SPC (and other libertarians) Political Views Discussion Thread

[SPC]

Okay, here is the major problem I have with your line of argument: first you said that rights were natural because no individual or group of individuals could infringe upon them. As a result of their natural status, nobody may infringe upon them. That is circular. Then I asked whether they exist in a state of nature and you said that of course they do because man evolved to a state where he recognised that they did. Yet, the fact is that not all societies have developed in the same way and thus not all societies recognise the ‘natural rights’ that you speak of. In response to this you say that the rights still exist there even if they don’t think they do. Yet, your justification for them existing is that society has developed to a point where it recognises them. Surely you recognise the contradiction there?

No, I was using implication to show that if no individual could infringe on another's rights, then they cannot come from any human source. Thus, the only conclusion is that they are natural. All humans have natural rights, whether they choose to recognize them or not. This is one of the things that seperate them from other animals.

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Well, as I have said before, natural rights and the state are mutually exclusive, they cannot co-exist, simply because the latter's very existance infringes upon the former. Thus, I come to the conclusion that natural rights>statism. However, if one were to come to the conclusion that statism>natural rights, one would again see a society with mass robbery, slavery, and murder. Being a humanitarian, I would opt for the less violent former option.

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No, you are confusing positive rights with negative/natural rights. Negative rights are the ones that say that you have a right to life, liberty, and property. Positive rights are the ones that say you have a right to material possessions at the expense of your neighbors. For example one could not enforce a "right to be free from poverty", without either a) an incredibly wealthy society, or b) mass theft. If we were to follow the latter option, then the society we would get from enforcing that one positive right would be one where everybody steals from everybody else, and it would certainly not be a wealthy society. Thus, enforcement of positive rights not only infringes on natural rights, but infringes on the very positive rights it intends on enforcing.

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I didn't say that the rights were equal. I said that since they were inseperable, there is no point in ranking them; their equality is irrelevent. The society may claim to recognize the right to life, but if an individual were to decide one say that he wanted to own property, the society would have to choose whether they wish to enforce all natural rights or enforce none. The recognition of some but not all is only a temporary state of affairs which cannot last in the long run.

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That is contradictory to my right to property. You're stating that if I don't like the laws that society has provided me, I should have to surrender my property to society in the form of leaving is clearly infringement of that natural right. For an example of why democracy fails, take an example where 99% of the population believes it is justified to sacrifice the other 1%. The other 1% sue in court, but they fin in favor of the sacrificing advocates. Must the 1% have to walk to their deaths, or could they choose not to recognize that law and move on with their daily lives?

[SPC]

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If he has no insurance company, then he would have to defend himself from violent crime. With regard to corporations, I take it you have never heard of something called a boycott.

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Yes, because if the courts have a bad interpretation or one too one-sided, the customers can use another court. Our current monopolized legal system leaves you no legal recourse except to use a higher court which will also likely share the same biases as the lower court.

[qupte]He also talks about a hypothetical situation where a ‘rich man’ is suing a ‘poor man’. He suggests that this could best be solved by submitting it to a ‘parity court’ where the court appoints the lawyers to both sides. Yet, in order for the court to go to this court he suggests that the court the rich man chooses should review the financial situation of the poor man and make a decision as to whether it should go to that court. There is a fundamental flaw there; if the court that decides where the case should be held is the one selected by the rich man, why is it going to choose to send it to a parity court where its client will not be able to exercise its full financial might. You can suggest that it would lose credibility if it did not make a legitimate decision, but it strikes me that any wealthy person worried about losing their assets who wants to be able to employ the best lawyer he can would be happy to turn to such a court to ensure his own interest is catered to. I also liked his conspiracy theory at the end that courts will issue ‘sh**t rulings’ because then when they are appealed it brings in more business for the courts. Strangely enough, judges are not paid that way and juries are not paid at all.
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The point of a trial is to grant legitimacy to an act of restitution that the plaintiff intends on enforcing upon the defendant. If the trial was clearly biased, then there is no point of the trial, and the poor man would not have to abide by it.

[JohnFKennedy]

You say that you were using implication to show that ‘if no individual could infringe on another’s rights, then they cannot come from any human source.’ Yet, what you originally said was that ‘the idea that rights come from society is false, since no individual could infringe on your rights’. When I asked you to expand on this, you justified it by stating that ‘no civilized person could possibly’ hold a belief that an individual can deprive another of rights. You provided no proof that individuals could not infringe on another’s rights, you simply appealed to the cultural moral norm of the ‘civilized’. In other words, you’re ascribing a moral absolute to an essentially culturally determined view. In referencing other societies, my point was to demonstrate that not all civilizations have developed the same concept of rights. Why is it that the ones you believe in are superior – and thus ‘natural’ – to the ones that other societies have developed? That is what I wanted you to justify and you still have not. All you have done is to assert the cultural superiority and universality of a set of ‘modern’, ‘western’ notions. Further to that, why is it these three rights that are natural?

I followed this up by asking whether these rights exist in a state of nature to which you suggested they did because they have developed from it when ‘man evolved to the point where he realized that his chances of survival are better if he cooperates with his neighbour than they would be if he killed his neighbours’. Yet, as I have pointed out, the state developed from a similar process. I don’t accept that natural rights and the state are necessarily mutually exclusive and I think most theorists would agree with me on that. I don’t think that placing limits on people’s rights is necessarily the same thing as infringing them if it is done so for a legitimate reason such as preserving the rights of another. For instance, if I owned all the land around your house and chose to build a twelve-foot perimeter wall around it, I would be restricting your freedom of movement and potentially endangering your right to life because you would be unable to go out and find food. Yet, any attempt by you to break through my wall would be in breach of my property rights. Thus, in order for you to exercise your rights, mine would have to be limited. When one person’s rights come into conflict with another’s, you have to rank them in some way because it is necessary to reach a resolution.

As to your suggestion that I am confusing positive and negative rights, I assure you I am not. I would consider a crucial positive right to be freedom from harm. Instead, you are misrepresenting positive rights; they do not say that ‘you have a right to material possessions at the expense of your neighbours’ but that each individual has a right to a certain standard of living – freedom from want or poverty – which does not necessarily require an incredibly wealthy society, simply one in which wealth is relatively equitably distributed. In practice, one in which an effective system of progressive taxation is in action. I would not consider that theft, simply ensuring that every individual’s right to be free from want and poverty is enforced.

I also don’t see my suggestion as being contradictory to your right to property. You’re perfectly welcome to take your property with you when you leave or if you cannot, to sell it or trade it for something that you can take. Equally, it is your decision whether or not to leave and so your decision whether or not to leave your property behind. As to your ninety-nine percent example, I have already noted that I believe in a balance of rights; that some are more important than others. The right to life is paramount among these and so I believe in a necessity to preserve that above the whims of any group.

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Thank you for the patronising mention of boycotts. Surprisingly I have heard of them and part of my original point was specifically addressed to that. As I said, people will often value price and convenience over ethics and the law; just because a corporation has done something illegal or widely considered unethical, does not necessarily mean it will lose out heavily in business. Without a body that can enforce some form of punishment upon that business, it is entirely plausible that there would be no repercussions for an illegal act. As to the individual with no insurance, why would he have to defend himself any more than any other individual? Do these insurance companies operate a protection racket? That sounds dubious to me. While you can argue that an individual could simply choose another ‘insurance company’, in practice it would never be quite so simple because of the balance of power that would exist between the individual and his ‘insurance company’.

