no, since they had vandalised your rival physical property
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 1:24 AM:
no, since they had vandalised your rival physical property
How can it be rival if I just let them build a shack there without even noticing?
that’s a rather bizarre question. what do you think the connection between ‘noticing’ and ‘rival’ is exactly?
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 2:02 AM:
that’s a rather bizarre question. what do you think the connection between ‘noticing’ and ‘rival’ is exactly?
Well no one wants to give us a proper definition of rivalry in classical economic theory, so I’m left guessing at what it could mean. So far I’ve read it as meaning that two people can’t use the same thing at the same time. So if someone built a cabin on my land without my objection, clearly I must not have been using it, hence I did not really own it at all. Same is true for someone looking into my house and recording my life. I am not using the electrons being ejected from my house, hence I cannot own them.
Or something. Rivalrytarianism gives me headaches.
rivalry is a property of material reality that says that is possible for there to be operations which are physically mutually exclusive (they physically estop each other).
Yes two people can look at the same tv. but because it is a physical object and part of material reality, there are 'things that can be physically done to tv’s" for which if you did one of them, you could not simultaneously do the other, for purely technical physical reasons.
For immaterial concepts, (including patterns/information abstracted from any media , the concept of the ‘form’ of a tv) etc. there is no such rivalry as described.
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 2:22 AM:
rivalry is a property of material reality that says that is possible for there to be operations which are physically mutually exclusive (they physically estop each other).
Yes two people can look at the same tv. but because it is a physical object and part of material reality, there are 'things that can be physically done to tv’s" for which if you did one of them, you could not simultaneously do the other, for purely technical physical reasons.
For immaterial concepts, (including patterns/information abstracted from any media , the concept of the ‘form’ of a tv) etc. there is no such rivalry as described.
What does any of this have to do with property?
It breaks the scarce nature of it, since patterns/abstract information, cannot be consumed as a tangible object would. Once this occurs the very concept of what is and what is not property breaks apart.
- Objects are Scarce
- Time is Scarce
- scarce objects must be individually occupied over time to deliver satisfaction.
Once anyone of those goes away, the whole framework of property is altered, and un-necessary.
What does any of this have to do with property?
the human institution of property is a solution to the problem that objects are scarce and rival.
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 2:53 AM:
What does any of this have to do with property?
the human institution of property is a solution to the problem that objects are scarce and rival.
No it isn’t. Property is a solution to scarcity only. Remember that quotation by Mises you posted; even with property, rivalry and conflict can still exist. Ipso facto property cannot be the solution to rivalry. It is only by the higher productivity of the division of labor, i.e. by the incentive to produce created by property, that rivalry is replaced with cooperation.
The property theory of rivalrytarians is absurd and can provide no guidelines to intervene in any property conflict, whether or not we are talking of intellectual property, domestic property, natural resources or even the human body.
This is the reason I only post in IP threads now. This is a debate not just about IP, but about the foundations of Austrian economics itself - i.e. will libertarian dogma trump economic rationality on these forums, or will economics be the origin of debate?
Was Nirgraham implying that without scarcity there would be no rivalry? I didn’t conclude that from his statement, as if it mattered, we were discussing property, not rivalry. What was the point of your response?
Ahh nm, your still upset that no one agrees with you about IP. Now I see why you responded.
no, if a tonne of steel were not rival the same tonne steel could be put to use in your production process as in mine, simultaneously. we would not require a mechanism to decide which of us should utilize it, where we outbid each other for it…
someone could drive in a car made out of the entire tonne of steel that had passed through your hands, which would happen to be the same tonne of steel that passed through my hand in my aeroplane production process that someone is now flying about in.
if this tonne of steel was not magically non-rival, but regularly rival as in reality, you may start to see that property as an institution comes in to play
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 4:32 AM:
no, if a tonne of steel were not rival the same tonne steel could be put to use in your production process as in mine, simultaneously. we would not require a mechanism to decide which of us should utilize it, where we outbid each other for it…
A car that I’m not using can be put to some other non-rival use. Why should I own a car that I’m not using?
You’ve offered no explanation as to non-rival property because your theory unravels essentially all property rights.
In classical property theory the answer is simple, clear and obvious: I own the car because I produced the car, and production gives me the right to exclusive control of the goods that I produced. The same is true of my home or my body, and of course, of my intellectual property. This not only reduces conflict, it also drives the division of labor and higher economic productivity. Why on Earth would we replace this system with one based on rivalry?
What are you telling me is your attitude towards the car being used?
I wonder whether we are having language issued here? what could you mean by saying that i have not explained non-rival property? I explained what it means for a thing to be rivalrous or not. and i have explained that property is a human institution for dealing with rival objects.(not exclusively, it also addresses scarcity)
Well, you missed out some fine detail, in your explanation of how a person comes to own what they presently own under the libertarian conception…(but i’ll brush over that and get to the main point).
