I thought we stopped believing in ‘might makes right’ like a few hundred years ago?
You can or cannot believe in it all you want. I stopped believing in God many years ago. But this is how the world works, and probably always will.
Might does make right. How do you think states exist in the first place?
That’s why democracy and capitalism were so progressive above feudal monarchies, and feudal/slave republics; it took the might out of the hands of the landed aristocracy and attempted to put it in the hands of the legal system. Now… if we could just get it out of the hands of the moneyed aristocracy…
"I would say this is (empirically) wrong. All mankind has ‘a’ notion of property - even communists - but it doesn’t follow that it’s the libertarian concept of property, nor is it true that only the absolute property concept of libertarians can sustain life. Limited property, limited homesteading and limited self-ownership has been the norm allthroughout history, as far as I see. (Even the concept of ’ self ownership’ is relatively new.) "
Wait, what? I didn’t mention a specifically libertarian or an absolute conception of propery/self-ownership/homesteading did I? I don’t think anything I said in that post is inconsistent with what you’ve said in this one…
I’m sorry, but if ‘might makes right’, how can you criticize anything anywhere? It was right, because it was performed.
Why get it out of the ‘moneyed aristocracy’? They aren’t doing anything wrong, in your view. They have the might, so they are right. What someone can do, he’s allowed to do.
“Wait, what? I didn’t mention a specifically libertarian or an absolute conception of propery/self-ownership/homesteading did I? I don’t think anything I said in that post is inconsistent with what you’ve said in this one…”
Than we have no quarrel. Take it as a clarification?
I’m sorry, but if ‘might makes right’, how can you criticize anything anywhere? It was right, because it was performed.
Because, once again, I am not speaking of my own ethics. Only the ethics of society at large (and I understand you may have some MI issues with that).
Basically as an analogy, I would put it like this; abolitionists were not right, according to the society of the time, until they siezed the reigns of power and made it right.
Why get it out of the ‘moneyed aristocracy’? They aren’t doing anything wrong, in your view. They have the might, so they are right. What someone can do, he’s allowed to do.
They are doing something wrong in my view. But I have no power. To society at large, they are doing nothing wrong.
And why is ‘having power’ a sufficient and necessary clause to be able to perform ethical actions?
Take for example the guy who tried to preach that their may be other planets with other living beings on them sometime in the middle ages (the incident is slipping my mind). He was burned at the stake for it.
He was right (there MAY BE other planets). But what did it matter to feudal society? Nothing, because he had no power. Democracy and capitalism only became fashionable because of the growing power of the non-aristocratic middle/merchant class. Prior to their growth of power, most democratic movements went absolutely nowhere.
It’s not that you can’t perform such actions on an individual level w/o power… go ahead and try. I do everyday when I bring brownies to strikers, etc. But what will society care if you don’t have sufficient power to back it up? Nothing. The status quo will live on.
But why is everything that one ‘might’ is ‘right’? Can you give an argument for this, or is this just an assumption?
You can see my argument above. But it’s mostly just an observation (not an assumption). Do you think it any coincedence that the Roosevelts (highly acclaimed amongst many progressives) and their concurrent trust busting and New Deal, were from one of the richest families in capitalism? It’s not… workers were gaining power. Concessions had to be made.
Money is power, and concurrently all politics is economics.
"He was right (there MAY BE other planets). But what did it matter to feudal society? Nothing, because he had no power. Democracy and capitalism only became fashionable because of the growing power of the non-aristocratic middle/merchant class. Prior to their growth of power, most democratic movements went absolutely nowhere.
It’s not that you can’t perform such actions on an individual level w/o power… go ahead and try. I do everyday when I bring brownies to strikers, etc. But what will society care if you don’t have sufficient power to back it up? Nothing. The status quo will live on."
That is true. But why does that make it right? Again: you are just saying ‘whoever has the power to do something, can do something and therefore it is right’. I get everything until the ‘and’ it that sentence. I need you to provide an argument for why it is right? Why is ‘being able to do something’ a sufficient and necessary reason for us to consider that ‘something’ to be morally right?
Because that’s what you are arguing, but I don’t see any reason why you would say that.
"You can see my argument above. But it’s mostly just an observation (not an assumption). Do you think it any coincedence that the Roosevelts (highly acclaimed amongst many progressives) and their concurrent trust busting and New Deal, were from one of the richest families in capitalism? It’s not… workers were gaining power. Concessions had to be made.
Money is power, and concurrently all politics is economics."
That is true. But why does that make it right? Again: you are just saying ‘whoever has the power to do something, can do something and therefore it is right’. I get everything until the ‘and’ it that sentence. I need you to provide an argument for why it is right? Why is ‘being able to do something’ a sufficient and necessary reason for us to consider that ‘something’ to be morally right?
It’s not. I guess what I was saying is that, in politics, “moral” “right” and “ethical” are nonsense. Things are going to happen based on what those in power want to happen.
<= I’m sorry, but I fail to see the argument.
Sorry, it was a response to the “moneyed aristocracy” thing. We need to get the power out of the hands of the moneyed aristocracy because money is power, and all politics is economics.
(On a side note; I am using “is” in the right context there, correct? Or should i be using “are?”)