You state that ‘if the trial was clearly biased, then there is no point of the trial, and the poor man would not have to abide by it’. How on earth do we determine whether it is biased or not? Surely that is purely a matter of perspective. Does this mean that if I consider a court’s decision to be biased against me then I can simply ignore it? In order for a court’s orders to be accepted, there has to be some form of forceful recourse. The legal theorist H.L.A. Hart argued that laws are simply threats backed by force; without the force, they are simply empty threats that none need abide by. As to the current legal system, I don’t think it is necessarily true that a higher court will share the same bias as a lower court, otherwise decisions would never be overturned. Equally, in the case of criminal law, I believe in trial by jury and a jury is unlikely to have these institutionalised biases that you and the man in the video describe; why is it in a jury’s interest to ensure that the courts have plenty of work to do?

You’ve also not provided any sort of explanation of why the evidence of this fourteen percent which the video mentions is so compelling and provides ‘all the necessary proof’ nor have you provided some sort of explanation as to how to ensure that the court chosen by the rich man to decide whether the poor man is poor enough for a ‘parity court’ will take the decision justly. It is perfectly possible for a court to emerge simply as a means to an end for the rich.

[Matt Damon™]

After the fall of the roman empire we had anarchocapitalism and in Somalia today we have it. Based on those models of what an AnCap/libertarian society looks like in practice..

[SPC]

After the fall of the roman empire we had anarchocapitalism and in Somalia today we have it. Based on those models of what an AnCap/libertarian society looks like in practice..

After the Roman Empire, there was barbarian tribes as the government. Somalia is a bad situation, but it was worse under the communist government. It should also be added that Somalia has tribal governments and is at war with Ethiopia and the U.S., so if those problems were gotten rid of, it would be better.

[Хahar 🤔]

After the fall of the roman empire we had anarchocapitalism and in Somalia today we have it. Based on those models of what an AnCap/libertarian society looks like in practice..

After the Roman Empire, there was barbarian tribes as the government. Somalia is a bad situation, but it was worse under the communist government. It should also be added that Somalia has tribal governments and is at war with Ethiopia and the U.S., so if those problems were gotten rid of, it would be better.

But an argument could be made (and I will in fact make that argument) that feudalism is the inevitable result of anarchy.

[SPC]

After the fall of the roman empire we had anarchocapitalism and in Somalia today we have it. Based on those models of what an AnCap/libertarian society looks like in practice..

After the Roman Empire, there was barbarian tribes as the government. Somalia is a bad situation, but it was worse under the communist government. It should also be added that Somalia has tribal governments and is at war with Ethiopia and the U.S., so if those problems were gotten rid of, it would be better.

But an argument could be made (and I will in fact make that argument) that feudalism is the inevitable result of anarchy.

No, because libertarians allows for people to climb up the social ladder. In feudalism, the social ladder is fixed at birth.

[SPC]

You say that you were using implication to show that ‘if no individual could infringe on another’s rights, then they cannot come from any human source.’ Yet, what you originally said was that ‘the idea that rights come from society is false, since no individual could infringe on your rights’. When I asked you to expand on this, you justified it by stating that ‘no civilized person could possibly’ hold a belief that an individual can deprive another of rights. You provided no proof that individuals could not infringe on another’s rights, you simply appealed to the cultural moral norm of the ‘civilized’. In other words, you’re ascribing a moral absolute to an essentially culturally determined view. In referencing other societies, my point was to demonstrate that not all civilizations have developed the same concept of rights. Why is it that the ones you believe in are superior – and thus ‘natural’ – to the ones that other societies have developed? That is what I wanted you to justify and you still have not. All you have done is to assert the cultural superiority and universality of a set of ‘modern’, ‘western’ notions. Further to that, why is it these three rights that are natural?

I suppose you wish to defend the morality of slavery, theft, and murder?

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Whether the state and natural rights conflict with each other isn't a matter of opinion. The state cannot exist without taxation (theft), forcing its clients not to switch (slavery), and bearing the threat of lethal force to force its citizens to obey its laws (murder). Give me an example of a state that doesn't do any of these things, then I will give you a state that is compatible with natural law.

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Progressive Taxation is codeword for massive theft. Rich people don't give their taxes on a voluntary basis, if they did, it would be called a charity. Thus, in your own words, enforcement of the positive right of freedom of poverty must come at the expense of the natural right of property. If you continue to argue that taxation isn't theft, would you consider theft if the lower-class people enforced the wealth redistribution themselves, without the state as intermediary?

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Obviously, you collectivist idea precludes one from taking their land with them, since you believe it is "part of society". Also, what would happen if every single individual in society left it? Why are some rights more respected than others? Isn't that a contradiction of the word "right" if it can be unequally enforced? Surely if it is a right, that means that it can never be legitimately infringed. Take another example: If 99% of the people believed it was just to steal all of the money from the other 1%, would the 1%'s right to property be preserved above the whims of the group? What if the 99% only stole 75%, would their right to property be defended then? If the 99% only stole enough fromthe 1% such that everyone was equal in income, would their right to property be defended then?

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One would think that a stock price would be a general indicator of a company's well-being. I would like to see how the stock-prices of Enron and WorldCom were. The insurance companies would offer police protection from crime as well. It would be simple to switch insurance companies, since there would be another insurance company there even in the unlikely event that the previous insurance company wanted revenge.

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If the general public is persuaded by the trial, then it has served its purpose. If they aren't then it hasn't. You could ignore a legitimate verdict, but your insurance rates would go through the roof if you were to do so. It is not that the jury wants to give the court more work, but the jury simply bears no consequences from giving a bad verdict.

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14% is a large percent of the U.S. population. If that many people were truly working underground with few legal consequences, I would say that the justice system is pretty ineffective. As I have said, the purpose of the court is to ensure legitimacy. If a court were clearly biased, it wouldn't serve that purpose. Thus, the most successful court would be a neutral one, since they would be least suspect of bias.

[JohnFKennedy]

I suppose you wish to defend the morality of slavery, theft, and murder?

Does this mean that you have no way to prove that the rights you mention are natural without appealing to liberal western values?

As to your point on the state and natural rights I would first like to point out that natural law and natural rights are not synonymous so if you are going to accuse me of mixing my terms then you should apply your own precisely. On taxation as theft I would like to begin by looking at the origins of property. Thus the acquisition of absolute property rights has to have begun by infringing upon the rights of access of others to what was once held in common ownership. Given that all wealth necessarily originates in some form of natural resource, how is it that an individual can claim absolute ownership of that wealth when it is the product of natural resources which they could never claim absolute property rights over? This right to property, then, necessarily originates in coercion.

Given that, it seems meet that society is owed some form of payment for the benefits that individuals accrue from their use of natural resources because they cannot truly claim absolute ownership over them without direct reference to forceful acquisition. Equally, an individual’s wealth is not acquired in a vacuum; it is dependant on society’s enabling conditions that have led to its creation and acquisition. Taxation is simply the due owed to society for this.

As to ‘slavery’ and ‘murder’, I have already pointed out to you that an individual is free to move to another society if they wish and given that there is thus a choice involved, it is hardly slavery. On murder, I do not believe in the death penalty and so there is no lethal force involved. Equally, in the society you envision there is just the same threat of lethal force, it is simply not meted out by the state but by private companies. Why have they the right to enforce laws through lethal force when a state does not?

