Subject:
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Re: Capitalism (was: People are idiots...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 11 Feb 2003 23:14:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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610 times
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Christopher Weeks wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> > Christopher Weeks wrote:
>
> > > > All rights are property rights. What is right is to respect them.
> > >
> > > I still want to know if you think that all people have a right to exist and
> > > whether that's a property right. And further, if you do think so (and I
> > > think you must), _where_ do they have a right to exist?
> >
> > I agree that existence is a property right (and truly the most
> > fundamental one). This does imply a right to a place to exist.
>
> > However, assuming that the resources of the universe are limited, clearly one
> > doesn't have an unlimited right to exist.
>
> I think that one must agree to either: a) because people have a right to exist
> somewhere, space/volume/area/land is not a good in the normal sense and we have
> to figure out what it is and how we handle it, or b) because
> space/volume/area/land is a good in the nromal sense, people do not have the
> right to exist.
Hmm, if land is not a good, then what rules should govern trading it? If
you always have a right to some land as part of your right to exist,
then what stops you from "selling" your land, and then demanding a land
grant because you're now homeless? If it's not a good and is "fairly"
distributed, what factors make you give more land to the farmer than the
programmer? As soon as you put any sort of "value" on the land you've
just created a property that people have rights to.
I'm still not convinced the right to exist is dependant on a place to
exist.
> you're trying to squiggle in the middle by using "unlimited." I want to reject
> that notion in the context of this topic. I'm not saying that people have a
> truly unlimited right to exist -- more particularly that said right can't be
Did you mean "can" here?
> given up, but that unless and until they do something extraordinary they do
> have the right to exist (somewhere).
>
> > The right to exist must
> > therefore be acquired from someone else. I would say that it's pretty
> > clear that at some point, the parents are obligated to their children.
>
> I guess I've become a liberal. I just don't agree. People have the right to
> _be_ simply because they _are_ and we as a society should be protecting that
> right. I will not endorse a system that embraces the idea that some people
> should suffer through no fault of their own. We will always have the fact that
> some people are in bad circumstances beyond their control, but the correct
> answer is not to look at them, say "yup, that's how it works! Bye." The
> correct answer is to build systems that help those people out of their
> circumstances and minimize repitition of the same bad luck.
I agree that it is best to build systems that help people out. I think
from a pure capitalist point of view it does make sense to build these
systems since the value of the system as a whole increases when everyone
is helped to become a productive part of it.
> > given that there are not infinite resources, there has to be a
> > balancing of rights.
>
> The inhabitable area available to the human race or to a single political
> entity could always be divided evenly among the members. Always.
>
> > I think what Chris is really trying to get to is what is our property
> > right to land. Land is one of the fundamental items if property.
> > Unfortunately, land in our world has not been distributed fairly.
>
> Land can never be distributed "fairly" when it is considered capital. Even if
> we did agree on what fair distribution is today, what about three generations
> from now? Say you have a kid who has a kid who has a kid while the rest of the
> world has three who have three who have three. Your progeny ends up with 27
> times the land of everyone else? As a libertarian, I expect that you think
> that really _is_ fair -- and that makes a certain sense if you paid for your
> land. But that's the whole mistake that we're making. You shouldn't have paid
> for it because you have a _right_ to exist somewhere.
If you have a simple right to a fair share of land simply because you
were born, then what incentive is there for responsible population
growth? Why should I get a smaller piece of land when you have a baby?
> > There's also an issue of what are the rights of a wild animal. I don't
> > think they have zero rights.
>
> It's very hard to think of for me. I tend to side with the philosophy that
> only intelligences that can comprehend rights can actually have rights, but I'm
> not rooted to that notion. Instead, I press my _right_ (maybe privilege is a
> better word) to live in a world where a certain standard of conduct regarding
> animals (wild or not) is required (in addition to the enforcement of property
> rights-based claims).
I think entities that can not comprehend rights have to be able to have
them. One problem is how do we make a distinction between a 1-month old
baby and a dog? Both have about the same capability of demonstrating
their understanding of property (and maybe the dog is more capable).