What you offer here is a description of how property rights over rival objects are decided, this is not the same as explaining why we have property rights at all. In the game of monopoly, each competing party has to be uniquely and exclusively represented by one of eight pieces, this allows the game of monopoly to be playable and for fun to ensue. This is not the same as the description of how each party is paired up with their unique physical game avatar.
Ok, now you join me in actually explaining the institution of property. I’m all for reduction of conflict and for the division of labour to extend as far as possible given the values of market participants, and ditto for higher economic productivity. The reason we have a problem, and that without the institution of property we would have conflict, and a less extensive market and lower productivity is that physical objects that are valued are scarce and rival.
what are you talking about? I am not overturning the institution of private property, i am merely recognising that its purpose is to deal with the challenges of scarce-rival objects. If you start applying it ‘by analogy’ to domains in which scarcity or rivalhood are not problems then you are led into error,
hah, the copy of the copy which was copied from original is not “from original”, but from the COPY from original. Be consistent here. If someone copies song from your hard drive and then I copy from that copy, it doesn’t mean I copied from original, but from a copy.
Goodluck “destroying” digital copies 
But if you break into someone else’s PC and tried to “destroy” your supposedly copy on HIS property, that would be a violation and simply a crime. Or I don’t know what you else could possibly mean by mentioning “destroying”.
MaikU wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 4:28 PM:
hah, the copy of the copy which was copied from original is not “from original”, but from the COPY from original. Be consistent here. If someone copies song from your hard drive and then I copy from that copy, it doesn’t mean I copied from original, but from a copy.
Please review the meaning of “original”.
Goodluck “destroying” digital copies
Whether or not it is a crime depends on who is the initial violator. By creating a copy of my intellectual property without my consent, you are the initiator. Now we are all reasonable people, and so you will have the opportunity to destroy the illegal copy yourself in a way that best preserves your property. If the copy is on rewriteable media, you should be able to simply erase it. If it is on permanent media, it is unfortunate that it must be destroyed. If you refuse to do that, then I will have no choice but to exclude you from my property with whatever means are available to me, including destroying parts of your property.
If you park your car on my land, I will always ask you to drive it away before I have it towed away and left at the junkyard. I am not responsible for the damage done to your property in defense of my property. If you built a house on my land, I must have it demolished, but once again you are responsible for the damage done.
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 12:05 PM:
Well, you missed out some fine detail, in your explanation of how a person comes to own what they presently own under the libertarian conception…(but i’ll brush over that and get to the main point).
No, do not brush over that. You are just arguing in cicles. There is nothing in Austrian economics that says that property comes from rivalry. What it says is that property comes from scarcity and economic necessity. If you want to undo classical Austrian economics, then you need a much more rigorous explanation of why rivalry-based property is superior to scarcity-based property.
Until then, we can all continue to support intellectual, natural, domestic and physiological property as we always did before.
Rivalry is an aspect of scarcity, hardly a revolutionary concept alien to our grand intellectual tradition…
You again assume that IP is valid. It is not. And even if it WAS, my copying of your “property” do not infringes any of your rights. I do not phisically steal anything from you. You would have a point if I hacked on your computer etc. Otherwise you are just repeating same old IP mantra. I am tired of this bs.
Seems that you everything in anarchism have backwards. You advocate DESTROYING my property it is INSANE.
red herring. My copy is not on YOUR land or your property. What this examples has to do with anything at all? I am not hacking into your PC and stealing your data. You seem to fail to understand this like many of those, who advocate intellectual “property”
nirgrahamUK wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 6:41 PM: Rivalry is an aspect of scarcity, hardly a revolutionary concept alien to our grand intellectual tradition…
It may be an aspect, but it is neither the only aspect nor a necessary aspect, hence it has no role to play in property rights.
MaikU wrote the following post at Sun, Sep 5 2010 7:52 PM:
You again assume that IP is valid. It is not. And even if it WAS, my copying of your “property” do not infringes any of your rights. I do not phisically steal anything from you. You would have a point if I hacked on your computer etc. Otherwise you are just repeating same old IP mantra. I am tired of this bs.
Seems that you everything in anarchism have backwards. You advocate DESTROYING my property it is INSANE.
Yes I do assume that because there is no reason to assume otherwise. Likewise, you assume that intellectual property is invalid when you make an unauthorized copy of my intellectual property. I can just as well say that you advocating stealing my IP is insane. One of us is in our right. Who is going to judge this and how?
red herring. My copy is not on YOUR land or your property. What this examples has to do with anything at all? I am not hacking into your PC and stealing your data. You seem to fail to understand this like many of those, who advocate intellectual “property”
If the door to my car were unlocked, would you be entitled to drive it away? Of course not. You do not need to “hack” into anything to steal my data. You just have to employ my data in a way that I did not authorize.