Marxism and the workers

[gotlucky]

@Laotzu del Zinn

[T]hese posts take a rather long time.

QFT.

Just to give you one more thing to respond to (unless you’d prefer to just respond to this instead of previous posts):

From our conversation, I think that some of your points stem from a certain misunderstanding of humans. I’ll list some of the points you have made as I understand them:

1. There should not be “private property” - that is, you do not believe it is just that any single person should have the final say on any given piece of property.
2. That for there to be “private property”, the original “owner” must necessarily have been the first person to initiate violence.
3. All property should be “jointly owned property” - and more specifically, it should be considered “owned” by the people who use it.
4. Might makes right, and you want this might to be in the hands of the working class.

I am going to respond to these points. I do not believe they are straw men, as they are just paraphrases of things you have said. Let me know if you believe these are not accurate and in what way they should be tweaked.

First, I would like to talk about the “might makes right” approach to law. I do not agree with that approach. That is the approach that forms the basis of statutory law, and in some very important ways I do not feel it really is “law” (it sort of is and it sort of isn’t - I’ll explain in a bit). I would like to quote Clayton from his post What Law Is on the definition of law:

@Clayton

Law is the alternative to violent conflict when conflict-avoidance strategies (such as property lines) have failed to avoid conflict. In terms of rights in property, law is the production of new, stipulated property-lines which resolve real conflicts without further violence.

Different systems of law can form, but they do not necessarily have to be a “might makes right” system. Clayton has explained the origin of law in his post A Praxeological Account of Law, and he has shown (I believe correctly) that the origin of law was not a “might makes right” approach. He used the example of two men having a dispute, and these two men are of roughly equivalent size and weight. It is dangerous for them to fight because one of them might lose. This is why they try to settle the dispute verbally. The reason they try to settle verbally is because neither one has the might to definitely win. Obviously statutory law has become the dominant form of law in the modern world, but it was not always the case. Many societies have had at some point (or still do have) common law, which is still a might makes right approach, but it is not centralized law; and customary law, which does not need to be a might makes right approach at all, though it does depend upon the society. There have been other systems, but I don’t feel the need to talk about them.

Earlier, I stated that statutory law is sort of law and sort of not law. Obviously, it is law in the sense that it fulflls the definition of law; it does provide alternatives to settling disputes with further violence. I also had said earlier in the thread that it is either superfluous or unjust, and it probably makes more sense to say it that way instead. Let us use the example of slavery in the United States. Not only was it considered lawful to own slaves, but it was considered lawful to kidnap escaped slaves and return them to their “owners”. I’m not sure much else really needs to be said about this other than the fact that while this was lawful, it was incredibly unjust. However there were laws in the US at the time that were just (e.g. laws against theft). But these laws would be superfluous, because they exist in customary law societies.

In short, I do not support a system of “might makes right”, as the laws are either superfluous or unjust.

Second, I would like to address the point that for there to be “private property”, the original owner must have necessarily been the one to initiate violence or the threat thereof. Again, I would like to quote a passage from A Praxeological Account of Law:

There was a time before law. If we go far enough back in our evolutionary ancestry, we reach a point where our ancestors were not yet verbal. Since the ability to speak and engage in complex, rational argument is a precondition for law, these ancestors could not have had law. At some point, our ancestors acquired the ability to speak. At some later point, law emerged.

Of course, even before our ancestors could speak, they could get into disputes. Disputes occur between other animals frequently. Without the ability to speak, there are fewer ways in which to resolve disputes. Usually, dispute resolution between animals involves intimidating displays of force, threats, and violent or even deadly conflict. Disputes are costly and risky so, even in the non-verbal animal kingdom, there are dispute avoidance mechanisms. Birds mark their territory with sticks, dogs with urine, and so on. The behavior of establishing publicly visible borders is important because, as long as others see and abide by those borders, disputes can be avoided.

