Your citation, notice, agrees with me. Mises said things, not human actors.
When we talk about human actors, we leave Crusoe economy and enter division of labour.
Is there such a thing as division of labour between horses?
If I see you as a means, and you see me as a means, you don’t own me and I don’t own you. We begin division of labour. If it were me and land, or me and a spoon, unless its someone else’s, it simply is property of my action.
Also, if there were only things, then economics isn’t required. Linear programming would solve any problem of action. But here are objects and subjects. Subjects can never be objects; not really, because human action not your own is never certain in causation from your want of it to its occurrence.
Edit: Hold on a minute, are we arguing, on a libertarian forum, whether a person owns himself or not?
I am not ignoring the act of trespassing. It is simply that the act of trespassing that causes at most minimal physical damage to your property is not going to be punished by anything more severe than repairing whatever damaged occurred. If I hack into your computer network and only copy data you will be hard pressed under your philosophy to have any grounds for any sizeable restitution. After all, I have not damaged any property, nor taken anything property, by your definition.
And since there has been no effect since no property was taken or damaged then there is no punishment. If the data is not your property how can you complain when I take it. The example of the employee eliminates the trespass issue. Since the data is not yours taking it is no loss to you.
“A thing becomes a means when human reason plans to employ it for the attainment of some end and human action really employs it for this purpose.”
People are frequently employed. There is no reason that other humans cannot also be one’s means. In fact, in Socialism Mises made it even clearer:
In the means of production men serve as means, not as ends. For liberal social theory proves that each single man sees in all others, first of all, only
means to the realization of his purposes, while he himself is to all others a means to the realization of their purposes; that finally, by this reciprocal
action, in which each is simultaneously means and end, the highest aim of social life is attained—the achievement of a better existence for everyone.
By your theory of property - anything that is a means of human action- everyone owns everyone. Its a massive failure.
No, that’s division of labour. They are means of satisfaction of my wants, not my personal action. They act, to satisfy my wants, and I theirs, and we gain because our preference ordering are reverse.
My preference ordering is not another person’s preference ordering. That’s it. Spoon has no preference ordering. If unclaimed, I take it, and my preference ordering is synonymous to mine. It is my property.
You have absolutely no way of determining that, you are just repeating an assertion. And There is still an effect whether property was damaged at all, the easiest case of mental damages comes to mind.
And There is still an effect whether property was damaged at all, the easiest case of mental damages comes to mind. Its quite easy to complain, your actions resulted in the unwanted exposure of my data, depending on the nature of the data, potentially costing me millions. Its really just a function of tort law.
“Human action is purposeful behavior. Or we may say: Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is the ego’s meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment, is a person’s conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life”
Human action is the satisfaction of wants.
Great. And? (That doesn’t counter what you’ve already defined as property"anything that is a means of human action.")
One cannot have human action with human action as a marginal quantity, unless the implied second actor has agreed, or is doing that for his own reasons. This is implied in our calling the second actor an actor.
Property is means of human action. Personal action, because there is no aggregate of persons viz aggregate of their preference rankings. A person is never means to my end. His action is, potentially, means to my end. But his action is his property. We barter, so that I may obtain his action, and he mine; and this is called division of labour.
It makes no sense to say human action, of another person, is my personal human action in the sense of absolute property of my person. Our premises forbid that inference. The human actions, in that case, are of two persons, prefering two means for two different ends.
The exact same is true for a horse, they don’t automatically pull plows. No, they do it for their own reasons.
Making a distinction between a human and the labour of a human doesn’t help your case as the horses action is, potentially, means to my end. But its action is its property. Even if you need make such an unnecessary distinction, it still doesn’t help your case. Calling it division of labour, doesn’t remove the fact the the other human is acting as a means to your end. Just as a horse does.
It makes about as much sense as saying the action of a horse is my personal human action. None. The distinctions you are making only hurt your case that “anything that is a means of human action” can be property. Its a poor, poor definition of property.
Humans are the only actors, in the full sense of the word.
Horse don’t reason, you see. They are closer to spoons, although they do have some reasoning ability. Its not enough, however, for syllogism even. Ravens are more intelligent: they can use pulleys. But are they really interchangable with humans? Do they act or do they have instinct, which is not action in the Mises uses it, and he points this out early in Human Action (passage about why babies have no memory of being a fetus)?
Since horse are not actors, you cannot make the syllogism and claim contradiction: nego consequentiam.
On the other hand, when I say the movements and behavior of a horse are my property, it makes as much a sense as the behavior of the spoon is my property: whatever I do with the horse or the spoon, is what happens to the spoon or the horse. It doesn’t work backwards: a horse doesn’t do anything with me. The horse idea is a diversion.
