They could say this, sure, but then they could not object to you taking the car back from them, just as you would do to a thief who stole your car. They object to being called a thief, but they can’t object to being treated like one (if they really believe that property does not exist).
The argument I posed in my first post is clearly valid, but he still quarreled with several of my premesis. Validity in the formal sense means nothing, soundness is everything. If one premise can be shown to be untrue, then the argument is unsound, and therefore worthless.
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Either my shoes are green or JonBostwick is a rapist
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My shoes are not green
Therefore, JonBostwick is a rapist.
A thoroughly valid argument. Presumably you would quarrel with the first premise though ; )
Sorry, that should have read unable.
My point was that property is the preferred form of human organization, but he objects to it despite not being able to make a solid argument as to why.
Ok, so to clear things up…
The right to use = ownership.
Everyone cannot possibly use (or own) everything. Also, if no one used (or owned) anything, then the human race would quickly become extinct.
This means then that things must be used (or owned) by a single person, it’s just a matter of who. Enter John Locke and labor theory of appropriation.
Is that more on track? Have I errored at any point?
dont focus on john locke too much ,cause he said a lot on the subject that is a bit off.
How can he accept that taxation is theft if he doesnt believe anyone owned the money that is taken?
Who is the best person to read on this subject?
Point taken; Let me rephrase to ‘Enter labor theory of appropriation as the best means of deciding ownership.’
A brilliant insight, BobT. I’ll bring that up the next time we chat. It didn’t occur to me during our conversation.
One small point:
It’s possible for more than one person to own the same “thing.” Several people can all live in the same house, for example. I think it’s less confusing to say that if two or more people’s desires conflict, precedence must be assigned to one person over the other(s).
We prefer the term homesteading. Labor theory has some problems.
As Steven Kinsella points out, mixing labor does not create any new rights of ownership. If an item is already owned adding more labor to it does not create new rights. Then there is the “nature” that can be used but is not physically changed through the use. The radio spectrum being an example.
I learnt a lot from stephanKinsella.com on the subject.
Minor points aside, do I have the gist of the argument down?
And i’m curious, is this the argument that Rothbard uses, or does he take a different route to the same conclusion?
By the way, thanks for all of the advice, and I’ll deffinately take a look at StephenKinsella.com. Looks like a great resource!
well, i would minor critique to improve this part
it is possible to imagine whole planets owned by single individuals, and its possible to have a socialist planet where everyone was immoral and no-one owned anything, but the people would be in perpetual conflct. (i..e they have ‘mere’ possession but not rights that others would recognise)
i would simply say that, if people dont own things, then people have no way to be moral. they are counting on mere luck that they will have tomorrow the things they have gathered to themselves today, they would not trust each other this is really imagining humans as animals.
so if you want to allow the special rational faculty of human beings to play a part in human life and conduct. you must ask yourself what can reason do for us? it can determine ‘simple’ rules to , in a manner of speaking, settle disputes before they arise. i want this bike, i will fight whoever is closest to it in order to win it, oh no i wont, it belongs to a shopkeeper i will trade my own property for a ‘rationally defensible’ stake in it. much better.
That’s interesting, I see he uses the moral argument of “better”. Excellent approach.
its hard to boil down a concept into a single word. try ‘superior title’. it basically boils down to the fact that the two parties will make claims about how they are each the first title holder, 'i starting to farm here on may 5th, ‘i spat on the land on may 4th’ i dont much care how people appropriate raw stuff from nature, so long as they do it and then its up for trade and redistribution through the capitalist system.
(the guy who spat on it earlier came first.)
Superior, better, not locked down to these terms, just thought it interesting that in the negotiation what is better is reasoned. Now for him to say he was there first cause he spit there before the guy farmed there, he could claim ownership, but that would be tough and inclines the farmer to take much about what the spitter said in good faith. Now they could argue about it, if the spitter won’t back down, though no evidence of the spit, but if a jury was pulled together (jury, meaning, just getting a bunch of people together out to the field to make a third party decision that the two original parties involve agree as the final word; also known as grand jury), then that jury might want some evidence from the spitter. For it’s obvious the farmer was present. The spitter could argue the farmer plowed up his spit and the evidence is gone. Well, the spitter might be out of luck and the farmer gets the land. Unless the grand jury likes a good orator and the spitter is such a great talker, then the spitter just might win.
the spitter has the best claim to the ground where the spit fell, and the farmer the ground he has already tilled,
hopefully the rest of the land that is not yet tilled or spat on will be privatised soon.
I don’t think the “mixing your labor with the property” is a very good approach. This is usually Marxian and leads to community owned property. If you work at a plant that makes widgets you mix your labor with the widgets but doing so confers no ownership rights to the widgets.
The Lockian approach also leads to problems.
The moral v.s. amoral argument is most convincing I’ve found. There was a very famous legal case in the U.S. about 70 years ago concerning a dispute over ownership of a piece of land and the buildings on it. The defense attorney’s agrument was based upon the chain of recognized ownership. He proved ownership by deed and title to the land through sales of owners going back to the ‘original’ owner who bought this piece of land when it was seperated from a larger piece granted by the King of Spain and purchased from him by that ‘original’ owner. He even had found the ‘oroginal’ documents. Then he had the documents showing that the King of Spain was legal owner because of the right of ‘approximately homesteading’ by his soldiers and their use and defense of the land and the forts they had built on it and of continuous use since then. Finally he stated that the King of Spain was endowed by God to own land and had copied documents in which this right was supported as claimed by the Pope of the Holy Roman Empire. He won the case. (In effect, God granted ownership rights.)