When a dispute arose between our verbal ancestors who had not yet developed law, they had the option of talking about the dispute. If, after talking (perhaps shouting), they did not engage in physical violence, they had resolved their dispute verbally. People who could resolve their disputes verbally would incur less costs and risks than those who could not and, consequently, would enjoy an advantage in survival and reproduction. However, we know from experience that it is very difficult for two parties to resolve any serious dispute unaided since each party to a dispute tends to distort the facts and engage in special pleading in his own favor. One solution to this problem is to ask a disinterested third-party to hear the dispute and offer an opinion. People who were willing to bring their disputes to a third-party were more likely to resolve their disputes without the cost and risk of violent conflict and enjoyed an advantage in survival and reproduction over those who did not.

I have bolded the second paragraph because it explains very well what I mean when I say “the concept of ownership is inherent to humans”. Animals establish what they see as their own, and humans do the same thing. Just because someone has claimed something as their own does not mean they have initiated or threatened violence against anyone else. If I pick an apple off of a tree and then start to eat it, I have not threatened anybody else. However, if someone else were to come along and take that apple from me, they have used violence. Now, one objection might be that I could pick the apple and put it aside, and then someone else comes along and takes it. There was then no violence or threat of violence by the second individual, so there! But by what right does the second individual have to take that apple? Why does the second person have a better claim to that apple than the first person? How is it right that if I take the time to gather food for storage and find shelter for myself that I must now remain constantly vigilant, else the food I have gathered is up for grabs by anybody who can get away with it? Furthermore, if I pick the apple off of a tree, and then I drop it so that I may climb down safely, is it not mine any more? It is up for grabs until I can pick it up again?

This is why libertarians support the rule of first use. But this does not mean that the original appropriators of property are necessarily threatening or using violence against anyone. They are just realizing the golden rule. “Respect what is mine, and I’ll respect what is yours.” Now, it may seem that I am trying to be a slippery fish here on the original appropriation of property. The thing is, my views have changed a lot over the last few years, and they have continued to change. I used to be a conservative, then a Rothbardian, but I have not been a Rothbardian for a while now. Clayton has mentioned in other threads that he considers the NAP to be incomplete but largely suitable for the vast majority of human interaction. Maybe he is right and maybe he isn’t. My view has been informed by the golden rule for a very long time, and I believe the NAP is about as close to that as anything can be. But the golden rule is a solid rule as far as I’m concerned when it comes to society. The idea of a social contract is only partially valid. The common and original definition of the social contract is that by being a part of society, you agree to surrender your freedoms to the state or the majority. This, in my opinion, is nonsense. The only concept of a social contract that I could ever believe to be valid would be the idea that by being a part of society, you agree to the golden rule.

Quite simply, what you are suggesting is against the golden rule. “People should not have private property” is completely against the golden rule. If I take the time to find food or make shelter, that is mine. I will respect the food that you have found and the shelter you have made, and you will respect mine. If people really could not respect the things that other people own, there would not be any societies today. We would be living in poverty, if we were even living at all.

To summarize: It is not necessarily so that for there to be private property that the original appropriator must have used violence or threatened violence. Also, I support the NAP because it is a legal realization of the golden rule. I support the golden rule because I do. There is no way to reason out logically something like that. You either take it as a premise or you don’t.

Third, to address your idea about abolishing private property: As I said, it has to do with the golden rule. You can either respect my stuff or you don’t. Good luck trying to form a society around the idea that you don’t need to respect other people’s things. There’s not much else to say about it. I don’t believe it can happen, period. It’s not just even a question of whether it is moral or just.

Fourth, I have nothing against jointly owned property, but there is no way that property can be owned by everyone. It just boils down to the golden rule.

Finally, I said in the beginning that many of your points come from a misunderstanding of humans. As was pointed out earlier, many animals mark their territory and food. Humans do the same thing. Naturally, not all humans respect the claims of other humans. Some just take what they want from others and try to prevent others from gaining access to what they have taken. But you are asking us to pretend that a society could form without respecting the claims of individuals. I can see why you dismiss any argument about human nature. For a society without private property to exist, there would have to be a fundamental shift in human nature - that people would not claim things for themselves, or that people would be okay with others taking the things that they have claimed as their own. This will not happen. It is utopian to believe otherwise.