From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:00:15 GMT

In article <93010.213550SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.014016.25439@csi.uottawa.ca>, cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
>(Christopher Browne) says:
>
>>Going further, it was NOT "the government" that discovered the idea of
>>"intellectual property rights."  It was individuals that discovered
>>it.  And they happened to be individuals that were involved with
>>government.
>
>Can we discover rights in that manner?I accept the use of the term
>"discover" for archetypes; I do not accept it for paradigms such as
>intellectual property.
>
>In any event, you simply return to the idea of a sort of Platonic
>definition of "ideal property". Even if I accept that such an ideal
>existed, what basis have you for an assertion that the notions of
>property (notions which a government defined and enforces) we have
>today correspond to that ideal?

In any event, we return to the idea that you have a right not to be
murdered. 

AS if this discredits the idea itself. Intellectual property isn't an 
invalid idea, any more than the right to life is, so if you are trying
to make some kind of Marxist 'proof' that property is an artificial,
therefore invalid idea, you can give up right now, or we can put
a gun to your head, and ask you to deduce why you have a RIGHT to
live.

I think I've already explained how our notion of rights evolved.
Rights and morals are based on the premise that we all act rationally,
even though that is not the case; and that rationality has to recognize
not just immediate action and reactions, but also future consequences
of actions and behavior in society (sort of taking a limit as t -> infinity).
Many bahaviors are irrational in a real society, and in idealised
models of society. Our morality doesn't say: it is OK to kill people,
if you can get away with it. Why? because you CANT'T get away with it,
in a long term sense; there is always the REAL reactions of others,
in response to murder (right to life) theft (right to property) etc.
Basically, if the algorithm you use to play through life is: maximize what
is immediately advantageous,  you will fail, because other algorithms will
use schemes with memory, and when they come accross you again, they will
act to punish you.

What is immediately 'rational' may be what many actions are based on, but
the point is that we can understand future consequences, and we can make
better choices using a long term view (memory, prediction, intellect,
instead of reflex responses to the environment). Morality, and rights
are based on ideals, and if we play the game, assuming rational behavior,
one can show that 'murdering, stealing etc' doesn't maximize your score.
From this, we get statements about rights etc, such as right to life, 
property, liberty etc.



>
>>I'd suggest a thought:  The various issues here have dealt with
>>determining just who ought to have authority over various "things."
>
>Right. I'll suggest another thought: perhaps more than one workable
>system for human to relate to the physical world exists.

how do you maximize your self interest? That's what drives us, and that's
why we arrive at rights, morals, etc.

>
>>Centuries ago, "slavery" allowed people called "masters" to have
>>particular types of authority over their "serfs."  Some forms still
>>exist.
>>
>>It was somewhat easier to deal with the issue of "personal property."
>>It has always been pretty clear that each person has authority over
>>some of the things that they appear to be able to possess.
>
>Sorry, on the matter of ease, no sale. A Roman slave owner would not
>have found it difficult to "deal with the issue" of slavery. Romans
>owned their slaves, and as far as I can determine, many if not most
>of them had no problem with it. We view their conduct as unnatural.
>Perhaps a society of the future would find our forms of property
>unnatural. But they didn't think of themselves as unnatural, any more
>than we think of ourselves as unnatural.
>
And it wasn't stable, or sustainable was it? Apply logic, and 
deduce what is rational behavior, when every individual's prime motivation 
is self interest. With a long term view, slavery isn't sustainable,
out of that we invent rights, etc.
 
>>Money represents perhaps the strangest form of "authority," and there
>>have been a plethoria of developments in this area over the last
>>century.  Money represents a really quite abstract sort of "authority
>>over value."  If you have a certain amount of money, then you have
>>that QUANTITY of authority over economic goods.
>
>Money, more than any other economic instrument, provides state control
>over our interactions with "economic goods". Consider the "money supply",
>and who controls it. Consider (at a basic level) whose picture appears
>on your money. Who gets to print it. And (most tellingly) how citizens
>who use homemade "tender" get treated. The state uses money as a basic
>instrument of its power. Counterfeiting attacks that power.

Actually, money works because it is valuable. Proof: I can take a piece
of metal or paper, and exchange it for some other item or service.
If the money were not valuable, I wouldn't be able to exchange it for
something of value. If money didn't take the form it does now, some other
unit of account or barter would exist. You are just tilting at windmills...
this is  a non-issue, but surprisingly a lot of people are paranoid about
it.


>
>Of course, you can use money as a medium of exchange as well. That does
>not make it any less an instrument of state; indeed, the state, as an
>institution, has lasted so well precisely because many of its
>instruments do have that flexibility.
>
>>Most of these developments have moved some of the authority, that was
>>usually previously vested in the state, to individuals.  It kind of
>>suggests that perhaps states are becoming conceptually less important.
>>As the king becomes less and less responsible for things, the question
>>comes: Is the king really necessary?
>
>Describe these developments, and how they lessen the authority of
>governments. Do you not remember the frantic currency manipulation
>that went on after the stock market tumbled in 1987? Do you know
>what the famous G7 exists to do? How about the Eurodollar?

*pooof* I have just dissolved all governments. Guess what dude, money
still exists. How the exchange is enforced depends on individual trade
and exchange. Not so evil now? Governments shouldn't be allowed to directly
meddle with currency; but their policies usually force a need for a
correction. These corrections are inevitable, because money has VALUE,
and everthing has to stay in check for money to work. Dissolve money
as we know it now, and you will still have to deal with other forms of
money, so you won't really be changinh anything.

>
>Individual "kings" may have lost their authority, but it seems we
>have begun to replace them with a sort of "super king"; a set of
>international coordinating institutions to control exchange and money.
>I don't think that moves power to the individual; I think it transfers
>it to more powerful (and secretive) international institutions.
>
>Your culture will adapt to service ours - Columbus to Natives, 1492
>Your culture will adapt to service ours - Borg to Captain Picard, 24th C.
>
>standard disclaimers apply ----------------------- John G. Spragge


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
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