As I have said repeatedly, I believe in a balance of rights and that some rights should have greater value placed on them than others. I notice you have not discussed my example of a wall around an individual’s property. Under those circumstances, whose rights should be upheld? The man inside’s right to life and liberty or the property rights of the individual who has built the wall? It is my opinion that people already do respect some rights to a greater degree than others; given the choice between losing one’s property and losing one’s life, I would wager the majority would choose to lose their property. In theory, I do believe that the principle from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs is a good idea but I recognise that in practice it is unworkable. A system of progressive taxation is a compromise.

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On Enron and Worldcom, their stock prices fell because the companies had gone bankrupt. Incidentally, many people continued to hold on to Enron stock and others even bought Enron stock as it fell in value because they trusted the words of Kenneth Lay who assured them that the company was heading in the right direction. The reason that the Enron shares declined in value was that the executives – who were aware of the financial mess the corporation was in – were selling their own shares. Anyway, my point was addressed more at the purchase of goods and services; if a shop is providing lower priced goods with greater convenience then people will often be willing to overlook illegal or unethical practices because it is in their financial interest to.

As to the insurance companies, I sincerely doubt that they would make it so simple for people to switch off from their services. It’s hard enough as it is to cancel something as simple as a mobile phone contract, I dread to think how difficult it would be where the balance of power is so heavily tilted in favour of the corporation. I also doubt that the industry would maintain the level of competition you seem to assume it would. I would be very surprised if you did not end up with local monopolies allowing a firm to coerce its customers and thus create a protection racket.

As to the general public being persuaded by a trial, that is an awfully difficult thing to measure and I doubt would be possible for many petty trials. Equally, if your insurance company would be forced to pay out in the case of a legitimate verdict, why is it in its interest to say that the verdict is legitimate? They could simply challenge its legitimacy and then refuse to pay the plaintiff. While the jury may bear no consequences from giving a bad verdict, that does not incentivise them to give a bad verdict because the same would be true of a good one.

As to the fourteen percent, while it may be a large percentage, why is it so much more significant than the eighty-six percent of US ‘free’ (as he calls it) economy? It is not fourteen percent of the US population but an estimated fourteen percent of the ‘free’ economy which I believe he states is ten percent of the overall US economy. He also doesn’t detail what this actually constitutes; for all we know it could be the resale of stolen goods. My point about bias in the courts was directed at his assessment that the court that the rich man chooses could assess the financial assets of the poor man to decide whether it should be heard in a ‘parity’ court. In that circumstance, there is no incentive for the chosen court of the rich man to be neutral because it could simply make its money by serving the interests of its rich clients.

[Хahar 🤔]

After the fall of the roman empire we had anarchocapitalism and in Somalia today we have it. Based on those models of what an AnCap/libertarian society looks like in practice..

After the Roman Empire, there was barbarian tribes as the government. Somalia is a bad situation, but it was worse under the communist government. It should also be added that Somalia has tribal governments and is at war with Ethiopia and the U.S., so if those problems were gotten rid of, it would be better.

But an argument could be made (and I will in fact make that argument) that feudalism is the inevitable result of anarchy.

No, because libertarians allows for people to climb up the social ladder. In feudalism, the social ladder is fixed at birth.

You ignored my point.

Feudalism is an inevitable result of anrarchy, as people without resources will appeal to people with resources.

[SPC]

I suppose you wish to defend the morality of slavery, theft, and murder?

Does this mean that you have no way to prove that the rights you mention are natural without appealing to liberal western values?

You have yet to disprove that slavery, theft, and murder are not contradictory to rights.

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No, I think that you have it in the reverse. Those who most frequently used the commonly-owned resource eventually claimed ownership of it (i.e. homesteading), and found that they have much greater incentive to take care of it than the "community". Also, with regard to your argument against property rights, you run into several flaws. First, even if the property were originated in coercion, what right does that have for another institution to confiscate the property using coercive methods? Second, why should I be prosecuted for my grandfather's crimes? Using this method, the entire human race should be exterminated, because all of our great-great-great-etc. grandfathers may have commited murder during the dawn of civilization. Third, using this thesis, does that mean I have the right to deprive you of food, because your ancestors claimed it as theirs when it was previously commonly owned? Fourth, how can one possibly rescind the right to property without using coercion? The concept of property rights is a natural state of affairs, you cannot stop it from happening short of violence. What should be the punishment for property owners? Lifetime imprisonment? Death?

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Again, society is composed of individuals. What you speak of is stealing en masse frm one group of people and giving it to a smaller group. Also, even if taxation were justified to pay back to society, what should the rate be? 100%? 99%? Also, when you try to say that society is more than just individuals, let's suppose that we have a society where all individuals own some sort of property. Since you claim that property originated forcefully, all of this property must be confiscated somehow, but who is it given to if everybody is supposedly guilty? Also, when an individual owns something, he has an incentive to care for it, since it is a loss for him if he doesn't. Who have such incentive under commonly-owned property?

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Okay, since you say it isn't slavery if you are allowed to leave, let's take a few historical examples, though this isn't to be Godwinian. Could American antebellum chattel slavery not be considered an infringement on the right to liberty, since the slaves were free to leave to the North if they weren't caught? If I point a gun at your head and threaten to shoot it if you don't surrender the deed to your house, are you free? With regard to the death penalty, what were to happen if the people were to refuse to obey to your collectivist ideas, and the only thing that could make them obey the law would be death? What would be your position then? Private companies have that right because if they abuse it, they go broke. If the state abuses that right, nothing happens. At best, a judge who gets his salary from the state decides on the issue.

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Again, you act as if there is a choice between rights, while I show that it isn't so. I didn't see the example with the wall, so I will discuss it now. If the man owns the area on which the wall would be built, he is free to do so. However, the person inside is free to climb the wall to leave the surrounded area, and he is also free to dig a tunnel underneath the wall to leave the surrounded area. Thus supporting one man's right to life and liberty and another's right to property are not mutually exclusive, even under the most unlikely of circumstances.

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I will reply to the other half of the argument later.

[JohnFKennedy]

You have yet to disprove that slavery, theft, and murder are not contradictory to rights.

I am not attempting. Besides, even if I were, why would I have to prove they are not contradictory to ‘rights’ when you cannot give me any concrete and analytical proof that these rights exist and are natural without appealing to cultural norms? The burden of proof is on you to prove that these rights truly are natural. If you are going to premise your entire argument on the basis that they are natural then you have to give a legitimate reason why they aren’t and stating that any ‘civilized’ person must recognise they are is simply normative.

As to the question of property, it was generally not those who most frequently used the commonly-owned resources who claimed ownership of it, but those with the strength to do so. Even if it were, why does their frequency of use give them the right to deprive not only their own generation but future generations of the use of that land which they claim for their own? If this property right is natural then how can this homesteading individual deprive the rest of their community of their rights of common ownership of the land? Alternatively, if you believe it to have no owner whatsoever then the homesteading infringes upon the liberty of the community to access resources which they previously could. Thus I do not see taxation as the confiscation of property but as society taking its share of the wealth accrued from the ill-gotten land.

As to the question of being ‘prosecuted for my grandfather’s crimes’, the issue is one of contracts. The man who first acquired the property had no absolute right to dispose of the property as he wished because it was not legally his. Instead of complete collective ownership of everything, I view taxation as a good and necessary compromise. I am not saying that any individual simply has the right to dispossess property, but that society does because it is the wider ownership of the society that has been infringed upon.

As to the question of levels of taxation, I believe it should be determined by a democratic and accountable government in order that each individual that is a part of that society has some say in the matter. It is not my place to determine the rate, but that of the collective. As I have said repeatedly, I do not wish for all property to be completely confiscated because I do not think that is a workable solution; a system of taxation, on the other hand, is workable. As to the question of the incentive to care for property, it is not entirely a relevant one but I will address it nonetheless. The state is placed in charge of administering the common property of society and it is in the interest of a democratically elected government to ensure that it is properly cared for as if they do not then they stand the risk of being voted out.

