From: ECL4JN2@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (Jack B. Nimble)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Social Democracy
Date: 12 Nov 92 11:07:00 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.193344.13199@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>, on 5 Nov 92 19:33:44 GMT,
gsmith@lauren.uucp (Gene W. Smith) writes:

>
>In article <19921104233929ECL4JN2@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
>ECL4JN2@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (Jack B. Nimble) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct29.182955.9307@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>, on 29
>Oct 92 18:29:55 GMT,
>>gsmith@clio.uucp (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>
>
>>>One can just as well ask Marxist style "How else than by theft of other
>>>people's labor can capitalists arise?"  One simplistic critique does
>>>not deserve another, and this kind of hogwash will wash just as many
>>>hogs as Marx ever did.
>
>>Perhaps you'd be kind enough to explain exactly how the employment by
>>capitalists of workers is theft of labor?
>
>Well, go read Marx.  Value is created by labor, so any additional
>value over and above the amount of labor required to produce something
>is stealing the value of what is produced from those who have produced
>it.
>
I have read Marx.

Value is created by more than labor; it requires capital goods and a
willingness to take risk by entrepreneurs. Of course, you may, if you
choose, view capital goods as the stored-up accumulated labor of
capitalists (or their ancestors), but then your observation about
stealing value from those who have produced goods is vacuous, for the
capitalist entrepreneur has produced material goods as much as the
paid laborers whom he hires.

>>The workers are paid and they freely contract to supply the labor for
>>wage compensation.
>
>Ah, but the means of production have already been hogged by the
>capitalists, so this relationship is fundamentally coercive.  Your
>argument proves that the abuse conditions of Marx's time, with children
>slaving away for very little under dangerous conditions, was actually
>OK.
Hogged? Productivity is not a zero-sum game. Workers who are so inclined
are at liberty to set aside some of their wages, accumulate capital, and
become entrepreneurs themselves. That's exactly how the so-called robber
barons of the 19th century got their start in business.

>
>>Or perhaps someone in the background holds agun to their head and
>>compels them to work in a specific job?
>
>More or less--the haves having grabbed it all, the have-nots are
>forced to work under whatever conditions the haves allow.  Since the
>ownership of property by the haves is based on force, it is plainly
>coercive.
>
As I suggested above, the sum total of capital goods is not fixed in
nature. But even if it were, workers could save of their earnings and
buy capital goods, especially from businesses whose resources are not
optimally allocated.

Furthermore, nobody is coerced into working in our society. You can
always attempt to persuade family and friends to support you. You can
decide to panhandle. You can move into the wilderness and live off of
nature and whatever natural talents you possess if you judge you'll be
Happier that way.

>I better stop now or I will become a Marxist.
>
Whatever you say.

>>>>Occam's razor. All rights may be considered to be property rights.
>
>>>This is not an application of Occam's razor, the definition of which
>>>I sincerely doubt you even know.  It also has the effect of making the
>>>phrase "property rights" meaningless, which has the further effect of
>>>making your defense of it also meaningless.
>
>>Your intuition has failed you once again (looks like you average one
>>such failure per paragraph). Occam's razor states that entities should
>>not be multiplied beyond necessity. In other words, use the simplest set
>>of hypotheses in a theory which is adequate to account for the data
>>being modelled. There is no need to introduce the complexity of two
>>categories of rights, i.e., human rights and property rights (though
>>modern day liberals insist on doing this).
>
>Theories involving rights are not explanatory theories, so this is
>gibberish.  Moreover, introducing a right does not mean reifying it,
>so no further metaphysical entities are introduced when your analysis
>concludes there are more categories of rights than one.
>
Of course natural rights theories are explanatory; you've just never
bothered to follow their development. One can make all sorts of
derivations in political and ethical philosophy from a set of initial
principles. Even today, much of the common law is rooted in natural
rights principles.

Furthermore, utilitarian consequences of these theories are amenable to
empirical verification. For example, one can examine comparatively the
overall economic welfare of the people who live in societies which are
relatively free versus people who live in societies which are primarily
authoritarian.


>>All human rights are completely reducible (hence the application of
>>Occam's razor) and understandable as property rights, given that each
>>human being is a self-owner.
>
>Fine.  Explain the right of a child to support by its parents on the
>basis of self-ownership.
>
Easy. A child has no right to support by its parents. Parents provide
for their children out of love and through natural bonding.

>>I suggest that you quote enough of an article so that you don't destroy
>>context. In the original article I said that just because human rights
>>are subsumed under property rights does not mean that people are nothing
>>but property any more so than to a physicist would human beings be
>>nothing but atomic particles.
>
>Being a physicist does not entail being a reductionist.  But saying we
>own ourselves does mean we are property, though it might mean more
>than this.  Since this notion leads to slavery, among other evils, I
>don't think much of it.
>
>If we own ourselves, we must be able to sell ourselves.  Otherwise, we
>are an entailed property, which is another way of saying we don't
>really own said propery.
>
Your argument is based upon the fallacy that all property is alienable.
This is false; the concepts of property and alienability are
independent.
>
>--
>     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls
University
>               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
>
        =Jack=
---

Jack B. Newsbaum             You have rights antecedent to all earthly
Library Information Systems  governments; rights that cannot be
University Research Library  repealed or restrained by human law.
ecl4jn2@mvs.oac.ucla.edu               - John Adams
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