You have fallacy of confusing an ATTRIBUTE of SOME objects (reason) (humans) with a CLASS of objects (humans, horses, trees, hamsters, etc).
BTW, its the fine points of separating all goods which are important in questions like this. So long as horses don’t manipulate preference orders such as humans, they are property of humans or not property at all, and humans are only their own property.
Not enough reasoning ability for what? Why is reason the line of demarcation? Why not number of chromosomes? What about people who don’t have reasoning ability?
You are just drawing arbitrary lines to make up for a poor definition.
Spoons and horse are objects manipulated by humans. Its not possible to do this with humans, because each person has a preference ordering. No other entity, or object, except humans, has such preference orderings. No other entity acts.
There is no arbitrary distinction.
Property is only that related to human action. As in individual. And that means individual humans, not horse, and so on. These are our premises. Everything else is more complex phenomena of multiple human actors.
[Actually, even more precisely: humans can check mathematical proofs and logical proofs, which is non-algorithmic calculation. Nothing else can do this, hence one cannot predict humans to treat them as physical things when they act.)
That is just nonsense. Humans manipulate humans daily.
There is. Now its lack of “preference of ordering” again why is that the objective line of demarcation?
Horses are related to human action, they are potential means to my ends. As is any other human. Your premises are made or arbitrary whims.
Your definition of property has now changed as well. Its gone from “anything that is a means of human action” to “anything except humans even though their actions can be means” to “anything that satisfies my personal actions - but still not humans” to “only has X reasoning ability - which isn’t enough” to “only that related to human action.”
Now your playing pure dialectics with the english language, and the word manipulate. That can continue forever, however, you leave the discussion of economics and science.
Reason is not an arbitrary distinction. Its the major distinction between praxeology and economics, and the rest of science.
Its why there is economics rather than physics: you don’t ‘manipulate’ humans as you do spoons. One is a nonreasoning entity, another makes choices. One acts in a regular way, the other does not necessarily. This is what Mises argued since 1933 to 1962 in his last book: plants, cats, dogs, rocks are not human actors, and human actors can’t be treated as the former.
When you equate horses, spoons, and humans, you leave Austrian theory (and economics for that matter.)
Yet we are talking about property. You continue to try and shift.
And you cannot ‘manipulate’ horses as you do spoons. Your last sentence lacks any substance. Yes, humans differ, and what? Via your definition on what can be property - “anything that is a means of human action” - they fit. I’ve asked repeatedly why reason is the line of demarcation, and you’ve ignored it… repeatedly.
There isn’t an Austrian Theory on what can and cannot be property.
No I am just using common sense. Awarding damages must be based on the damage caused. In this case we have no physical damage or property taken. If the data has no intrinsic value then copying it can not be grounds for damages, mental or otherwise. You can not be damaged by losing something that has no value.
Mental damages for losing something which you claim can not be owned. This line of thinking makes sense if you own the information, if you don’t own the information then you can’t claim damages when it is copied.
If I own the data it is a function of tort law and in fact whoever has the data now would be required to give it back, even an unknowing third party, just like buying a stolen car. However, if as you claim, the data can not be owned by anyone then you can’t claim damages for something that is not yours.
No you aren’t. Once you commit aggression (trespass) on physical integrity, its perfectly sensible for you to be held liable for any results. And nothing ever has intrinsic value.
Mental damages is just an example, you seem to fail to grasp that. You don’t need to own information (whether it be emotions or ideas) for you to be effected by the acts (physical trespassing) of the aggressor. Basic common law spells this out.
You are just shoehorning assertions into your argument. Functions of tort law, such as mental damages and emotional distress existed without any conception of the damaged party owning their emotions
Angurse, for your position to have oooomph, you may need to argue that Tort Law that your refer to is consistent with Libertarianism. I have a hunch it might not be; but this is mere speculation in advance of hearing your positive argument in this regard.
p.s. it does not bother me if the penalty for not-crimes is nill. in fact; i feel it appropriate.
knowing something that someone else knew before you first knew it does not a crime make.
information is not rival. and people do not own the market value of their property but only the property itself.
Its entire foundation rests on the violation of (physical) property. What the resulting restitution would be is certainly debatable, but just saying it would be zero seems is silly. I can’t see any inconsistency with libertarianism.
Agreed. But thats not the discussion. What about actual crimes committed, like trespassing? If you agree its a crime, would you disagree that the aggressor is still liable for (non-physical) damages unintended or not? (Obviously the victim would have to prove such responsibility)
However, your position is that copying data is not any form of damage because data can not be owned. So your argument prevents the copying of data being used as damages. If no one is injured by copying data then it is not a source of damages.
If I steal a car and it is not your car then you can not claim damages mental or otherwise, because it is not yours. If the data isn’t yours then having it copied causes no harm.