Now to look at your historical examples. There is a difference between a democratic society in which each individual has a say in the state of affairs and the case of slavery you discuss. In a democratic society one is completely free to leave the country and move to another – if it will have them – which is very different from being free to leave provided you avoid being caught. As to the gun-to-the-head question, that is exactly the example I was offering you to suggest that people rank their own rights. As I have said, I do not believe in administering death to those who refuse to obey society’s laws. If someone is found guilty by a court of not obeying the laws of society then they should be put in prison. I think your analysis of the difference between private companies and the state is incredibly simplistic because it fails to take into account the power dynamic of the relationship between a company and its customers. If the company is monopolizing force then it becomes far more difficult for its customer to resist because they are acting from the weaker position in the relationship. If one company were to acquire a local monopoly – highly likely – then the balance of power would be heavily stacked in its favour. In fact, you seem to have effectively conceded that such an event does happen; when presented with the example of the fall of the Roman Empire you pointed out that barbarian tribes became the government. In other words, another body stepped in and monopolized force, just as these companies you discuss could do.

As to my example, I admit it is unlikely but it is no more far-fetched than many of the possibilities you have put to me. From your suggestion I take it that trespass is not a breach of property rights? If it were then I could simply kill the man for breaching my property rights and if it were not then there is no reason why I could not walk into another’s house providing that their door was open. Once you get to the stage where you are working in a society, it is virtually impossible for one man to exercise his rights without infringing in some way on the rights of another and so you have to have some means of balancing this. Most actions create externalities.

[SPC]

As to the insurance companies, I sincerely doubt that they would make it so simple for people to switch off from their services. It’s hard enough as it is to cancel something as simple as a mobile phone contract, I dread to think how difficult it would be where the balance of power is so heavily tilted in favour of the corporation. I also doubt that the industry would maintain the level of competition you seem to assume it would. I would be very surprised if you did not end up with local monopolies allowing a firm to coerce its customers and thus create a protection racket.

The fact that there is free entry into the business guarantees that there wouldn't be local monopolies developing. Even if there were, that would still be preferable to a national monopoly on security as there is now to a great extent.

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An insurance company loses credibility if it doesn't recognize the verdict. Why do many lawyers choose to obey a losing verdict now rather than appeal it? Moreover, why are many cases settled out of court, when the defendant would be forced to pay if they did so? The point would be to avoid the big cost of litigation. A jury has no incentive to try to give a good verdict, since they face no punishment for not doing so and no reward for doing so. They will give the bare minimum unless they have some stake in it.

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But the court would lose its purpose if it appeared unneutral. The rich man would be better going to a neutral court, because then he has a 50% chance of winning and the verdict appears to have legitimacy.

[SPC]

You have yet to disprove that slavery, theft, and murder are not contradictory to rights.

I am not attempting. Besides, even if I were, why would I have to prove they are not contradictory to ‘rights’ when you cannot give me any concrete and analytical proof that these rights exist and are natural without appealing to cultural norms? The burden of proof is on you to prove that these rights truly are natural. If you are going to premise your entire argument on the basis that they are natural then you have to give a legitimate reason why they aren’t and stating that any ‘civilized’ person must recognise they are is simply normative.

Simply, the rights to life, liberty, and property must be prioritized over other supposed rights because any other prioritization would lead to chaos. I can think of better arguments later.

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First, resources not owned by individuals aren't commonly-owned, they are unowned. Only individuals can own property, there is no such thing as collective property ownership. Since nobody owns the resource, then it is not infringing upon anybody else's property rights to claim ownership over the resource. It would be infringement of property rights to claim ownership over an owned resource, but since the resource has no owner, there isn't anybody whse property rights could be infringed. Since everybody has the same right to homstead, it cannot be considered an infringement of property rights, since anyone else simply chose not to exercise the right to homestead. Additionally, even if homesteading were theft, what right would the state have to confiscate these resources and make them unowned resources? Even if homesteading were theft, two wrongs do not make a right.

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I have already rebutted part of this argument, so I will use your assumption that homesteading infringes upon property rights. Anyone who currently owns property did not take resources from the "community". They do not deserve to be punished for the crimes of their ancestors. Since you view homesteading as a violation of property rights, how could you not logically support completely collective ownership of everything? In your view, all property was stolen from the "community", so why shouldn't it be returned, if you believe it is just to punish one for the alleged crimes of his ancestors? Additionally, any member of society at the time of this alleged property rights infringement is dead, so even if society were stolen from, it is not modern-day society's decision as to the allocation of these resources. Thus, even if there were some previous conflict of rights, any such conflict died along with the people in the conflict.

[SPC]

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Most individuals would have no say in the matter. You would have to take the percentage of the population who is eligible to vote, multiply it by the percentage of that group who does vote, multiply it by the percentage of that group who voted for the winning candidate, and multiply it by the percentage of that group who voted for the winning candidate because of his tax policy, and that is a liberal estimate of those who had a say in the matter. Even that doesn't come to a significant portion of the population, and they only have a say in it every few years. The conservative estimate of those who truly have a say in the matter would be the people in office who have a direct effect upon tax policy, since they only get elected every few years. That comes to an very, very small percentage of the population. I can hardly say that each individual in society has a say in the matter. Also, even if taxation were just, who takes the money once it is confiscated? The only way it could be even remotely considered giving back to society is if every cent collected is redistributed back to every individual in society. The state isn't allowed to take a cent of that money, since the overwhelming majority of the populace didn't give the state authority to do so.

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So, your right to leave the country isn't even determined by the people that a small percentage of your population voted for? It is determined by who the small percentage of another population voted for? How can that not be considered a violation of my rights, where my right to not be harrased by people pretending to be acting in the common good is determined by another set of people pretending to be acting in the common good? The gun-to-the-head question wasn't about ranking rights, it was about whether you support all rights or you support none. Also, what if the laws of one society are different from the laws of another society? Does it make much sense that my geographic location determines whether I go to jail or not? Even if the power ratio is different between a person and his insurance company, what does that say about the power ratio between a person and his government, which is the only insurance company allowed? You complain this insurance companies wouldn't allow you to switch service, but governments have been very unkind to secession over the millenia.

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Tresspassing is a breach of property rights, but leaving the surrounded area wouldn't be tresspassing, as I already explained. I couldn't kill someone for tresspassing, I could just demand compensation for any damage he inflicted on my property. If there is a conflict of rights, that is what a neutral court is for.

[JohnFKennedy]

Why is chaos less desirable than order? Why should we choose the Apollonian over the Dionysian? Again, this argument is based on a personal preference rather than an absolute. If these rights are to be considered absolute then they must be grounded in something absolute rather than your own moral preferences.

If they resources are not owned by anybody then the initial acquisition is surely a breach of the rights of others to liberty because it is making something unavailable to them that had once been available. How do you square your belief that ‘there is no such thing as collective property ownership’ with public limited companies? Surely everyone who owns stock in a company owns a part of that company and thus the company itself is collectively owned? Equally, the suggestion that ‘anyone else simply chose not to exercise the right to homestead’ fails to account for the fact that future generations will almost certainly need the resources that an individual has laid claim to. You noted before that an individual has greater incentive to look after resources; surely they have greater incentive to use it up within their lifetime to maximise their own benefit which in turn minimises the long term benefits for others. Taxation is the state accounting for the loss of benefit to others from an individual claiming ownership over a natural resource.

