engaging in an argument with someone, you’re implicitly conceding that the other person has an inalienable right to free speech. But that doesn’t follow at all. You could believe any number of things about the extent to which they have a right to speak, for instance that they’re allowed to argue only if they meet basic standards of decency. Kinsella pushes things even further, arguing that if someone attacks you, then they’ve conceded that it’s acceptable to violate the body of another person, so they can’t protest if you retaliate. But there are any number of possible views the attacker might have such that hIs attack was justified and yours would not be, e.g. that people who believe in the true religion can attack people who believe in false religions. And even if argumentation ethics were right about what people are implicitly conceding, that says nothing at all about the truth of what is conceded.
I think Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan (back when he was an anarchist) did a good job of refuting argumentation ethics in this paper:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_3.pdf
“Dan, I looked at the links in the first note of the Kinsella article, and it looks like the only justification given is a justification through argumentation ethics, and I find argumentation ethics thoroughly unconvincing. I’m skeptical of the use of performative contradictions in praxeology, but their use in argumentation ethics seems ridiculous to me.”
That’s cool. I didn’t think you’d be convinced by their argument. I was just showing you how some libertarians look at the issue. I’m sure that your justification for your brand of property rights theory would be unconvincing to me, as well.
Dan, do you find argumentation ethics convincing? If so, how would you respond to the criticisms of Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan?
Yeah, I find it convincing. I think that is an area where libertarians (as well as every other political philosophy) can improve on further, though.
I’m not sure how I would respond to that paper anymore. I’d have to spend at least a month, maybe more, diving back into that debate to feel like I could give an adequate response to your question. Kinsella gave his response to it that you’d be able to check out, though. I’m not trying to dodge your question but I don’t like pontificating about stuff I feel I’m rusty on, and I don’t have the time to study that stuff right now.
Keshav,
If you are looking for some rebuttals to Murphy’s critique check out some papers by Frank van Dun and Marian Eabrasu.
There are far more resources on the Southern border. The photo shows a helicopter and a few SUVs. You don’t think there is a helicopter and a few SUV’s guarding the Mexican border? This is laughable. Just another example of white men desperate to play the “we’re oppressed” card. Get a life.
White man is the only group that has not achieved protected statis…
Joe doesn’t understand ratios or species.
How is it possible to not understand that the subject matter of strict enforcement of the NAP is a separate and distinct topic from the content of the bylaws governing a voluntary community? How does strict enforcement of the NAP and a prohibition on fraud (which everyone who lives in a safe US neighborhood already understands and practices on a daily basis) lead to fraud and corruption in the provision of voluntarily arranged court services? Are the people making these idiotic assertions that dense or do they just want to be contrary for its own sake?
As someone once said (or should have said): “Moderation in the pursuit of trolls is no vice”.
http://img0.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.49028741.jpg
I think the open border position is a deathwish. I tend to follow the Rothbard/Hoppe line on immigration but even if people would prove that libertarian logic absolutely denies any right to exclude people from a country I would still oppose open borders of any sort.
Strategically it is disaster for libertarians and yet they seem to champion this position much more heavily than other libertarian positions that would be far less popular if libertarians spoke of them. Here I’m thinking of the right discriminate against women whether through sheer exclusion or harrasment, etc. Or the repeal of the civil rights act. Yet quite a few libertarians,especially many established libertarians, think some safetynet is fine but don’t make too many concessions on immigration.
I say this despite being the son of immigrations from Africa. Libertarians refuse to even acknowledge what a disaster this is for a free society. As Samuel Huntington said
“Would America be the America it is today if in the 17th and 18th centuries it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish, or Portuguese Catholics? The answer is no. It would not be America; it would be Quebec, Mexico, or Brazil”
Does these sort of concerns even register for any libertarians here?
Sure.
I don’t think it is a political calculation. That would be a compliment.
Liberals will never like libertarians, and why would we thumb our noses at conservatives?
Maybe you refer to the cosmopolitan libertarians.
I have offered immigration tax and citizen tenure to the sound of crickets. Everything is politics to the left and right. No interest in solutions.
They do not want to win Sam. They prefer to lose and feel righteous and ignored and oppressed.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/12/beef-prices-reach-highest-level-since-1987/7636881/
Probably unrelated to anything that happens on a ranch, and certainly nothing to do with inflation; but those fixprice goods are now at a higher fixed price, and strangely enough consumer behaviour seems to be affected by that.