Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

That’s all that’s necessary.

@Byzantine

No it’s not. You also need the means to impose your logical conclusions on others.

Other than language, you mean?

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Mr. Karla

In your example: NO RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, BECAUSE IT WAS MY CHOICE TO START WALKING AROUND THAT PLACE. And the sent was there first.

But it’s your nose. Therefore, it MUST be violating your rights, according to YOUR standards.

I’m just showing you the trouble with your explication.

[britainland]

I haven’t read through this thread, so this may have already been mentioned, but there is an oft-cited English common law case dealing with smell and property rights called Aldred’s Case (1610). Aldred claimed that Thomas Benton had erected a pig sty too close to his home, so that the stench made his home unlivable.

The classic precedent, quoted in virtually all modern nuisance cases, is Aldred’s Case, which holds that a man has “no right to maintain a structure upon his own land, which, by reason of disgusting smells, loud or unusual noises, thick smoke, noxious vapors, the jarring of machinery, or the unwarrantable collection of flies, renders the occupancy of adjoining property dangerous, intolerable, or even uncomfortable to its tenants.” The enumerated instances all involve something from person A’s property coming onto the property of person B: either a discernible substance [flies, smoke, vapors], or sound waves and smells that are not just imaginary or conceptual, but real physical presences. In other words, we are not on the terrain where B is disgusted because he imagines A doing something on A’s own property. Something real and definite has been inflicted upon B by A. Sometimes, too, there is also danger [“noxious vapors”].

See here for some further discussion: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/nussbaum-disgust.html

[Byzantine]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Other than language, you mean?

Yes. Other than language I mean. Written constitutions have already been tried.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Other than language, you mean?

@Byzantine

Yes. Other than language I mean. Written constitutions have already been tried.

And argumentation isn’t part of the use of language?

[Mr_Karla]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

@Mr. Karla

In your example: NO RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, BECAUSE IT WAS MY CHOICE TO START WALKING AROUND THAT PLACE. And the sent was there first.

But it’s your nose. Therefore, it MUST be violating your rights, according to YOUR standards.

Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let’s call it - “homesteading of rights” conected to property.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Mr. Karla

In your example: NO RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, BECAUSE IT WAS MY CHOICE TO START WALKING AROUND THAT PLACE. And the sent was there first.

@Knight_of_BAAWA

But it’s your nose. Therefore, it MUST be violating your rights, according to YOUR standards.

@Mr. Karla

Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

@Mr. Karla

What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let’s call it - “homesteading of rights” conected to property.

And yet that conflicts with the rest of what you’ve written.

[Mr_Karla]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

@Mr. Karla

Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

But with my consent. You cannot violate my rights with my consent.

@Knight_of_BAAWA

@Mr. Karla

What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let’s call it - “homesteading of rights” conected to property.

And yet that conflicts with the rest of what you’ve written.

I don’t believe it does, the key is to see the rights as acquired in time. Just like property rights. Then there is no problem.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Mr. Karla

Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

@Knight_of_BAAWA

From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

@Mr. Karla

But with my consent.

The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

[Mr_Karla]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

But nobody needed my consent to plant them etc. I do not have rights to the composition of air EVERYWHERE. I have the right to it only if I have “homeasteded” it (or bought it) before somebody started to change it. If he changed it before, then he has homesteaded it first. You’re still not looking at it in time.

My consent is given by walking into a place, in which the scent wafts. I either have a legitimate claim to that place and the composition of air or not. In your example I haven’t got one.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

@Mr. Karla

But nobody needed my consent to plant them etc. I do not have rights to the composition of air EVERYWHERE.

And no one needed your consent to cook. Nor does your mere dislike of a scent mean that your rights have been violated. It’s no different from not liking the scent of a rose which someone has planted.

[Mr_Karla]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

And no one needed your consent to cook. Nor does your mere dislike of a scent mean that your rights have been violated. It’s no different from not liking the scent of a rose which someone has planted.

And again with the “mere dislike” straw man. I thought we handled that problem a couple of times already. Since I have no idea how to explain to you that scents are physical entities, and therefore this is a property rights problem, I will just conclude that I got some thoughts cleared up by JAlanKatz and Jon Irenicus, for which I thank them

Mr. Karla signing out:P

[Paul]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Ok then. You walk by my house. You smell the roses on your way just because they’re in bloom and you can. My roses have impacted your olfactory sense. So clearly, according to you, this is a violation of property rights.

@Mr. Karla

It would be easier if you read all we write here, not just the exchange between me and you, this was mostly dealt with.

Oh I do read it all; you just kept refusing to acknowledge the answer. So it has to be brought up again and again.

Where by “acknowledge the answer” you presumably mean kowtow to your opinion; AFAICT, Mr. Karla is taking the conventional Rothbardian line, which seems to me the Right Answer. (And Jon Irenicus, for some reason, appears to think he’s arguing with Mr. Karla when in fact he’s saying the exact same thing…)

[Jon_Irenicus]

Because it was insufficiently clear. He himself acknowledged that.

-Jon

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Paul

Where by “acknowledge the answer” you presumably mean kowtow to your opinion

Nope. But it’s nice to see how people will twist reality.

[Conza]

Sorry if this is a bad bump or something… I was wondering if this could be addressed.

Bryan Caplan

"No more successful is Rothbard’s effort to accept half of the theory of externalities: “The problem of ‘external costs,’ usually treated as symmetrical with external benefits, is not really related… [E]xternal costs (e.g. smoke damage) are failures to maintain a fully free market, rather than defects of that market.”[37] This purported distinction is mired in confusion. On the one hand, numerous negative externalities (or “external costs”) are not physical, but psychic; a strip club in a churchy neighborhood is just as much a negative externality as air pollution, but a fully free market would only recognize the latter to be a property rights violation. Conversely, a positive externality can nevertheless be a trespass, for strict private property rights require not that an owner benefit from how other people use his property, but that the owner consents to how other people use his property. Suppose that my neighbor sets up a doughnut shop next door, and the fragrant doughnut fumes spill over onto my property. Even though this is a positive externality - I love the odor of doughnuts - as the owner of my home I can insist that he cease his trespass. Why would I shoot myself in the foot by doing so? Perhaps I value the smell at $10/year, and the doughnut shop earns $1000/year in profit from staying open. It could then easily be in my interest to charge the doughnut shop owner $100 for an easement to emit doughnut fumes over my land. Though I benefit from the fumes, I benefit more from the fumes plus $100.

In short, it makes no sense for Rothbard to accept negative externalities but not positive ones. Negative externalities often don’t violate property rights, and positive externalities can. While Rothbard deserves praise for analyzing the extent to which private property can solve externalities problems, his reformulation of the theory of externalities is decidedly unsuccessful."

Just that, [:|] and the rest of the article if you want. lol

[Jon_Irenicus]

I’m not sure what Caplan has said here that contradicts Rothbard. What Rothbard would argue is that you cannot, for instance, make a garden and then forcefully charge individuals for the “benefit” you’re providing them. They did not commission the garden to begin with. It might be nice of them to compensate you for it, but there’s definitely no legally enforceable obligation to do so. Nor are you obliged to provide the benefit. Nothing Rothbard said would entail that the doughnut shop, even if it were benefitting me, cannot be made to pay for an easement - I could just argue it’s violating my rights by emitting its odour (if it were there first things would be reversed.) So I’m not certain what Caplan is on about.

As for his document, others have taken the time to refute it on this site, and in addition, Walter Block (and I think others) have responded to it. Block in fact got into a prolonged journal debate with the smarmy Caplan.

-Jon