While the individuals who own resources now may not have taken it from the community themselves, they have ultimately received it from one that did. If the original owner did not truly own the property then his decision regarding how to dispose of it cannot be legitimate meaning that the next owner’s claim to ownership of the goods had no foundation. In theory, I would prefer a system of collective ownership but I recognise that in practice it is not likely to work and so I support a compromise as I have stated before. An individual may hold his own property but society is due a part of that property which it exacts through taxation. As I have pointed out several times now, some of those that are deprived of access to natural resources by private ownership are future generations and so modern day society does have a role to play in the allocation of resources.

As to your problems with democracy; that is why it is known as representative democracy. Direct democracy is unworkable in a complex society such as those that we live in today and so it is necessary that the people grant decision making powers to a representative who is to act on their will. If people choose not to vote then they are choosing not to have their voice heard and they should live with the consequences of that. As to redistributing the money to society, that is what the state does through various means. Some of it goes to public services such as the provision of a police force, healthcare system, fire service, roads and so on and so forth while other money goes direct to individuals who need it through a system of benefits.

I actually would support freedom of movement whereby any individual could live in any country they want to but I am unsure how workable it is in practice. Unfortunately it is inevitability that the laws in one society will be different from another and it is not fair that one’s geographic location will determine one’s quality of life, just as it is unfair that a child born into a rich family will have a higher quality of life than one born into a poor family. In an ideal world it would not be the case but, unfortunately, this is not an ideal world.

As to the question of the power balance, the difference between the state and a private company is that the state is democratically accountable. As you rightly pointed out, in the absence of the Roman Empire, barbarian tribes sprung up and took the position of the state which is essentially what these ‘insurance’ companies could do, creating a quasi-state which is unaccountable which is the difference between them and an elected government. As to the question of secession, it’s a difficult issue; on the one hand I support the right to national self determination, on the other hand I find the idea of a state based simply on common nationality to be slightly concerning.

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If leaving the surrounded area involves going over my property then it is trespassing which is a breach of property rights. If he is climbing over my wall or tunnelling under it then I would say that is grounds for fearing his intent. I may not be able to use lethal force, but if my property right is inalienable and he is breaching it then I have the right to defend it with force, correct? As to the question of a neutral court, if a court has no means of enforcing its ruling then it is not going to be an effective court.

As to free entry guaranteeing that there would not be local monopolies developing, in practice there are always some barriers to entry. Firstly, there is never perfect information on the part of all involved and secondly, when there is force involved then that is a particularly good barrier to entry. No company is going to want competition and so it is going to attempt to monopolize the market, a dangerous fact of life when there is force involved.

An insurance company may lose credibility if it does not recognise the verdict, but why would it when there is no force behind a decision? A court system that is entirely run on the basis of voluntary acceptance of its verdicts would be little more than a joke. There is no reason for any individual to observe its rulings. Especially those who are wealthy, what would be the ramifications of ignoring a decision? As to the question of juries, I believe that lawyers are allowed to have jurors they deem unsuitable recused. Also, is there a wealth of empirical evidence suggesting that juries are more likely to give ‘bad’ verdicts than ‘good’ ones? I can think of maybe one or two questionable decisions, but it is hardly the norm.

[SPC]

Why is chaos less desirable than order? Why should we choose the Apollonian over the Dionysian? Again, this argument is based on a personal preference rather than an absolute. If these rights are to be considered absolute then they must be grounded in something absolute rather than your own moral preferences.

Order allows society and individuals to thrive. Chaos destroys society and individuals.

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Homesteading is not an infringement upon the rights of others to unowned resources because the owner is the person who makes first use of the resource. Since nobody else used the resource, there is no conflict of rights. There is a difference between a large group of people owning propery and "society" owning property. The former example is merely consists of shareholders who voluntarily purchase a fraction of the resource. The latter example involves allowing everybody equal use of a resource. As a result, the former gives an incentive for the owners to take care of the resource, since they stand to profit from it. The latter gives no such incentive, since there is no profit opportunity with the resource. An individual doesn't have an incentive to use up the resource within their lifetime; on the contrary, they have an incentive to preserve the resource so that their next-of-kin have the same prosperity that they had with it. With regard to depriving future generations, shall we ban the practice of eating because it is depriving food for future generations who will certainly need it? Contrarily, it is better to have private ownership of resources to avoid the problems caused by the Tragedy of the Commons, thus preserving the resources for future generations. Again, why does the state have such wauthority to commit taxation? Even if homesteading were theft, why should the state compensate for potential theft with active theft? Additionally, doesn't this justification for taxation violate "innocent until proven guilty"? Traditionally, one is presumed to be innocent of a crime unless it can be shown that they are guilty. Using this standard, even if we accept that homesteading is theft, don't the people deserve a fair trial to determine whether they acquired their property forcefully before we seek restitution? The idea of taxation presumes one guilty until proven innocent.

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Why wouldn't such a theory of collective ownership work in practice? If full collective ownership wouldn't work in practice, why would partial collectice ownership work? Wouldn't the flaws involved in the former be present in the latter, as well? Again, how can homesteading be considered to be taking a resource from "society" when "society" never used it? I already debunked the 'preserving for future generations" argument in the previous quote, so I will not repeat myself here.

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Representative democracy is nothing more than oligarchy disguised as democracy. How can it be considered government by consent when not everyone chooses to participate? If there were an election between Hitler and Stalin, and 99.99% of the population doesn't vote, should they be bound by the consequences when one of the candidates win? If you say no, then at what point of voter participation must there be for the population to be bound by the results of an election? Also, what happens when a candidate doesn't follow the platform they run on; how can that be considering government by consent? Additionally, how can it be considered government by consent when the voter might choose the candidate for different reasons than one of his policies? If I am forced to choose between a kick in the nuts or a punch in the face, how can that decision be considered "consent"? Additionally, what if the populace prefers competition in a police force, healthcare system, fire service, roads, welfare, etc.? Do they not have to force their money over to pay for their socialist schemes, or are they bound by an opressive dictatorship?

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Okay, since you concede that one is unfairly bound by the laws of another state with regards to leaving society, does that not refute the argument that one is bound by a society's laws since they can freely leave? In other words, since one cannot freely leave, doesn't that mean that one is not bound by a "society"'s laws? Since you also concede that one's geographic location largely effects their quality of life, doesn't that make the idea that one section of the planet's laws should be different from another quite nonsensical? Wouldn't it make more sense if laws were determined based on non-geographical consent rather than the current option?

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I have shown before that the state is not democratically accountable due to the different reasons behind voting, non-voters, those ineligible to vote, lesser of two evils voters, etc. Additonally, polycentrism is democratically accountable, since one is allowed to switch service at their whim. Even if insurance companies do rise to form a quasi-state, which I don't believe they would, you would be supporting murder, slavery, and theft in prevention of potential murder, slavery, and theft, a position that I don't think makes sense.

I will reply to the second half later.

[Matt Damon™]

And your proposals involve unleashing chaos so...

[SPC]

If leaving the surrounded area involves going over my property then it is trespassing which is a breach of property rights. If he is climbing over my wall or tunnelling under it then I would say that is grounds for fearing his intent. I may not be able to use lethal force, but if my property right is inalienable and he is breaching it then I have the right to defend it with force, correct? As to the question of a neutral court, if a court has no means of enforcing its ruling then it is not going to be an effective court.

