In a debate how would you justify (individual) property in external objects?
For example, how would you attempt to convince someone who believed in individual self-ownership, but universal joint ownership of external resources, no ownership of external resources, or severely restricted ownership of external resources, that the correct position was to allow individual absolute ownership of external resources.
I have used various arguments in the past but I’m not sure they’re very good, and am wondering what other people on the forum think (plus I have a term of political theory tutorials with a lefty tutor and would like some new/good arguments).
That’s really a loaded question, like assumption of guilt until you can prove innocence, the burden of proof would be on them. However… it’s absolutely necessary for any semblance of a functioning market.
Well the homesteading and first-use theories are an attempt at this… basically HS says that if you mix your labor with something you now have a “better” claim to it than someone else, ceteris paribis. Roderick T Long demonstrates that you can possess external things because your body is made up of external things (what you eat)… so that when you eat an apple you make it part of yourself and thus come to own it, assuming we have self ownership.
Similarly, first use says whoever used it first has a right to it and bla bla bla. IMO these are kind of ad-hoc justifications for private property.
The problem with the homesteading and first use theories is of course that they are not intrinsically utilitarian. So even if you were the first to appropriate a piece of land, maybe someone else can use it to farm more food so they should have it. I know we’re not utilitarians but we are certainly arguing against them, so they will throw this argument at you.
I personally never talk about property rights in the moral sense… I think that property rights will arise on the free market simply because it is more efficient to have them than not have them in most cases. It is also hard to advocate private property because much of what is owned now has been a result of the state’s interpretation of what that means… which inevitably benefited well connected business interests. A good example of this is pollution, where the state chooses not to view pollution as a violation of property rights. Rothbard even supported the idea that workers in factories had actually come to own the factory more than the owner because they had put more into it than they had… I suppose you can see where this gets problematic.
So, for example, if I use money to buy a house but then rent it out to some folks, 20 years later who owns the house? Is buying something as-good-as homesteading it?
I’m personally not a libertarian because i don’t need to be. All i want to advocate is peace and prosperity, and I don’t need a moral theory of individual property rights to achieve that. The strongest arguments you can use are on the incentive structure of the state as a monopoly, and the benefits of voluntarism. You can spike all justifications for utilitarian violation of the NAP by using the utilitarian argument against the state. Its so easy its like shooting fish in a barrel.
basically HS says that if you mix your labor with something you now have a “better” claim to it than someone else,
i though it was if you mixed you labor with a previously unowned something…so if i own a yacht and you you mix laborious graffitti on it…its still my yacht even though all i ever do is relax on it.
and why would all things equal have anything to do with that…if there were unequal things afoot…couldnt the homesteading rule still apply?
If you had to get everyone’s opinion on how to use external resources, you could not exist and could not be arguing for common ownership. Neither could you exist if all external resources were unowned.
If external objects means stuff no one owns as of now, like the oceans, then we have the Walter Block tapes that discuss it at length.
His basic argument is that if an individual owns soemthing, he will take care of it, to make sure he makes money from it. But if a thing is free for all to use, they will use it up greedily right away, lest someone beat them to it. And of course no one will take care of the place or invest in keeping it going.
He gives many many historical examples. One I remember is: Why are cows not extinct but the almost identical buffalo is extinct?
Justice and Property Rights - Chapter 4 - Egalitarianism Revolt Against Nature
“Explain why the individual should behave morally. The fact that we are all better off if we all behave morally is utterly true and utterly irrelevant. (Such an argument violates the cherished Austrian precepts of marginalism and individualism.) The truly difficult moral issues resemble the familiar Prisoner’s Dilemma; regardless of everyone else’s behavior, the individual does better by exploiting others. It is true that a society suffering from widespread theft would be intolerable, even from a thief’s point of view, but any individual robbery has very little impact on the overall level of crime.”
Did Joseph Stalin act against his self interests in the long run? Do you concede that your possible condemnation of Stalin is purely an empirical matter? (It might be true that had every other Soviet acted in his true interests, dictatorship would have been impossible. But this is dodging the issue.)
My means are a part of me, because I incorporated them in my plans as means towards ends. Using a part of my means for your plans is a problem of intersubjectivity; who has the right to do what? Because me (by assumption) being first, I was the first one who made a reasonable claim to it - a claim that no-one contested it at that time. Therefore: I have a reasonable claim to the item. Other people who want to use this object, create conflict and are being unreasonable, because they can’t give a reason why their end is more important then my end. (If they convince me that their end is more important, then I can subject my end towards their end and then we don’t have any problem anymore.) (This way ‘first ownership’ is proven to be reasonable and logical correct, not for any utilitarian reason.) Thus, they are wrong for wanting to use my means (my ‘external object’).
The important thing is to remember their is no ‘outside’ world accept in the way people evaluate stuff. When people talk of ‘taking something out of the commons’ they are talking nonsense. Either it truly was a (private property) common (i.e. multiple persons have a legitimate claim to it) and then you can’t claim it or either it was a res nulius: something that nobody incorporated in his plans and thus nobody can have a legitimate claim to it. (And it is basivly ‘yours for the taken’.) When people claim ‘new property’ they are not taking anything away: they are introducing new stuf in the world of human action and society.