Both of those links contain within them many more to other sources. I would also recommend his monograph Against Intellectual Property, as it goes into this concept and elaborates on it to the conclusion of the title. You can download it in many different formats (e.g. pdf, audio, etc) here.
Well, I would say that you are just begging the question again. The first sentence is obviously correct - that’s the idea of justice, shared by everyone. The problem is, however, how to connect this general idea of justice to a specific interpretation of justice. What you need to answer is this: why is it so that the first owner retains (legitimate) ownership in all circumstances except the ones where he voluntarily transfers it to someone else? I agree with what you are saying, I just don’t think you are proving it.
Hmm… I guess I don’t really see your point here. It seems axiomatic to me that once ownership is attained by a person over a thing, it remains with that person until he no longer wants it. Also keep in mind that I’ve defined “ownership” as being necessarily legitimate, so speaking of “legitimate ownership” is a pleonasm and speaking of “illegitimate ownership” is an oxymoron.
Maybe it’s better to think of ownership as something that’s continuously exerted or established from one moment to the next? Would that help at all?
With such general wording, doesn’t this inherently open the queston of usufrunct and abandonment thresholds? I don’t see how it can be the case that all ownership is by defacto continuously exerted, even if it is continuously upheld/respected legally. The very nature of such a concept as abandonment involves incontinuity in property, and is not purely reducible to owner’s intent.
Once one gets rid of the concept of Property with a capital P, it becomes pretty clear that ownership in the most basic sense is multi-faceted relative to the uses and norms that people intertwine with it. A sober description of ownership reveals contradictions in the myriad of forms and functions that it may have, which forces one to engage in dichotomous favoritism and place limitations on any normative concept of property.
Yeah, ‘ownership’ implies ‘legitimacy’. We can define it like that and I can agree with that definition. Here is the crux, however: the specific interpretation of ownership that is libertarian obviously is different than other interpretations. It’s not that a Rawlsian, for example, denies (legitimate) ownership. He just defines it differently. You can have legitimate ownership if and only if it serves the purpose of justice, defined in the Rawlsian sense. Marxist theories have also ‘a’ theory of ownership - going from ‘the community’ to some sort of any kind of ownership as long as there is no wage labour.
The question is, thus, how can we proof that our concept of ownership is the one that is ‘correct’ in an ‘ought’ kind of way?
You say ‘it seems axiomatic’ - (axiom: “a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established,accepted, or self-evidently true”) - but it’s clear it’s not (as) self-evidently true for a lot of people. It’s true for you and I agree with that it’s true. But I don’t think it’s that ‘self-evidently’ as, say, 1+1 =2.
Saying ‘it is axiomatic’ isn’t a proof, it’s just asserting that it is self-evident for you. If you can proof that denying it, makes no sense, than we have a proof. For instance: someone who denies that A = A or claims that A = Not A can be proven, by logic, that he’s wrong. But on the face of it: denying the absolute concept of property of libertarians doesn’t seem all that problematic. If you want to proof that the absolute concept of property is correct, you have to proof why it is true or why denying it is wrong. Saying ‘I take it for granted’ isn’t really an argument, as far as I see.
Again; I agree with your conclusions, I just don’t think you’ve given a good argument for them.
I’m not trying to bug you or anything. I’m trying to challenge you to make a clear and concise argument. Try to proof why it’s necessarily correct or why denying it is necessarily wrong. If you can do that, than we have a solid argument.
I would say that, if ownership is merely defined as “legitimate control” (as I’ve defined it), then the issue lies with the specific interpretation of “legitimate”. Yes, the libertarian interpretation of “legitimate” is obviously different from other interpretations. However, no one can prove any particular interpretation, including the libertarian one, as correct. One can only assume a particular interpretation as a premise, as I have done.
Oh, strictly speaking, we can’t. The is-ought problem is insurmountable. The best we can do is prove whether our concept of “ownership” logically follows from the premises we’ve set down.
Well, I’d say that it’s denial of the libertarian concept of “legitimacy” that doesn’t seem all that problematic.
My implicit analogy, however, was with control. One either exerts/establishes control over something or he doesn’t. Exertion/establishment of control requires human action, as does refrainment from doing so. Furthermore, relinquishingcontrol – that is, refraining from continuing control after it has already been established – also requires human action. And if this is the case with control, it must be the case with legitimate control, or ownership.
< < All while ignoring the reasoning that goes into it. > >
There is no reasoning that goes with it. That is the point.
There are arguments and retoric to convince people to assume it to be true but there is no reasoning that changes the FACT that it is nothing more than an assumption.
< < Natural rights are based upon observation, not assumption or belief system.
That we own ourselves, in the state of nature, is a simple fact. > >
What you just said is patently absurd.
If the King locks you up in his dungeon, any observation would imply that he owns you. Any intelligent analysis of the concept of ownership would imply the same. So, what you observe to be self-evident is purely you hiding your assumptions.
Your assumption is that I am threatening your rightful ownership of your body – in libertarian world, that is how we think.
The King’s assumption is that he is exercising his rightful ownershiip over you, his subject, his property.
You are right. I am hiding my assumption. However, I am not wrong about the implication.
What I am not hiding is that the concept of self-ownership – regardless of how you define it – is always and everywhere an assumption. There are no self-evident truths which limit the definition of self-ownership.