Tunneling under your wall isn't a violation of your property rights. The assumption is that you have not mixed your labor with the dirt under your wall, and thus cannot claim ownership over it. Same goes for the air above your property. Since there is no violation of rights, the lethal force question is irrelevent. Regarding the court, its purpose is the give a neutral opinion. Not abiding by a good ruling would be bad for one in the long run.

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And that isn't true under our current security monopoly? Any worst-case scenario regarding monopolies developing would merely describe the standard scenario for monopoly government. Thus, as far as free competition is concerned, polycentric law is superior to monopoly government.

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The insurance companies have an incentive to abide by a good verdict since not doing so would lose business.

[JohnFKennedy]

Again, your suggestion that order is better than chaos is simply based on your own personal morals and nothing concrete; it is not necessarily true that order ‘allows society and individuals to thrive’ and chaos ‘destroys society and individuals’. Incidentally, if order allows people to thrive, surely the best state of existence would be one that is completely ordered and that is by no means going to be anarchy. If you cannot prove that these rights are natural then the rest of this debate is irrelevant.

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You say that in homesteading the owner is the person who first makes use of the resource but in practice that is not how most property has been originally acquired. In most cases it has been taken by those wielding the most force or with the greatest social status. Why is it just to grant ownership of resources to those who use them first? Another individual in the next generation could be far more capable of taking care of the resources. Equally, if that is the case then Native Americans should own most of the resources of the Americas and so you should probably give them back. You could say that that would be punishing you for the crimes of your ancestors, but why should your claim be better than those who the goods were stolen from originally? If I broke into your house and stole a priceless painting and this was discovered several generations down the line, would it then be my family’s to keep or should it be returned?

As to the difference between the large group of people and society, I thought you believed that society was merely a collective of individuals? In a democratic society everybody is theoretically a voluntary member; as Hobbes suggested, we came together to form the Leviathan or, in Rousseau’s terminology, a social contract.  You suggest that individual ownership means that individuals have an incentive to preserve resources for future generations but is the same not true of society? Each member of society has the incentive to preserve resources in order that they last and that they and their descendents may enjoy them. I’m not sure that that is necessarily true of a corporation which seeks to maximise its profits. While an individual may wish to preserve resources for their descendants – not necessarily true anyway – that is surely not the case for a corporation. Equally, if property rights are absolute then that means that an individual has the right to destroy the natural resources if he wishes to and so those who do not have an interest in preserving resources could legitimately do so.

As to eating, firstly most food is perishable and so would not necessarily last several generations so your comment is particularly flippant. Secondly, preserving resources for the needs of future generations does not mean completely neglecting the needs of our own generation. The state has authority to levy taxation because it is granted that authority by society which includes property owners. Instead of seeing individuals as owning property, it would perhaps be better to see them as custodians of property; they get to keep a share of the profits and the rest goes to society. If an individual cannot acquire an absolute property right then the state can legitimately take taxation as restitution to the rest of society. Equally, if we were to take homesteading as theft then that would mean that the resources had not been legitimately acquired and so any seizure by society would surely not be theft. As to the question of innocent until proven guilty, by virtue of holding scarce resources one is depriving free access to others and so it is not a question of innocence or guilt.

My point regarding collective ownership not working in practice was based on the status quo. If the government were to suddenly attempt to seize all property and redistribute it then it would be met with uproar and revolution. However, the status quo is a society in which individuals are taxed for their property – what you describe as a system of ‘partial collective ownership’ – and it is a stable one that seems to work rather well. The world does not exist in black and white; there is an entire spectrum of colour. You suggest that society never used the resources that were taken by homesteaders but as I have pointed out, that is generally not the case. Equally, the fact that individuals at that time may not have used it does not mean that future generations would not have made use of it. Consider also that many natural resources have fallen into the hands of individuals purely by chance; one could have claimed ownership over a plot of arable land and later it is discovered that it is rich in oil; would that oil be theirs?

As to representative democracy, it is government by consent because everyone has the choice to participate; if they choose not to then they are only doing damage to their own interests. As to your Godwinian and rather far-fetched example, I would imagine that in that case the 99.99% being the overwhelming majority would simply refuse to accept the results which would undermine the legitimacy of the winner and force a new election in the same way that a parliamentary vote of no confidence would. As to the question of mandates, I also support divided government which tends to provide a check on executive acting as they wish. Equally, those elected are representatives rather than delegates and thus need to exercise their own judgment, something which is important as circumstances are constantly changing. While a government may promise one thing in their manifesto, changing circumstances may make that promise unworkable or new situations may arise that make it undesirable. The fact that voters choose who to vote for on the basis of different policies does not make it any less consensual because that is the voter prioritizing what they feel is most important to them. As to the question of preference for competition, there is always the possibility to use private security services – which do exist – but individuals do receive residual benefits from the existence of a police force and so should not be able to refuse to pay taxes on the basis they use a private security service. Equally, there is always the opportunity to attend a private healthcare clinic or to build a private road if they wish. Given that people already have that right, why do you think so few have exercised it?

I don’t concede that one is ‘unfairly bound by the laws of another state with regards to leaving society’ but that it is my own personal preference that individuals be granted freedom of movement and that it is regrettable that much of one’s lifestyle is determined by where one is born. Ideally I would like to see one global government locally administered but I recognise that in practice that is unworkable. The whole question is a difficult balancing act and, as usual, nowhere near as black and white as you would like to believe it is and hopefully that is something that you will come to realise; the world is not Manichaean.

If this point is leading you to suggest that obviously ‘natural rights’ should prevail so that there is a universal constant, I would like to point out that you have provided no concrete reason as to why these are absolute and thus why they should be chosen over others.

As I have pointed out, people voting for different reasons or choosing not to vote does not make a state any less democratically accountable. Thus, the difference between a corporation forming a quasi-state and an actual state is that the latter is democratically accountable while the former is not. As to the issue of polycentrism; any company would prefer to hold a monopoly rather than have to compete as it is a means for them to maximise profits and that is particularly problematic when there is force involved; think gang warfare.

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If I only lay claim to property which I have mixed my labour with then does that mean another can come and build his own house on my land provided I have not used it? If I have not mixed my labour with it then how can it be considered to be mine? As to not abiding by court rulings; firstly, it is very difficult to decide on what is a ‘good’ ruling, secondly, people will often favour their short term interest over the long term interest, and thirdly, why would anyone even care about the rulings of a court that has no force behind it whatsoever? If it is universally regarded as a joke then nobody is going to care about what it decrees. In fact, why would I even bother to go to a court when I could simply exact payment by my own force?

[SPC]

You say that in homesteading the owner is the person who first makes use of the resource but in practice that is not how most property has been originally acquired. In most cases it has been taken by those wielding the most force or with the greatest social status. Why is it just to grant ownership of resources to those who use them first? Another individual in the next generation could be far more capable of taking care of the resources. Equally, if that is the case then Native Americans should own most of the resources of the Americas and so you should probably give them back. You could say that that would be punishing you for the crimes of your ancestors, but why should your claim be better than those who the goods were stolen from originally? If I broke into your house and stole a priceless painting and this was discovered several generations down the line, would it then be my family’s to keep or should it be returned?

Even if I were to accept that, there is no way to prove that the property you own was taken by homesteading or by force, and since everyone is innocent until proven guilty, you could not justify taxation in that manner. To my knowledge, I do not live on Native American lands, and I am not sure about what should happen to people that do. I am not sure how crimes that occured prior to one's existance should be prosecuted, and libertarians take different views on the subject.

