What's wrong with join ownership?

[John_James]

@FlyingAxe

Actually, we can. If I don’t want my wife to use my property in a certain way, she can’t, even though it’s her property too. And vice versa.

Could you please explain how someone else being able to restrict your usage of property does not contradict your having 100% ownership of it?

That is because you apparently don’t understand why I brought the Earth II example and asked the question about joint ownership. I am trying to figure out what exactly is the legal problem with socialism. (I already know what the economic problem is.) I.e., I am trying to figure out why joint ownership of all property (barring people’s own bodies) would be a bad setup from legal point of view.

I guess it boils down to logic and ethics. Obviously legal structure is a product of ethics, so you have to delve into that. And ultimately I think it just comes down to the rights of actual full property ownership…where a person own something and actually does have 100% control. This is why I don’t understand how you can have such a problem with conceding that two people cannot have 100% ownership of the same thing at the same time.

I think Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism would be really helpful for you here.

he disagrees that the problem with socialism is moral or legal; in his opinion, the problem is only of utilitarian nature.

That’s kind of interesting. But you did say it went against your sense of justice.

@FlyingAxe

I was under impression that clarity of boundaries is one of the main requirements for conflict resolution/prevention. (Boundaries in both physical and abstract sense.) So, what is your answer? Why would a pseudo-socialist system be a bad case of conflict resolution/prevention?

Well sure… “legal systems make possible conflict-free use of resources, by establishing visible boundaries that nonowners can avoid”…but that’s not all it takes. You need rules for property assignment. And as Kinsella goes on to say in that piece: “Libertarianism does not endorse just any property assignment rule, however.[13] It favors self-ownership over other-ownership (slavery).”

I highely recommend that piece, especially the “Self-ownership and Conflict-avoidance” section. It think it will help elucidate the issue and the libertarian understanding.

Now, you will say: but in this case, the boss owns all the stuff. But you might imagine that we were a corporation and everyone owned all the stuff. Conflict prevention resolution would still work just fine. (Nobody can use my stuff, unless the corporation, or the elected board, votes that he or she can.)

So, I am demonstrating how conflict resolution and prevention would work just fine in a society where everyone owns every item, except one’s body.

a) The conflict resolution works in the corporate situation because it boils down to logical assignment of property ownership. The owner(s) of the property make the rules with regard to that property’s use. It works because they have understood exclusion rights to their property.

If you assume that everyone equally owns everything, there are no such exclusion rights. Therefore, there really is no such thing as property.

b) There is no way to logically disassociate ownership of ones own self and body with ownership of other property in a “property rights” sense. In other words, there is no way to logically reject any sort of property ownership if you accept the concept of self-ownership. And of course, there is no way to justify ownership of any other property if you deny self-ownership.

So this notion of “everyone owns everything except someone else’s body” is a fallacious one. It is inconsistant.

Again, I highly recommend these links pertaining specifically to ownership, as well as the Kinsella piece linked here.

@FlyingAxe

such a system would be impossible and self-contradictory. But that’s not the case with non-body items.)

Yes it is. See above.

The function of reductio ad absurdum is to show that the logic is flawed. It doesn’t explain how and why the logic is flawed.

Logic is flawed when the reasoning proves to be illogical. I don’t know what you’re saying.

It just demonstrates that there is likely a problem with the argument, since it leads to apparently absurd conclusions. I don’t need convincing that socialism is unjust. I need to be able to explain to someone using clear arguments why, starting from our definition of what a law is (or ought to be), we can derive logically that socialism is unjust.

Again, see the links above.