i will go to the moon if you go to mars
ok
colloquially this is understood as being a mere exchange of promises
not a real contract giving each the legal and moral right to demand performance of the other using justified violence if necessary.
That’s “title-transfer” not the social contracts your talking about. And so this Mr. getting paid for no work, is getting natural property (the payers), and is violating property rights. No need for your social contract problem solved.
By the whole world around you. Saying you will give someone a million dollars some day means nothing to anyone. Agreeing to give a million dollars to someone if they build you a house and then not forking it over when they build it does.
aha, so you do acknowledge a difference between mere promises and contracts ! [Y]
Unless I go to Mars no one anywhere is going to care. Violence is only justified as far as society is concerned.
YES, and I HAVE BEEN. I keep saying that agreements are MADE UP of EXCHANGES of promises, but they are not the same! Gahh, my head is going to explode!
That’s property rights your trying to reinvent the wheel. Read Rothbards “Ethics of Liberty”. Your find out what people have already thought about.
What does this even mean? And how can he violate property rights IF THEY DO NOT EXIST.
That’s why you gloss over people’s posts when they give valid definitions. You don’t even know what we are talking about. Read Rothbards “Ethics of Liberty”. And stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
Can someone just PLEASE explain how property rights FOR SURE exist without using circular logic? Is that too much to ask?
Fine, I’ll read the dang book.
in your world, its all empty talk, that signals information. and thats all. thats why its not particularly useful, it also explains why you can conflate all kinds of speech and talk and action and call them all contract, because you dont insist on title transfer, which we do, vis-a-vis what constitute an actual contract with any meaning.
i have no idea what you are actually proposing, at your best you are merely repeating triviaul truth that we know, i.e. the game theory stuff. this is descriptive and has some explanatory power. but I dont know how this is useful in motivating any kind of moral or political theory. what is the point of all this hot air?
i might not have posted had i read the last few posts before i started writing, but im no deleter, so it will stay
Ok, after reading the section on contracts, here is my critique.
Rothbard claims that in order for a contract to be able to be enforced legally, there must be a right to natural property.
I agree with this. However, I am not claiming, as some of you might think, that contracts CAN be enforced legally. In order for that to be true there must be some “natural law” that states “it is always wrong to break a contract.”
I am arguing from the side that says: “People agree to contracts for their own benefit. People known for breaking contracts will not have others make contracts with them that they can benefit from. Contracts between groups that maximize property and freedom for those that agree to them tend to gain more people that agree when competing with contracts that restrict property and freedom in one way or another. There is nothing inherently moral or immoral about them.”
This is entirely based on the social behavior of the human species, and there is no property rights needed whatsoever. It is simply the fact that we are territorial creatures that like to use stuff for ourselves without being coerced. I have no reason to introduce a bunch of assumptions when this explanation suffices.
ok, but Rothbards books are awesome because they explain the bounds of permissable actions, they are tools to rational people to understand how to act within morality, so he goes beyond simply describing what people know and do, and helps to address the question what should people (not) do.
so what is the value of what you are trying to do?
My friend was asking me for a justification for private property because he ran into some writing by Rousseau in a college class. Apparently Rousseau argued that there was no such thing as private property, and some other nonsense about people consting to social contract even if they did not consent to social contract. ; )
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=21
but leaving that nonsense about social contract aside, how do I handle his assault on private property?
laugh at the notion of a ‘general will’ that happens to be whatever Rousseau says it is as being ridiculous on its face?
No one does something unless they think it will be beneficial for them. If agreements are kept, both sides benefit. If they are broken, then one ends up ahead while the other falls behind. When given the choice between two agreements, people will pick the one that maximizes not only their property and liberty, but also their ability to acquire more property and liberty. So from a logical standpoint, people who want more freedom and property should make and keep contracts with other people who want more freedom and property.
but you dont mean property, you mean socially acknowledged expediant possession , and by extension you dont mean freedom you mean that you arent left alone because its right, but because its so happens that the people around you would rather not attack you than let you be.
If they are neither good nor bad, then what’s the point?