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Of course, Hobbes and Rosseau's arguments are wrong, since the social contract was not agreed upon by every single individual in society, but instead agreed upon by a select few who have since died. "Society" has no incetive to preserve resources, because the individuals in the society will each try to use the most of that resource as possible, since they bear no punishment for overuse (i.e. Tragedy of the Commons). The corporation will seek to preserve resources for the continued success of the corporation, and in a free society, the corporate management is held accountable by both the market and the shareholders. Yes, an individual could destroy a resource if he wanted to, but that would be unwise for him and would be punished by the market with lower income. This would be an anomaly in a free society, whereas it would be quite frequent where nobody bears responsibility of the resource runs out, such as collectivism.

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Food, which since we are humans will inevitably trace back to animals or plants, can last for several generations, since plants and animals can reproduce. Using your line of reasoning, to eat is the deprive future generations of food. Therefore, it would be best for the current generation to starve to death. Additionally, collectivism is neglecting the needs of both our current and future generations, due to the Tragedy of the Commons, and thus to propose that to preserve resources for both is absurd. To legitimately has the authority to levy taxes, the state would need the unanimous consent of society. I have shown the flaws in having it any other way already. With regard the custodianship, I believe Soviet Russia did something similar, and they didn't last too long. When "society" owns the property and an individual is merely the custodian, he still has no incentive to work hard, since in the end it will be society who bears the punishment and not him. You seem to concede that taxation must occur by eliminating property rights, meaning you have effectively conceded my premise that taxation and property rights are mutually exclusive. However, by leaving resources in private hands, the owners of these resources have more incentive to use them as much as they can while still preserving as much as they can for the future, and thus society gains more from private property than it does from taxation. You still have not answered my point that, if homesteading were theft, which it isn't, then the members of society today weren't affected by it, it was the members of society back then, who are currently dead. Private ownership of scarce resources guarantees that these scarce resources will exist in the future, and if others had wanted to own the resource, they should have mixed their labor with the land first. Otherwise, they will have to exchange that resource for a scarce resource that they own, or they could use an intermediary such as money. If homesteading were a crime, as you insist, then doesn't one deserve to have a fair trial with regard to whether they commited a crime or not? Doesn't this prove that "positive rights" must come at the expense of negative rights?

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If the idea of government confiscating all property and redistibuting it, which is the natural conclusion of your ideas, would be met with revolution, then perhaps society doesn't agree with your thesis that property is illegitimate? Thus, you find yourself at a dilemma; do you oppose property rights more than you support democracy? If 100% taxation would be met with revolution, then wouldn't 99% be met with the same resistance? Where do you define the breaking point between tolerable taxation and intolerable communism? In other words, at what point does the straw break the camel's back? Is it possible that this point might occur near 0%? Even if the resource wasn't owned by the first user, as I said earlier, doesn't the owner of the resource deserve a fair trial whether the property was legitimately homesteaded or not? If one is not to claim ownership of an object because it is depriving future generations of potential, couldn't one make the argument that to preserve resources for future generations would be depriving future future generations of resources. Inevitably, using the potential argument becomes ridiculous, because this forever puts a halt to property rights. Are you depriving future generations of silicon by using your computer to debate me? Are you depriving future generations of oxygen by breathing? You mentioned earlier than preservation for future generations must be prioritized by the well-being of this generation, so where do you draw the line between this generation's well-being and the next?

[SPC]

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Okay, but at what point of voter non-participation must there be to force a new election? Isn't that completely arbitrary? If the circumstances change and the government changes its position, doesn't that mean a new election is necessary? Doesn't the idea that representatives aren't delegates mean that it truly isn't representative democracy, if they aren't bound by the will of their constitutents? As I said, just because the voter might prioritize his nuts more than his face doesn't mean that he consents to being punched in the face. Since this is the case, why would it be any different for representative democracy? Could you point to any market phenomenon where an individual is forced to pay for a service he doesn't use? Doesn't that severely distort the invisible hand of the market, if one business isn't allowed to lose if they do not provide adequate service? Who gets to judge whether the individual receives benefits from a socialized police force? If it is the government, then of course they are going to force him to pay taxes. This is why it is important to have a neutral judge, where the judge doesn't receive his salary from the plaintiff.

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Global government would be even worse than national governments in that regard. At least one could potentially leave a national government if they don't like its laws. If you say that "society"'s laws are binding because an individual can leave, how can one even theoretically support global government, where there is no ability to leave if one doesn't like society's laws?

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Well, either natural rights exist or no rights exist.

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Again, the criticism you levy against polycentrism is even more true with regard to the state.

[JohnFKennedy]

Even homesteading involves some level of force as it deprives other individuals of their freedom of access to resources, including future generations. As to your suggestion that my logic leads to people ‘starving to death’ for the sake of future generations, that would obviously prevent there being any future generations to preserve resources for. Equally, it is a case of the world belonging as much to the future generations as it does to the present ones; that does not mean that everything should simply be left to future generations, but that resources should be used responsibly. As to your point that Hobbes and Rousseau are ‘wrong’, I would question whether you have read either of them and also whether there truly is an objective ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in much of philosophy (with the notable exception of metaphysical questions). Of course, it can equally be pointed out that in the distribution of property, we are now constrained by decisions of those who are long dead. Given that we had no chance to participate in the original distribution of property, is it fair that we are to be bound by the choices of those who went before us?

As to the question of the tragedy of the commons, communities and societies tend to be relatively good at regulating themselves. You might like to know that the man who originally formulated the argument based it on the issue of the commons in early modern England. Unfortunately, the historian J.M. Neeson has written a book entitled Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England 1700-1820 which has demonstrated that through ‘field orders, juries, monitoring officials, fines, drifts, and mutual surveillance’ the community took ‘every effort to keep common pastures in good order’. Just because a resource is commonly owned does not mean that it will not be kept up responsibly and states are trying to do the same thing now with sustainable fishing. In other words, the evidence just doesn’t seem to be there. Equally, given that private companies are profit-driven and particularly by short-term profit. If a region of rainforest is found to cover over an incredibly valuable resource then a private company will have no qualms about cutting down the trees and digging up the land in order to access that resource because that is what maximises profit. That is hardly what I would call preserving resources for future generations.

My point about custodianship was more a point about a way of thinking about things. Shockingly, I was not advocating a Soviet policy, but rather the status quo. I suggested that perhaps it would be better to consider someone the custodian, rather than the owner of their property; they are due a share of their produce and so too is society. This does not eliminate the incentive to work hard because the custodian still profits from his endeavours. Given that I have never accepted your notion of absolute property rights, I don’t think that taxation needs must occur by eliminating property ‘rights’; I simply have a different view of those rights. As to homesteading and theft, it does deprive current generations because their freedom of access to a resource is limited by the fact that previous individuals have claimed ownership over it, which is something I have pointed out repeatedly now. You say that ‘if others had wanted to own the resource, they should have mixed their labour with the land first’ but future generations never had that opportunity.

Again, you are being Manichaean; it is not a question of either having totally unbridled capitalism or communism but one of degree. I would wager that society would never agree that there should be no state and everything should be privately owned as you suggested. If that is the case then you face the same dilemma. Government redistributing all property is not the ‘natural conclusion’ of my ideas but your attempts to misrepresent them and as I have said before, it is a question of negotiating the most acceptable level. As I have pointed out, even homesteading would deprive others of access to resources which means that it has not been legitimately claimed without infringing on the rights or potential rights of others. The argument regarding the future is not ridiculous; the point is that we should act responsibly with regard to resources in order that they last as long as they can.