Something like this. English is not my native language and I always find it difficult to explain philosophy of law in English.
Make sure that you don’t make the mistake (similar to the labour theory of value) of asserting to the labor theory of property. Just as subjectivism is the only way towards value, subjectivism is the way to go to legitimize property, i.e. the subjective (dynamic, evaluative, marginal) theory of property.
It is if you’re a utilitarian. I know you’re not but the people we argue against often are, so its important to tailor your arguments to whatever moral delusions they have. I think its an ineffective strategy to try and debate ethics with people… we’re stubborn; we already know the right answer. You can get more mileage by keeping your economics ethics-free.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough… I meant that the property rights we had were not libertarian property rights but rather a state interpretation of what they meant…
Right, but not everyone has such a staunch moral backbone like you. I’m not trying to formulate a pure and concrete theory here, i’m merely highlighting the most effective arguments against the state. I think all the arguments become much stronger if they are independent becuase the whole thing doesn’t collapse if your audience thinks one part is wrong.
I do keep my economics - value free, thank you very much. You ought to learn the difference between Austrian Economics and Libertarianism. As Law, however, is a normative discipline.
"Every argument I have ever heard on the House floor is presented as utilitarian and—for the pressure groups represented— the proposals certainly are “utilitarian.” These arguments are never based on the moral principles of people’s natural right to run their own lives. Santa Claus wins the “utilitarian” argument until it’s too late to do anything about it.
The interventionist’s reliance on the appeal of Santa Claus, “utilitarianism,” and an ostensibly high-minded concern for the downtrodden can only be countered by a more truly utilitarian defense of the free market and the concept of natural rights—which allows the non-interventionists to take the true moral high ground. In the absence of a natural rights argument, a moral vacuum exists, into which the socialists rush, winning every time. They have won throughout the 20th century, while the concept of God-given rights [ / secular natural law] has been almost obliterated. Austerity for the benefit of the next generation won’t get enough votes in a democratic political system. Combine it with a moral argument for natural rights, and the chances of success are greatly enhanced." ~ Ron Paul
One benefit being;
3. Natural Law versus Positive Law (Listen to MP3)
If, then, the natural law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature … absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.[37] The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly “radical” ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. In the realm of politics or State action, the natural law presents man with a set of norms which may well be radically critical of existing positive law imposed by the State. At this point, we need only stress that the very existence of a natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus.
No, you were clear enough & I completely understood your point. Also, my comment still stands. Did you read the link? Thoughts?
I beg to differ. The moral high ground is remarkably important. The statists attempt to claim it all the time, in essence it is what government rests on (consent). And imo, consent is more likely to be withdrawn and far more effective, when it is pointed out that the individual has a gun in their hands. A free society isn’t going to come about from cost / benefit analysis. lol
By the way, any responses to the questions above?
That’s wise because: “thinkers of the caliber of Yeager, Mises, and Hazlitt [have tried] and were unable to expound the doctrine in a satisfactory way, I have come to conclude that such an exercise is impossible.”
I don’t think it is the most effective at all. I think showing the gun in the room is. Hint: It’s in the statists hands aimed at your face. Normal people tend to react in horror at the thought they are advocating hiring a gang of criminals to solve a problem… more to the point if the person says they would, you then ask if they would did it themselves? i.e Hold a gun to your head, and threaten violence. If they say yes to that, the next question is - “would you pull the trigger?” For these type of people, who don’t care about anyone else and are wannabe criminals, or positivists, the utilitarian argument would probably be more effective but not for everyone else.
Rothbard’s argument is actually that “private” companies that get more than 50% of their revenue from the government should be considered government entities. And since government cannot own anything, ownership of the company reverts to those who have homesteaded it, e.g. factories to the workers. See his “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle”.
"Although Rothbard made no such qualification in his 1969 statement (written, after all, at the height of his attempt at a coalition with the New Left), he and Hoppe agreed two decades later that an attempt should be made to restore state property to its original legitimate owner before confiscation, if records of ownership still existed."
50% is just some arbitrary figure. Check out DiLorenzo’s lecture at the last ASC where he talks about the arbitrary percentages used to decide who is and is not a monopoly. Same thing Rothbard does here. Forensic accounting can work miracles and confiscating 50% of private property because it is mixed with 50% of stolen by government property doesn’t seem right. It would be like you losing your house because you only had a 50% ownership stake in it, and the other 50% carried more weight than your 50%.
I and Wombatron had a debate some time back about restitution and post-state justice. I reject Rothbard’s theory as being focused on egalitarianism and not market based restitution. It’s another mark against homesteading, which as someone mentioned up thread is basically an ad hoc property doctrine anyway.
