I DO appreciate this conversation, and you will see me posting a lot more on these forums (sometimes being more contrarian than other times but ALWAYS with liberty on my mind).
Steven,
Your participation in the Mises Academy has been fantastic, and it’s great to see you’ll be posting here frequently too!
Thanks Grayson. I absolutely love everything about the Mises Institute. It is an endless resource. I try to listen to at least one or two audio/video lectures everyday, I download pdfs all of the time, and my experience with the Mises Academy has been phenomenal (expect to see me in future classes!)
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes selling land to get money is the right move to increase profits over the long-term. Sometimes you just want to get the cash right now and rents don’t do that. Sometimes a guy that owns a ton of land dies and his heirs continue renting, sometimes they’d rather sell it all and go yachting and wine tasting for the rest of their lives.
If long term income from rents were all that mattered to people then they would already hold onto all land they owned. Instead we see ownership exchanges of land regularly, so I don’t think you need to worry about a world where land (or any other capital) never changes hands and is instead forever rented.
And even if it did occur (and it could, technically), others have already explained why it’s still not a big deal.
Anarcho-capitalism isn an ethical system. It cannot be analyzed logically. You will have to decide if you want to discuss economics or ethics. One is value free, one is not.
I like cporter.
Everyone is profit seeking. No one would exchange if not for the belief that it is profitable to do so.
I absolutely agree. But if we’re going to take about libertarianism, then we’re going to be talking about free markets and non-aggression.
We’ve only just been introduced, but you’ll find that statement doesn’t apply to me.
I’m not in the business of convincing. I am in the business of discussing ideas. Any religious conversions and exorcisms are a coincidence.
When I try to be precise, you claim I am begging the question. When I discuss libertarian ethics you want to discuss blurry morality. Now you want me to be more precise about libertarian beliefs.
Indeed it does. Sounds like they will have to compete for you.
It conforms to a free society, so why wouldn’t it be desirable?
If you want to discuss ethics on a forum filled with libertarians and anarchists, you can expect libertarian ideas to carry the day. Characterizing libertarian ideas as nuisances, dogma or mantras is not good form.
That I can identify with.
We all like to be lied to, but I try not to make a habit of it on the Mises forums.
So we might have to use oppression to stop oppression?
I do appreciate you being a good sport. I do look forward to you being a libertarian nuisance to someone else one day.
Sure an ethical system can be analyzed logically. Libertarianism calls for certain values (we can think of these as axioms), including the “maximization of individual liberty,” but then we can logically come up with principles and practices of this ethical philosophy so that these values are being properly fulfilled. If someone proposes a principle or practice and it doesn’t adequately meet those values, we can say that ethical system is logically inconsistent.
Agreed.
The homesteading principle, in a nuthsell, is that anyone who finds unused land can own it after they mix their labor with it. This is usually coherent with the NAP. However, if that unused land happens to border someones home, and in return the builder charges a toll everytime someone crosses their property, this essentially amounts to kidnapping - then obviously there is some inconsistency between NAP and the homesteading principle. That doesn’t mean either principle is wrong - only that they need some re-polishing - or perhaps that they are better as rules of thumb.
Earlier you say, “Sounds to me like property is implicit in a society where self-ownership is practiced. A non-issue.” Yet, if all property is privately owned these private owners have a say on what kinds of rules/restrictions you must abide to whenever you are on their property. Walter Block argues this all the time, sometimes to such extreme ends as an employer is allowed to pinch a woman’s ass because by virtue of her working for his company she implicitly accepts the conditions in which she must work. If one doesn’t own any property privately, they are implicitly abiding to all kinds of different sets of rules and restrictions that seem to contradict a true sense of “self-ownership” (which ultimately means the right to be left alone).
So why even worry about our current state of affairs? We already have a market of 100s of different legal systems to choose from - apparently we already live in an anarchocapitalist world? Choice between one tyranny or another is not freedom.
I don’t regard any ideas as dogmatic unless they are treated as such by the individuals who hold them. If I try to point at a concrete example where Principle X might fail in practice, you can’t just say, “Well then its not Principle X.” That IS begging the question and altogether avoiding the point I am trying to make.
I don’t use nuisance as a derogatory word in this sense - I am just saying these principles, in practice, become more complex than A=A.
Let’s re-word it in a less controversial way: “might we have to use force to stop force?” Unless you are a pacifist, the answer is most clearly yes.
Your definition of libertarianism seems somewhat loose. The maximization of individual liberty is completely open to interpretation. I prefer to start with property rights.
Absolutely. You can’t be an owner if you can’t exercise control including the right to exclude.
That’s not relevant to our discussion.
What is a “true sense of self-ownership”? Some positive obligation you place on another to provide things for you with their property? What about their self-ownership?
Except anarcho-capitalism has to do with the NAP. Right?
But principle X hasn’t failed. You have defined something not X as X, and then you claim X failed. It’s utterly fallacious. I am not innocent if I am a murderer, so don’t tell me innocent people are cold blooded killers.
How can you appeal to logic, then claim that the law of identity is insufficient?
Why re-word it? That was clearly what you wrote. You believe you should pre-emptively be able to oppress people to prevent oppression of someone else. That is precisely what a tax is. It is stealing from one party to reward another. It’s not any more complicated than that.
You can take the teeth out of the language, but it is what it is. Theft and the initiation of violence.
OK this is going absolutely nowhere. Good night.
I’m sorry you feel that way, I hope you’re willing to try again tomorrow.