What about someone in a coma? What about a murder victim? It seems
obvious to me that there are situations where an individual is incapable
of making claims for their rights, and then someone else needs to step
in and protect their rights.
> > If land was distributed fairly, then the issue of how the right of
> > existence relates to the right of land would be much simpler. Parents
> > would own a certain amount of land right, and would be obligated to
> > grant a certain portion of that to their children.
>
> Obligated how? What percentage? Can parents disown their kids? Can parents
> give it all to their first son? Why (not)?
>
> > Given that, it is
> > easy to see that parents must not bring a child into the world that they
> > will be unable to assure appropriate support for
>
> Must? Assure?
I guess I'm still working out when and how a person starts to acquire
rights.
> > Clearly two rights are in conflict, so we need to involve a third party
> > to mediate the competing claims.
>
> Over the years, this notion of conflicting rights as been discussed here and
> elsewhere. But I'm not sure I buy it. Still. It seems like something as
> 'grand' as rights should be definable in a simple enough way that conflicts
> don't arise. But I'm still mulling it over. I know that most of you probably
> take it for granted that rights to actually conflict.
Hmm, thinking about it, I think that if there is a fundamental right to
exist as you are asserting (you are definitely asserting a stronger
right to exist than I am), then I think for there to be no conflict
between rights, there can be no other rights.
Actually, I see something which seems to create a conflict if you have a
fundamental right to exist: Assume the population is effectively at
capacity. Now someone has an extra baby (a baby that is not simply
replacing someone who died). Can we take resource away from everyone
else to provide resource for the baby? No one has any extra resource to
give away. I guess the question here is can you actually get to this
point. Maybe the system really will prevent the baby from being
conceived. Or maybe what this really says is that you don't have a
fundamental right to procreate.
Hmm. If you have a fundamental right to exist, but not a fundamental
right to procreate, and land has been distributed fairly, I don't see a
conflict between the right to exist and ownership of land being a
property right. I guess this is where I'm comming from, the right to
exist must be granted by the parents, and they have to grant part of
their right to exist. Of course someone who has "extra" right to exist
can share it with someone else so that someone else can have a child.
Of course a sticky issue there is when the right to exist transfers to
the child (and as their right can not be rescinded by the parents).
Another thought on conflict of rights. If I have a property right to my
bank account, and I break something of yours, there seems to be a
conflict. In order for you to be able to claim damages from me, you have
to break my property right on my bank account.
> > - Land owners can not simply claim the debris from an accident that
> > lands on their land to be their property.
>
> For how long? Do they have a right to charge a storage fee until the owner
> collects it?
Probably.
> > - The government in investigating and accident must get permission from
> > the property owner or a court (by way of a warrant) to search someone's
> > land for debris.
>
> It seems like if you're careless with your property and toss it onto my land
> (with the understanding that land is property), you have neglected your rights
> to some extent. Why should the court have the right to violate my property
> rights?
Hmm, I think this is covered by a contract. In fact, thinking about it,
any time two people interract there is at least an implicit contract.
Once a contract exists, any rights may be negotiated. The only question
then is were you coerced into entering a contract with the court
(clearly as a resident of the USA, the USA considers itself to have a
certain contract with you).
> > I think the real problem here is that we don't really have solid
> > definitions of capitalism and socialism.
>
> What makes a solid definition? In a pure capitalism, no property is owned by
> The People and in a pure socialism, all of it is. that seems pretty easy to
> me.
Ok, I'll grant that, but do we have a good definition of the rights
people have in each system?
> > Another problem is that we
> > don't have any examples of a real life pure capitalist system (or
> > socialism for that matter).
>
> What about 'primitive' cultures? What did the plains indians think about
> property?
I don't think the plains indians were really socialist. They clearly had
different views about property and land.
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Capitalism (was: People are idiots...)
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| (...) I think that one must agree to either: a) because people have a right to exist somewhere, space/volume/area/land is not a good in the normal sense and we have to figure out what it is and how we handle it, or b) because space/volume/area/land (...) (22 years ago, 10-Feb-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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