If we were to pursue true justice, then whatever the state has stolen, should be returned to those whom it was stolen from. There is no absence of claimants only an absence of clear title. No moral theory of justice can provide restitution to those not stolen from, at the expense of those stolen from. We have the victims and the loot. Just becase we cannot make a simple correlation between state property and what was confiscated, it makes absolutely no sense to arbitrarily award that property to a 3rd group that may neither be victim nor thief. Can you see this sort of incoherent reasoning attached to other conflict resolutions?
“Sage, LS stole from you. Because LS transformed it from currency into nuclear warheads he will give your stolen property to Angurse as Angurse works in a missile silo.” Justice served.
lol, wut?
As soon as someone invokes homesteading, it seems to me that people just accept the argument.
Tax
Homesteading
???
Profit!
As though homesteading somehow is a legitimate way of passing title, even if the title was acquired illegitimately in the first place. These folks are not homesteading anything by using state property. While this theory of Rothbard’s is consistent with egalitarianism and libertarian-leftism, it is not compatible with any ancap or voluntarist notion of property rights as far as I can see.
I believe that the market should be consulted for resolution of property conflicts.
I offered to Wombatron as a suggestion that the property could be put to auction, and then those with the greatest means could purchase the loot to repurpose it, and the proceeds from such an auction could then be divided and used to provide restitution to those stolen from (specifically those who lost currency to taxes, and property to confiscation).
This may come as a surprise to you but property rights are justified by value free economics as well as libertarian moral theory…
Yes.
No. The socialists have never won. We have never had a government of the people and by the people. The corporate elite have always won, and they choose their rhetoric with whatever fits their bill. It doesn’t matter if we have free market arguments coming out of the mouths of our leaders (Reagan), or socialist rhetoric. The problem always has been government control of education and media, not “what types of arguments we use”.
Socialism LOSES to the free market in a utilitarian debate. This is how I win all my arguments with people. You can’t sell yourself if you can’t take care of all the starving little babies, and frankly, I agree with that. I wouldn’t approve of a plan, no matter how metaphysically moral it was, if it meant more people might die. I’m not going to stick my thumb up my @$$ and say “well I’m objectively right” while the world goes to crap.
Roderick T Long thinks this makes me morally bankrupt because there’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do if it were utilitarian. I might enslave people or kill them etc etc if it were for the greater good. Well, he might be right that those things are theoretically fair game, but in practice they are off limits to me. This also assumes that we buy deontological ethics, which I don’t. But I don’t think we need to repeat the subjective vs objective ethics debate, and you particularly don’t want to hear my G.E. Moore/Wittgenstein defense.
In summary, I think libertarian ethics is compatible with a prosperous world, I just don’t choose to highlight it because it seems irrelevant when compared to starvation and war.
Oh yeah totally. Libertarian ethics will totally fly if we can just get the message to people. Its not like the philosophical community doesn’t have huge problems with libertarianism, let alone understanding it properly. Yeah yeah, this is why the libertarian movement has failed, because we didn’t make the deontological argument that no bleeding heart liberal or war hawk conservative cares about.
Well I do have emotional problems with actions in and of themselves. So I would say that its both a matter of what he did and how he did it.
Doesn’t praxeology teach us that human beings are purposeful actors? You’re claiming that people won’t take big risks for big rewards. COUGH I don’t think there’s been any revolution in history that was purely ideologically motivated: “Hey guys! Lets try this because its the morally correct thing to do. I don’t know if we’ll all starve but let’s be objectively right for once!” lol
Because it is consequentially bad… You don’t trust the man with the gun because he will screw you over.
And btw, I feel like when you link articles and tell me to read them, its borderline abusive because of the amount of time you’re asking me to put in. Just a courtesy.
“Such efficiency is always debatable, inevitably rests on technical details obscure to most people, and is one of the topics most subject to government misinformation. In Canada, arguing that a free market will produce lower costs in health care, for instance, always brings the contrary example of the United States, and its high spending on medical costs. Refuting this misleading statistic requires exhaustive levels of detail, which the listener has likely never heard before, and which are easy to dismiss. Arguing that health care was cheaper before the government got involved is also unproductive, since people can easily argue that technology was far less advanced in the past, or that there were fewer old people, or less life-extending procedures and pills. The argument from efficiency is never conclusive, since it requires statistics, a mountain of specialized knowledge, enormous patience – and it can be derailed at any time by false, missing or incomplete information.”
I never have any problem with the argument from efficiency debate, even against hardcore bleeding heart liberal socialist planners. Its all about skill and knowledge. You can have the debate in front of a computer using wikipedia if you want to.
But free market theory is simple enough. It might be complicated if you were trying to compare specific programs but if you pitch the theory properly it will guide you through any web of statistics they can throw at you.
It doesn’t matter that its always debatable. This doesn’t justify shifting the debate to grounds where you always win. IRONICALLY this is a utilitarian argument about how you should use deontology. BWAHAHA
Number three is such a sinker… I’m laughing too hard to continue. Adieu.
Indeed. I think Rothbard’s homesteading plan is incomplete. But Hoppe’s position is also clearly incomplete, because taxpayers are not the only victims of State aggression.
