i hope that neither of us are commies?
but thanks for casting me in your mini-drama. i enjoyed the special effects
Those values are materialism, the generalization of which is utilitarianism.
Even a socialist is a materialist. He seeks to improve the material well-being of his class at the expense of another, and so he is not a utilitarian, but economic science will be of use to him.
A communist, however, doesn’t give a damn about the material consequences of his ideology. What use is economics for him? It’s preferable to make a stand against any form of material improvement if it so much as violates one tiny strand of his ideology. The communist is not receptive to any economic argument. As Juan so candidly admitted, it is irrelevant.
perhaps you would call me pedantic because this sentance does not work for me.
but then if you consider yourself utilitarian rather than libertarian i hope that you could perhaps, if not convince me of the correctness of your position, at least help me get a little closer to comprehending it.
so yes, there are some communists who have false economics beliefs who are materialist and will be dissapointed when they are starving in work camps when they realise that the dream was flawed. and there are other communists that are not materialist that might be so foolish as to believe its ethical to live under tyranny with good ‘we are the public’ style propoganga and to hell with the material consequences incurred by their brand of ‘justice’.
this i think help makes my point that economics is value free, and when you posit some values then you get an idea what economic policy (or anti-policy) someone might therefore advocate. but i fail to see the value in closely connecting a flawed ethical value theory with the raw stuff of timeless economic truth. qua our study of economics. even though i grant that someone that both studies economics and is seperately a utilitarian is perfectly comprehendable, and when they are Mises they are hella smart and way cool [H], but hopefully would not confuse his knowledge with his values.
Am I the only one who thinks that Stranger speaks his own personal language and uses his own personal definitions ?
Let’s hope so, because we’re the least communist of all of the commies on this site in that case. We’re practically laissez-faire, free market commies.
Kaboom.
Have you been playing on the New Call of Duty: World at War Zombie mode map a little too much?
No, I have been working too much and losing my mind.
I had a friend who would say Kaboom all the time. It’s one of the most important words in the English language. Ironically, the friend was Quebecois.
And this seems to take us beyond the basic question of stolen property. Do you oppose revolutionary homesteading because of the possibility of welfare trolls getting off good?
I honestly don’t see the problem. Everyone is a victim of the state, except maybe those at the very top of the hierarchy. Not just taxation, of course, but regulation, conscription, war, property seizure, intellectual property, etc. And those are just the direct effects. What about the forced creation of a landless laboring class? What about the use of threats and incentives to cartelize business and labor unions? What about the existence of a central bank and inflating fiat money? If we consider all of this, everyone has a valid homesteading claim, even under your rules, because everyone has been screwed over by the state.
And yes, I did miss you [:P]
No. I oppose it because it is unjust to the people who had property confiscated by the state. And you should also oppose it on those grounds. But you don’t. And I am losing respect for you. I expect BP to tuck his tail and run, that is what he does. But you KNOW your position is bankrupt, I and later Giles and Juan have exposed it, and you are still trying to play word games or shift the argument.
You’re trying to shift the argument. It’s rubbish Wombatron. Either address the issue, or concede. If you have a new perspective, bring it back up later. But this is embarrassing. Watching you post this nonsense, trying to move the goalposts and shift the burden of proof and redefine the argument.
I’ve shown that it is unjust to claim property you did not have stolen as your own, when those who are victims will go without by your actions, and you CONTINUE to try to justify it with this utter nonsense that is barely related, if at all.
So now you have changed your position, and the homesteading is not based on the property being unowned, but that the property represents all pain and suffering for all non-state actors, and thus is fair game to everyone, even those who were never inconvenienced or robbed by the state?
Homesteading theory is not based on compensation, it is based on establishing ownership for unowned property by the rationale of first use is the highest claim, not all prior claims are equal or irrelevant because life is painful and unjust and the state is mean.
If you reject Rothbard’s homesteading rationale for this emotional socialist nonsense, that’s fine. But make it clear you have abandoned homesteading theory based on a highest claim to unowned property, for this egalitarian redistributionism based upon who can grab what.
I really don’t see what we are arguing about. If property is stolen, and the rightul owner cannot be found, it reverts to being unowned, and can be homesteaded. You said yourself that the state makes it very difficult or impossible to determine what really belongs to who. In that case, the property is effectively unowned. This really has nothing at all to do with egalitarianism or redistributionism. In fact, I see the alternative as being egalitarian (in the socio-economic sense) redistribution; what else would you call giving everyone equal shares of statist property (unless you are arguing for something different and I’m not seeing it)?