Our founders stated very clearly and many times in our founding documents (see http://www.usconstitution.org) that this country was founded on religious and moral principles. The Federalist Papers supported strongly for property rights and include many, many long arguments on this subject. The Anti-Federalists won an argument that replaced the “rights of property” with the “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. The courts of our country and its laws are based on morals and ownership rights.
I’m currently reading “The Ethics of Money Production” which also includes a moral and religious argument for ownership of property.
If your friend has difficulty with morals and ethics he has a whole new subject to explore, starting with Plato and Aristotle. Birds defend their territory as well as mammals. By what right do they do this? I would say Nature or God gave them that right.
If you ate all the fish, the fish is gone. You consumed it. Does your friend no claim he or you have no right, or share rights, to whats in your stomach?
If history and practice, morals and ethics, mean nothing to him, you really have a, possibly insurmountable problem. And Welcome to the Mises Site.
I don’t think the “mixing your labor with the property” is a very good approach. This is usually Marxian and leads to community owned property. If you work at a plant that makes widgets you mix your labor with the widgets but doing so confers no ownership rights to the widgets.
The Lockian approach also leads to problems.
The moral v.s. amoral argument is most convincing I’ve found. There was a very famous legal case in the U.S. about 70 years ago concerning a dispute over ownership of a piece of land and the buildings on it. The defense attorney’s agrument was based upon the chain of recognized ownership. He proved ownership by deed and title to the land through sales of owners going back to the ‘original’ owner who bought this piece of land when it was seperated from a larger piece granted by the King of Spain and purchased from him by that ‘original’ owner. He even had found the ‘oroginal’ documents. Then he had the documents showing that the King of Spain was legal owner because of the right of ‘approximately homesteading’ by his soldiers and their use and defense of the land and the forts they had built on it and of continuous use since then. Finally he stated that the King of Spain was endowed by God to own land and had copied documents in which this right was supported as claimed by the Pope of the Holy Roman Empire. He won the case. (In effect, God granted ownership rights.)
Our founders stated very clearly and many times in our founding documents (see http://www.usconstitution.org) that this country was founded on religious and moral principles. The Federalist Papers supported strongly for property rights and include many, many long arguments on this subject. The Anti-Federalists won an argument that replaced the “rights of property” with the “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. The courts of our country and its laws are based on morals and ownership rights.
I’m currently reading “The Ethics of Money Production” which also includes a moral and religious argument for ownership of property.
If your friend has difficulty with morals and ethics he has a whole new subject to explore, starting with Plato and Aristotle. Birds defend their territory as well as mammals. By what right do they do this? I would say Nature or God gave them that right.
If you ate all the fish, the fish is gone. You consumed it. Does your friend no claim he or you have no right, or share rights, to whats in your stomach?
If history and practice, morals and ethics, mean nothing to him, you really have a, possibly insurmountable problem. And Welcome to the Mises Site.
I don’t think the “mixing your labor with the property” is a very good approach. This is usually Marxian and leads to community owned property. If you work at a plant that makes widgets you mix your labor with the widgets but doing so confers no ownership rights to the widgets.
The Lockian approach also leads to problems.
The moral v.s. amoral argument is most convincing I’ve found. There was a very famous legal case in the U.S. about 70 years ago concerning a dispute over ownership of a piece of land and the buildings on it. The defense attorney’s agrument was based upon the chain of recognized ownership. He proved ownership by deed and title to the land through sales of owners going back to the ‘original’ owner who bought this piece of land when it was seperated from a larger piece granted by the King of Spain and purchased from him by that ‘original’ owner. He even had found the ‘oroginal’ documents. Then he had the documents showing that the King of Spain was legal owner because of the right of ‘approximately homesteading’ by his soldiers and their use and defense of the land and the forts they had built on it and of continuous use since then. Finally he stated that the King of Spain was endowed by God to own land and had copied documents in which this right was supported as claimed by the Pope of the Holy Roman Empire. He won the case. (In effect, God granted ownership rights.)
Our founders stated very clearly and many times in our founding documents (see http://www.usconstitution.org) that this country was founded on religious and moral principles. The Federalist Papers supported strongly for property rights and include many, many long arguments on this subject. The Anti-Federalists won an argument that replaced the “rights of property” with the “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. The courts of our country and its laws are based on morals and ownership rights.
I’m currently reading “The Ethics of Money Production” which also includes a moral and religious argument for ownership of property.
If your friend has difficulty with morals and ethics he has a whole new subject to explore, starting with Plato and Aristotle. Birds defend their territory as well as mammals. By what right do they do this? I would say Nature or God gave them that right.
If you ate all the fish, the fish is gone. You consumed it. Does your friend no claim he or you have no right, or share rights, to whats in your stomach?
If history and practice, morals and ethics, mean nothing to him, you really have a, possibly insurmountable problem. And Welcome to the Mises Site.