Michael,
Sure, and I’d be quick to also point out that the lack of conflict allows for prosperity.
Clayton,
Property rights are indeed conducive to social order, and therefore people who violate them should be dealt with harshly. It is furthermore true that people can and do come to mutually voluntary agreements regarding rights. I overstate my case when I say that property rights must be aggressive. However, since not everyone agrees all the time on everything, they must be sometimes aggressive and indeed are usually aggressive, even though this aggression can be and in my opinion is justified.
Isaac,
Calling your system of aggression “natural rights,” is ridiculous.
Mattheus,
Just because I make use of my body doesn’t mean that I have to accept that this means I own my body—perhaps I deny the concept of property altogether, or believe myself a thief, or else believe that others also have the right to my body, and it is a common-pool resource unowned by anyone. In any event, owning myself still aggresses against those who wish to own me. I should note that I think that I own myself and favor this arrangement.
Legitimacy is established through aggression. If I deny your definition of legitimacy, you must impose it on me.
haymor,
If I own myself, as most libertarians would no doubt claim, then in order for you to establish property rights you must aggress against me. I don’t deny property rights but simply claim that they are aggressive in nature without some highly unlikely conditions. Alternatively, just let aggression mean attacking someone, whether or not he owns himself.
skylien,
Property rights probably allow for more coercion. The more people, the more property rights, the more aggression. However, in terms of aggression per person, who knows.
As for your second point, here’s why that doesn’t work. Someone says, “This is mine, which makes it defense to insist that it’s mine, which means that if others disagree that it’s mine, I can attack them.” That’s aggression.
Autolykos,
Do you mean “many” in an absolute sense or a proportionate sense? Because, if you mean the latter, then I’d say that the vast majority of people do not**respect property rights only out of fear of violence (at least the vast majority of the time). Again, you’re implicitly appealing to the Hobbesian “war of all against all” view of man’s nature. Please support this with reasoning and/or evidence. Otherwise, if you’re simply laying it down by fiat, I refuse to go along with it.
By dehomogenizing property rights, this becomes clear. Most people probably respect the right to self-ownership for reasons apart from fear of violence. Most people probably also, however, have been tempted to steal something, no matter how minor, and were only held back by fear of reprisal. Who hasn’t committed some minor infraction of property rights because no one was watching?
While you’re at it, please demonstrate that the marginal benefit for any single person to respect property rights is indeed*“often zero or close to it”.*
Property rights produce massive positive externalities in the form of an orderly and rich society. My personal disrespect for property rights does not threaten this system unless I happen to have a nuke, which is unlikely. So unless I fear reprisal, I have no particular reason to obey the system. This reprisal, however, could be nonviolent.
You don’t think it’s instinctive for a person to want to defend what he has against others trying to take it without his consent?
It is, but if other people disagree that it belongs to you, your defense is aggression.
Finally, let me repeat something from my last post that I’d really like to see you address: Please demonstrate why you must*“attack or threaten to attack anyone who is willing to compete with [you] for ownership of the resource”.*
I thought I had answered this, but it isn’t necessarily true. You could come to an agreement, or else just leave each other alone. The current property rights system, however, does not seem to be entirely or even mostly those scenarios.