My point about how the state screws everyone was to show you that, even granting your premise, homesteading of state property would be just at least some of the time. I’m not trying to evade or shift the goalposts. I am honestly confused on how this is an issue. I’m not trying to appeal to authority, but this is straight from Rothbard.
Wow. In one post, you go from refuting yourself, and questioning my motives to now claiming you don’t even know what the argument is? Mind blowing.
Indeed, but a non-victim cannot get compensation if a victim remains uncompensated. We don’t have an easy or convenient method to determine justice, but we do have proof of theft. If anyone has a homesteading claim to settle the property dispute, it is the people who were robbed, not people who were not robbed.
Yes, that latter portion is a strawman. As for it not having anything to do with egalitarianism or redistributionism, then why did you argue in your last post that it did? Why did you claim that pain was an equalizer for all citizens, entitling them to an opportunity to homestead?
Why are you obviously and deliberately trying to revise what you just wrote?
As long as there are clear victims, then there is a clear and specific need for compensation. Victims have a claim on the property. Even if we can’t track where each dollar went, they still have the highest claim on the state property.
That is exactly what your posts have shown. You were asked a direct question, you rephrased it. You came back, and ignored the original question again, and went on a tirade about all of the ways the state sins. Then you informed us that homesteading was justified because everyone should be eligible to get some chunk of the state because it hurts everyone except a select few. Now you are back to Rothbard.
Rothbard was wrong. Just as Roderick Long was wrong with the Conflation argument. Use your own mind. Think for yourself. Either you understand Rothbard well enough to defend his positions and answer my direct question, or you don’t.
I want to rephrase that. Rothbard was not wrong. Rothbard was incomplete. However, insofar as Rothbard said a clear victim meant no homesteading, we have clear victims with clear records of how much was stolen from them.
Roderick Long is still wrong.
And I’m in complete agreement with you here. If the victim is known, then they have the just claim to the property. Homesteading only comes into the issue when the victim can’t be found.
Don’t make that statement until you are prepared to accept all of the terms of defeat.
Ah, so now you have modified your position further, and homesteading can’t occur if the victims are known, regardless of the precise ownership of the property, we are aware that there is a victim class that will have to reconcile compensation internally, correct?
What will this mean for your poor landless labourer class? Will they continue to be slaves to the Pharoah? Will their children be born into eternal bondage?
You do realize, the LL rationale for homesteading the state is bunk right? That the LL rationale for homesteading corporations and their capital goods has also been debunked here today because it also relies on the same flawed principles?
I’ve got bad news for you. You will have to do it like everyone else. You will have to subvert your high time preferences for lower time prefernces, live within your means, work double hard, and accumulate your own capital. Then you will have to risk it in entrepreneurial enterprise, and develop successful skills to create and increase your wealth by serving your fellow man.
There are no shortcuts. There will be no free property grabs. You’re entitled to nothing you haven’t earned, as hard as it may be, under the crushing evil of the state. That’s your motivation to act. To remove your obstacles to success. Not to participate in philosophically (un)sound looting of your fellow man, who may have lost and suffered more than you.
That was my position from the beginning. I’m honestly sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but I thought I had said it multiple times.
With the state removed, hopefully not.
There isn’t one single LL position on homesteading corporations, or even the state, for that matter. I myself am opposed to treating mostly peaceful corporations as being equivalent to state property, even if I don’t think that said corporations will exist in a free market. The market will decide.
And I don’t disagree with any of that. But if the property is honestly unowned (the former rightful owner can’t be found), than it is no different than homesteading virgin land. First come, first serve, luck of the draw.
State property is not honestly unowned. It is clearly criminally unowned, which is why the landless labourer class, the fish people, the orphans and the pandas are all SOL in the free grab. We know who the victims are, and what is needed is a way to determine the distribution of the remainder of that property, as surely the state will have consumed and wasted much of it.
You keep leaving it somewhat open that because we don’t know which taxpayer owns which portion of road, then all taxpayers have no claim to the road, when it is obvious that taxpayers in the aggregate paid for the road.
Can you clarify that precise example for me?
I honestly can’t right now. I’m going to have to give this some thought. I should have a response up sometime tomorrow.
That was all I was saying.
But why? It’s correct, there will be competition between different uses of the individuals time, the fact of the matter is however that the state has reduced the price of using the roads to 0 and as such reduced the opportunity cost of using the roads.