There is no set point at which non-participation must force a new election because it depends upon the circumstances and so it is not arbitrary. Ideally if circumstances force a government to change its manifesto pledges then a new election should be held but in the case of immediate and pressing crises that is not really possible. Representatives should exercise their judgment but they should also be aware that their constituents may not agree with their judgment; it is a fine balancing act in many circumstances. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a case of the market forcing an individual to pay for a service they are not using but the point is that anyone has the potential access to that resource. While a pure free market may benefit some, it would not be beneficial to all. Interestingly, in Malawi, from independence to the fall of the authoritarian government in the 1990s there was not a single recorded case of famine. However, since the market has been liberalised, there have been several scares and the only major famine in modern Malawian history. As to an individual receiving benefit from a state police force, it is quite clear that they do because police patrol the streets acting as a deterrent to crime and also placing them well to stop crimes in action. Equally, by virtue of catching criminals, they prevent them from committing other crimes which may impact on the individual.

To my knowledge, states do not file lawsuits against individuals and so they cannot be a plaintiff. Equally, a judge will not make a decision based primarily on where he receives his salary from and there have been numerous cases of public figures being tried for criminal actions and being convicted of them. Seeing as he died so recently, maybe I should bring up Mark Felt – he may have been being paid by the government but that did not stop him leaking information on Watergate.

In an ideal world I would like to see a form of global government as a form of ultimate arbiter. In practice, a single global institution could never be responsive to the wills of individuals or the differing cultures of the world and so it would be important to have locally administered governments as I pointed out. The whole world would hold certain principles dear, but they could be fine tuned for the localities. It is a sort-of reformed and bolstered version of the United Nations. As a result of this much of the lawmaking process would be taken more locally, but by virtue of having one single overarching institution, people’s ability to move would at least be enshrined. I admit it isn’t a particularly thoroughly thought through model and it is highly utopian (both in the literal meaning of the term and that which it has come to be accepted as meaning

My criticisms of polycentrism apply less to the state because it at least has some form of democratic accountability which I believe your proposal would lead to an erosion of.

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Of course, much of this discussion is secondary to my original purpose in entering this thread – I wanted you to prove to me that the rights you mentioned are natural and have some grounding in the absolute. I notice you neglected to include discussion of that in this latest post. Most else of what I have said is based purely in my own opinion and we can debate the morality of our conflicting views until the cows come home but I sincerely doubt either of us will change our mind. What I was primarily interested in – and what I remain interested in – is where these ‘natural’ rights come from and why they are absolute? I’d rather you responded to this than the rest of my post.

[SPC]

Homesteading does not deprive future generations of resources; they just have to use voluntary methods such as exchange to access those resources. Whereas voluntary exchange benefits all members of the transaction, socialization of property does not benefit any participant because it prevents every member of society from exercising their full potential. The financial opportunity posed by caring for private property provides great incentive for one to ensure great supply of the resource that is owned. In the collectivist society, one has the same amount of wealth regardless of the performance one performs when caring for his property. Thus, since the profits are socialized, the "custodian" of the property loses much incentive to care for the resource. He will not have incentive to guarantee great supply of the resource, since he receives the same amount of resource in exchange regardless. To use a mathematical comparison of individualism vs. collectivism, let's suppose that there are 10 people on a farm, and they typically grow 10 crops each. Under individualism, each person owns the property that he is farming on, and thus owns all of the crops that they produce. Under collectivism, there is no owner of the land being farmed on, and thus all of the crops are equally redistributed. If one of the farmers slacks and only produces 5 crops, under individualism, he will eat 50% less. However, under collectivism, he will only eat 5% less. I think it is clear which system provides greater punishment for slacking. But, you may say, it is better to avoid the extremes of both systems and settle on taxation as a middle ground. However, I will use the same example with a system of 50% taxation. If a farmer slacks under this system and only produces 5 crops, he will only eat 27.5% less. While this is certainly better than collectivism, individualism is still preferable. As far as future generations being impossible if one was not allowed to own food, that was the point. It is called reductio ad absurdum. Where do you draw the line between recognizing the rights of the current generation and preserving resources for future generations? I believe I asked this before? I have not directly read Hobbes or Rosseau, however, I have read about and rejected their philosophies. We are not constrained by the decisions of previous generations with regard to property. Property often changes hands through voluntary exchange. You might want to see my earlier argument about how capitalism merely allows for the democratization of the markets.

I recommend you read something about how collectivism worked in early America, where the early colonies had very high mortality rates. In particular, you might want to read about Plymouth colony, which was under common ownership for 3 years, where most of the colony starved to death. After that, they switched to a private property system, and they prospered. A company would most definitely have quelms with cutting down trees en masse, since it guarantees that the company will not have any future profit. The rate at which a company would cut down the trees would be a multifactored equation whereby they will try to calculate what rate would get them the most net profit. If companies only looked into the short run, why do you think saving is so common? Surely if they looked only into the short-term, then they would see no need in saving money for the future? Why is this not the case?

Yes, but a mixed system simply doesn't make sense. If one system works better than the other, then it should be adopted. Redistribution of property is the logical conclusion of the belief that property originated from theft, regardless of what negotiation you may seek. I agree with the goal of acting responsibly to preserve resources, but if you read my earlier argument, I believe that individualism is the most effective end to that means. My objection was to justifying collectivism or partial collectivism on the basis of preserving resources for the future.

Doesn't that eliminate the point of having elections if the representatives can act upon their own whim and change their positions subsequently to being elected? If the point of representative democracy is to represent the positions of their constituents without directly requiring their participation, then doesn't the idea that representatives can change their positions in response to an unforseen event mean that the constituents aren't truly being represented? Would the Hitler-Stalin situation be different if voter non-participation were .01%? I would hope that you would say no, however, how can one justify the scenario of a vote of no confidence when most of the population votes for one of the terrible candidates? I will have to look up the Malawi situation, but as of right now, I cannot comment on that. Under voluntaryism, police would only patrol the streets owned by people receiving their protection. Thus, one cannot argue any benefit from police patrolling the streets. Couldn't one just as easily argue that the population also receives service from private security forces preventing crime, and thus use that the justify taxation to pay for private security forces?

Well, they don't directly file lawsuits, they have "criminal prosecutions", where the state is the plaintiff and the attorney general/district attorney is usually the prosecutor. While a judge may not directly be influenced by who pays his salary, it will certainly have a great effect on it. With regard to Mark Felt, he was a member of the FBI, which at the time was at odds with the White House over its powers, so that would seem to further my scenario.

If it is important to have locally administered governments so as the be responsive to the wills of individuals, could one make the same case to have even more locally administered governments to be even more responsive to the wills of individuals. Eventually, the situation that would be the most responsive to the wills of individuals would be the one I advocate, where one is governed on the individual level.

Again, one gives democratic accoutability to their insurance company by choosing their service. Even if you claim that they will not be allowed to change their service, one does not even give democratic accountibilty to the government for a period of several years, and even then most of the population doesn't give accountability.
Forget my previous justifications for natural rights; I was straying from libertarian theory. I forgot that natural rights stem from one's right to self-ownership, since one makes the first use of his own body, then he is the owner of himself, and thus from this obtains the rights to life, liberty, and property.

[JohnFKennedy]

Okay, I will respond to most of your post at a future date - particularly your delusional notion that we must have one extreme or the other - but I'd much rather focus on my original question for now.

Why does one have the right to self-ownership and why does that extend outwards to property? Does property only mean that which I have shaped through my own labour or can I own a plot of land that I have done nothing to?